Let's hypothesize learning method extremities.

For the sake of argument, suppose that someone wants to learn Japanese but is anti-textbook (including online ones) and anti-classroom. He is anti these things because of his personal ideology (EG. he hates educational institutions or because people on an internet forum/board told him that schools/textbooks suck and he takes their advice to heart). I believe some people here are not a fan of textbooks, and even less a fan of classrooms.

This language learner only allows himself two things:

Native material (novels, songs etc)
J-E dictionary and eventually, a J-J dictionary (because J-E ones "suck etc")
If this is too much of a handicap, we can give him more resources (such as?), but textbooks and classrooms are out of the question due to ideology/beliefs/peer pressure from persuasive internet forum users)

What are the advantages of the 100% immersion method?
What are the disadvantages?
What are the challenges and opportunities?
How will his progress be in the short, medium and long term relative to people who don't use the 100% immersion method?

I'd rather use textbooks, dictionaries, tutors, and teachers, and Anki, and native materials, too.

It's like trying to eat a balanced diet by only eating Pop-Tarts.

Disadvantages: all
Advantages: none

That's not 100% immersion. 100% would be being dropped in the middle of Tokyo with nobody else in the world understanding your language.

This is just avoiding some resources that you arbitrarily decide fall in the "textbook" category for some reason. It doesn't make sense.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:What are the advantages of the 100% immersion method?

Potentially, the ability to acquire a language to a natural souning level through an interesting and enjoyable method that the learner can customize for himself.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:What are the disadvantages?

Missing out on good resources for no sensible reason.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:What are the challenges and opportunities?

Accessing comprehensible but still interesting input that provides exposure to the language. Content that isn't boring to immerse yourself in, while not being jibberish.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:How will his progress be in the short, medium and long term relative to people who don't use the 100% immersion method?

That's individual. Just because you're not doing whatever "100% immersion" actually means it doesn't mean that you can't have the advantages of comprehensible input.

Codexus Wrote:That's not 100% immersion. 100% would be being dropped in the middle of Tokyo with nobody else in the world understanding your language.

This is just avoiding some resources that you arbitrarily decide fall in the "textbook" category for some reason. It doesn't make sense.

I don't think I'd call the middle of Tokyo "100% immersion". I lived there some years back, I actually met quite a lot of Japanese people that moved to Tokyo because they wanted to meet foreigners and improve their English.

Two issues here:

[1] 100% immersion versus 0% classroom:
It has been found that some formal, conscious learning is important in Second Language Learning otherwise fossilization sets in, that is, the language learner who has learned the language from ‘the street’, even though he/she may be completely fluent, ends up sounding very unnatural and stilted in the ears of the target language community.
(Source: I think Ellis’s Second Language Acquisition by Oxford University Press has something about that)

[2] No textbook in classroom:
I really, really, really hate this idea. It is everything that is bad about all the communicative student center bullshit approach from the 1970s still peddled by CELTA and the like.

I took a few classes in Maltese. The teacher decided not to use a textbook. As a result she had to write all the new words and phrases we learned on the blackboard and we wrote them down into our notebooks. So we ended up effectively making a “textbook” anyway. It would have been so much easier for many reasons to have had a textbook to work with to begin with.

Even natives study their language in the classroom...

It's a great way to have large gaping holes in your language.

I've been doing the 100% immersion for the last 9 years, last year I finally gave up and started RTK and now Core2k/6k because after 8 years, yeah. I can communicate, in a fashion. I can survive in daily life, after a fashion, but my understanding is limited and my ability to go beyond what I get daily is very limited.

Sure, day to day life, no worries. Anything beyond that and uh-oh.

raharney Wrote:I took a few classes in Maltese. The teacher decided not to use a textbook. As a result she had to write all the new words and phrases we learned on the blackboard and we wrote them down into our notebooks. So we ended up effectively making a “textbook” anyway. It would have been so much easier for many reasons to have had a textbook to work with to begin with.

You'd have to take notes when studying anyway. It's not very easy to just stare at a page and remember the contents.

dizmox Wrote:

raharney Wrote:I took a few classes in Maltese. The teacher decided not to use a textbook. As a result she had to write all the new words and phrases we learned on the blackboard and we wrote them down into our notebooks. So we ended up effectively making a “textbook” anyway. It would have been so much easier for many reasons to have had a textbook to work with to begin with.

You'd have to take notes when studying anyway. It's not very easy to just stare at a page and remember the contents.

Sure, but the notes would be supplementary, used only for emphasis, clarification, and memorization. That is an important difference.

Textbooks as a general class of things to be against is really dumb. There's some really good textbooks out there. Sure most are garbage, but that's just the nature of any published material.

Textbooks are nearly essential for beginner level, but dwindle in general usefulness as a person gets better at the language. At intermediate/advanced level it becomes about finding the right textbook or study materials targeted at a specific facet of the language rather than the entire language as a whole.

I think with a good dictionary and a grammar reference, most students willing to slog through would be able to just learn from native materials right after finishing beginner level. Still, sentence packs like Core2k or other study materials might be more efficient in the long term.

Textbooks are just a tool, and as with any tools they have limits. I think it's a silly question.

So the lessen to take away from this thread is:

1) 100% Immersion as a learning method is at best inefficient as well as ineffective.
2) Moderation and a variety of learning material sources is good.
3) Ignore people who make absolute statements like "all textbooks suck" or "all classes are useless"

qwertyytrewq Wrote:So the lessen to take away from this thread is:

1) 100% Immersion as a learning method is at best inefficient as well as ineffective.
2) Moderation and a variety of learning material sources is good.
3) Ignore people who make absolute statements like "all textbooks suck" or "all classes are useless"

You've distilled it all very well, I think.

4) the mouth is the beginning of men, but also of animals.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:For the sake of argument, suppose that someone wants to learn Japanese but is anti-textbook (including online ones) and anti-classroom.

This is a straw man. Most people who oppose traditional classrooms and traditional textbooks, such as Genki and Minna no Nihongo, at least in these forums, are perfectly fine with some online textbooks such as Tae Kim's Guide, some grammar books such as A Basic Dictionary of Japanese Grammar, or personal tutoring with native speakers.

I'm only aware of a handful of people (at another forum) who actually tried to learn a language by listening to and watching native material for months without any kind of aid such as dictionaries, books, subtitles or tutors. They all aborted the experiment after months without any noticeable progress. Except one, apparently.