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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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References: <D333tu.7qv@hpl.hp.com> <1995Jan28.042255.15324@news.media.mit.edu> <D38qGn.H6L@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <D3Bzo5.Jxq@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 19:01:25 GMT
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In article <D3Bzo5.Jxq@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>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.

That doesn't seem like acting like children to me; it's acting like robots.
Children don't learn language in drill sessions.

Some ways of acting like children can however be very useful in learning
a foreign language: talking without regard to whether the grammar is right;
reading comic books; learning by talking to people rather than from drills.
