How to Be a More Successful Language Learner:
Toward Learner Autonomy
by Joan Rubin, Irene Thompson
Our resident reviewer is back --- showing all of her usual restraint and polished prose style. We had hoped to persuade her to be more candid in this review, but she's just too damned shy. Pity really. There's more to her than meets the eye, we think. Anyway, SURPRISE !... she likes this book and asks...
Confounded by despair at "ever" being able to learn to speak a foreign
language?
Dreading the yawning boredom of reading grammar-- in someone
else's language (much less trying to remember your own)!?!
Developing a
migraine at the thought of spending hours listening to cassettes of
babble?
Been there. Done that.
Of course that's what makes this book so great. It's so perfect at
poking holes in all your excuses! The authors both believe that any
idiot can learn a foreign language by first, chucking some myths...
"I'm too old to learn a new language...(whine)";
"Ah-Ha!!, I'm too dumb
to learn a foreign language..."; and of course the ever popular,
"Uhhh, the teacher sucks...the dog ate my homework...THE BOOK IS IN A
FOREIGN LANGUAGE! (whimper)."
They believe (based on an impressive set of credentials both authors
have chalked up) that there is no stereotypical profile of a language
learner. Instead, there are individual "traits" that contribute to
success...and *many* different ways to learn a language.
Fortunately they elaborate on all the traits and learning styles.
There is also a terrific section on learning strategies. Things like
"Learn to live with uncertainty", "Use mnemonics", "Make errors work",
"Let context help you" or my favorite..."Learn to make intelligent
guesses"...And a section that tells you how to evaluate a language
learning program, to better select one that suits your style of
learning.
This is an extraordinarily encouraging book, even for someone who has
not successfully learned a language that they have attempted to plod
though. Speaking from personal experience, learning Turkish is not a
walk in the park. Mostly after being here for over three years, I find
myself hideously embarrassed by my "Tonto-Turkish" involving lots of
facial expressions, frantic hand movements and the abundant use of
infinitives...
In re-reading this book, I was struck by a learning style that I used
successfully and then dropped... Seems that in spite of my embarrassment, I had
actually achieved the objectives I originally set out for myself !!
The good news is that my language abilities will improve proportionately to my
renewing and revising my objectives... in other words, according to this
book, it's time to raise the bar!
Drawbacks - By the way, the only things I can think of as drawbacks of the
book are its price (for 109 pages), and its lack of any index.
JS (March '97)
[Ed. "Only" drawbacks she says? Ouch! That works out to 25 cents a gold-plated page -- and there's no index either...? Hmmm...Still. Everything else about it sounds so good...hmmm.
Don't run off yet -- I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'...]
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