Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0399: How to teach a language to people of diverse languages

Episode Date: September 17, 2015

Florian wants to teach German to non-native speakers of a variety of language backgrounds. Is it possible to teach a language to people who speak a variety of other languages, without having to change your technique significantly for different people? What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd […]

Master of Memory 399. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Florian wrote in an email, In Austria, as well as in Europe, we now have lots of immigrants because of the recent crisis in Syria and Iraq. Language learning is very difficult for

them. Is there a way of a language course that would work for Iraqis, Syrians, and any other immigrant, no matter where he comes from, into German? How would you go around designing such a course? So Florian, yes, I definitely do have some thoughts on this. This is something I've actually been thinking of myself as well. How do you teach a language when you're not sure what language the people are coming from? Because our accelerated Spanish course, for example, is definitely designed for people who are English speakers. Our videos are in English, our mnemonics are based on English, and all of our marketing is in English because it's really just for English-speaking audiences, whether English is their first or second language, both of which are okay. But the people that you're dealing with probably don't speak English

or really any common language. And so, again, I have been thinking of this myself because of a learning project that I'm going to name at the end of the episode. But at any rate, here are the four steps that I would definitely start with. First of all, use a reliable frequency list. And I can easily recommend the Wiktionary list for German since you're doing German. So just choose the top 100 to 150 words in the language depending on how well you think it'll work. So just go to that frequency list and copy and paste those 100 to 150 words just into your own documents to use. The second thing you'll do is create a

dialogue that uses all of these words and only these words. Don't try to make it sound formal. Try to make it as natural and like a real German speaker in modern times as is possible. This is something that I think is too often overlooked when people are teaching languages. They're taught a sort of formal sort of version of the language that isn't really even spoken that much. And then when they get into real life conversations, they don't actually understand what's going on because the way that people talk isn't exactly the way that they've been taught. And so make it as natural as possible so that you can, once they learn these things, they can easily be taught using the language that they now know. So the third step here is to use this dialogue and maybe other

dialogues that use these 100 to 150 words and don't go far beyond that to have the students deeply understand the meanings and nuances of all these words. They should really understand this dialogue and imitate it as closely as possible. Don't teach anything else in the language until this is mastered because that is the essence of the language. That is what they really have to know in order to take their language to any other level and really understand what they're doing because really to think in German, they really have to be very comfortable with these 100 to 150 words until they're second nature. Fourth, you're going to start venturing down the frequency list from there, teaching more vocabulary and

grammar as you go along. But it's those first three steps that are going to make the biggest difference. And so no matter what languages they're coming from, if you can find a way to get them to understand those top 100 to 150 words and pronounce correctly, phrase correctly, and think using those words, then they actually have the heart of the language and they can begin to learn actual vocabulary and say things with meaning from there. This is exactly how I personally plan to create ESL materials for English for people coming from all different languages.

I think that this is something really important, and this is something I'd like to get produced and release so that people can really learn the English language, the heart of the English language, as it's actually spoken before getting into advanced topics and really perfect their accents before going further on in their learning. This is something I think has been missing for a while. I think that you'll get great results doing this in German, Florian, as long as you can teach those first essentials of the language and teach people the voice of the language, then I think that you'll get great results. For anyone listening, if you have questions about language learning, I'd love to hear them. The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com

slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon.