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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 17:09:41 GMT
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In article <D38qGn.H6L@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:

>What I was trying to point out in my posting was an alternative explanation
>why adults have so much difficulty picking up a correct foreign language
>pronunciation and accent as compared to children. The explanation is based on
>the observation that children pay attention to different aspect of language
>than adults. Children concentrate on the form - how things are said, more
>then on what is being said, contrary to the adults for whom the content is
>more important than the form. Children learn language, and anything else,
>first of all by copying what they see or hear, without a regard if this means
>anything to them or not, adults want to know first of all what it means,
>they have a need to correlate it to things they know.

This suggests that adults should act like children, so some extent,
while trying to learn a language which fits with what I've seen of
langauge teaching: lots of repetition in language labs, drill sessions,
etc.

-- jd
