Learning by listening?

Misc
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This was originally a post about learning words by listening to them unconsciously after recording them.

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Not a fan of this type of “passive learning” approach. Playing and listening to the recorded audio will only give the illusion of knowing.

It is better to use “active learning” approach like testing again and again.

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Are you saying that kids learn their native language(s) passively and subconsciously? Do you have proof for that perhaps?

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From what I have seen of Kreshen, I never got the impression that he thinks children to learn passively.

As a mom, I also can say that they learn far from passively. If anything, they learn a language more actively than we do, not less.

A main difference between kids and adults in language learning is where we come from in terms of language. Adults will learn a later language from the viewpoint of their native language or another language they know well. Back when you wanted the translation for сОсуд, you did just that, you took a word and wanted a translation that covered the full meaning.

Kids don’t learn like that, they take something and attach a series of sounds to that. More often than not, they get it wrong too. They then have adults correct them until they get it right, which can take years.

Kids are not some sort of linguistical sponge that absorb stuff about languages and then suddenly use them fluently. They listen to the words used to describe the world around them and then actively practice those words because that is a way for them to interact, a way that they have seen us adults use, a way they imitate just like many other things.

As I mentioned in one of your earlier topics, there is no such thing as a passive learning that is just as effective or even more effective compared to casual or active learning.

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Children’s brain is highly plastic. They soak up info like a sponge! Adult brain is less plastic than the children!

Also,children are a very active learner! They interact with their environment all day long! It is wrong to think that they are a passive learner. They will make you go crazy with their curiosity and enthusiasm to learn everything!

For example, an autistic child doesn’t(or cannot) interact much with its environment and this is one reason why,he doesn’t progress in his speech or social interactions like a typical child does! An autistic child is not an active learner!

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This sounds like “psychic driving” a technique employed by Dr. Ewen Cameron.

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You are right here!

But then,they actively use what they passively heard! And this is the important part. If what they passively heard is not actively used,they would not be able to progress in their speech and other activities…

Both passive and active learning are in play here… After all,human brain works in a complex manner!

However, adult brain seems to work in a slightly different way than a child brain, because by the we are 15+,we lose that super plasticity of the brain!

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I guess ‘nothing’! :smiley:

Yes,a 3 year old child could absorb sounds,words pretty fast. Their brain is like a net that catches everything…But the adult brain has more experience than the child and hence,learns things in an organized and more effective way!

Anyway,what does science say? Is an adult brain as plastic/malleable as a child brain? :wink:

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As far as I know, a lot of doubt has been cast on that idea. More discussion is here.

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Wow this is great topic. I spent many hours doing this method also, but i found out that i could not use the words freely in conversation.
When i started doing more language exchanges, and small classes with only 2 or 3 people, thats when i learned to used the vocabulary. By making many many mistakes trying to use these words, and letting a native correct me, I improved faster. So keep it up, just add step 2, (use them and wait for the correction, i need 5 mistakes a day to keep improving​:joy::joy:)

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Very interesting post subject.

There has been work done on this, and it is a technique I use all the time (though I still ahve LOADS to learn - like we all do. I use lists of words and concepts on audio to commit to memory things I do not quite get first time on paper so I can review them and eventually have that EUREKA moment where I finally understand and then can go from there to active use rather than passive understanding.
Litstening to lists is a great help in this journey.
Though it is not easy to describe quickly without a few definitions: You will find (as I did) that cognitive psychology courses have many terms for this sort of thing but you could do worse than to look up the following terms and combine them together:

  1. “Voice Shadowing” (where you repeat silently to yourself the stuff you hear) -
  2. “Late Selection” (where you voice shadow a specific thing before it …disappears… tis really is just the art of developing a method to pay attention.

These two if you combine these with an Encoding Strategy (this forum has hundreds of pages dedicated to that…) into a pre-prepared memory Palace (a prepared spatial route - good example is a Golf Course - imagining each hole as a different ‘stage’ - if you don;t play golf - just imagine playing Urban Crazy Golf with a hole with a flag at the end of a route of streets you know)… This really is the key.

Many of us use TTS synthetic voices to make lists or record ourselves on dictaphones - not just of long string of numbers but of all sorts of information - and we use very sophisticated encoding - characters, actions, emotions to encode the words being spoken by our characters in specific places we know - and that all helps and can be very rewarding to help deeper understanding of topics that ‘won’t go in’ at first. .

Hope that’s relevant.;

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Works much better for me with the writing and learning.
I am not a listenig type