Language learning by doing - the Mao school
TweetOver the last few years I've experienced both sides of language learning here in China - as a learner trying to grasp Mandarin Chinese, and as a teacher trying to teach English.
One of the hardest aspects of language learning is getting hold of accurate, reliable and appropriate learning materials in your target language. To give an example as an English teacher, most of my Chinese students routinely work from books or prepared materials that are themselves full of grammar and otherwise blinding language errors.
There's an interesting TED Talk by a researcher who invented the dreaded Captcha here - in the talk, he explains how they've invented a system called Duolingo where you learn a language by translating real-life content.
It's interesting because a side-aim of the project is to translate the web (yep, the whole web), but it's also interesting because they claim that this mode of language learning is just as effective as the best paid-for language software available.
Now I guess it's still not as good as one-to-one tuition, or intensive learning in the target country, but that's pretty powerful.
From my experience of language acquisition myself, being able to read or hear authentic Chinese on a daily basis makes a huge difference - obviously book-learning and some form of rigorous academic study is also valid, but the ability to speak simple, fast and accurate language is very rarely taught as a skill in most schools.