Originally Posted by Lynn R

I'm afraid my OH is one of those. He dropped out of classes after our initial intensive 4 week course, claiming he couldn't get his head around grammar and didn't need it anyway. I have got fed up of banging my head against a brick wall trying to convince him that you have zero chance of being able to learn a foreign language properly without understanding the grammar, even if it's only stringing a coherent sentence together in the present tense.

I often hear British pensioners saying they gave up on learning Spanish as they are too old to learn, but on enquiring further what they mean is that they went to a couple of lessons but found it boring and hard work so gave up. "You're lucky" they say, and I say luck had nothing to do with it. Spending a lot of time, money and effort for the best part of two years did.

If they want to leave it at that, fine if they choose to live in an area where there is so much British tourism or a huge expat (sorry resident alien) community that they don't need much or any Spanish to get by. But that doesn't work here where there is not much English spoken, and what happens is that the few Brits who have learned get pestered to accompany people to medical appointments, the Ayuntamiento, utility company offices, the ITV centre, you name it. No payment involved of course, they think they are being very generous by offering to buy you a 1€ coffee afterwards! I usually decline unless it's likely to be just a two-minute thing. If people have just moved here or are genuinely making an effort to learn but struggling with it, then I will help if I can.

Originally Posted by agoreira

Yes, heard similar before, "I only wanted to learn how to chat in Spanish, not conjugate bloody verbs!" I had a guy that used to drill us in all the verb structures, especially all the irregular verbs and subjunctive, essential stuff but quite heavy going. Now we have a Spanish girl from Valladolid (lovely accent) and we have told her we want conversational stuff, so we discuss sex, drugs, rock and roll, gays, you name she's happy to talk about it. She picks the subjects mind, these youngsters have no hang ups about any subject.

Originally Posted by Domino

I have a mental blank from whatever day we did that at school, I know how to do it (from experience ?) but it is a blank. Like learning Latin, which I never took.

when a kid grows up from nothing, listening to all that babble around them, learning the language, surely they don't come out of the womb knowing how to conjugate their verbs ? Yet they get by, many actually come off the rails because someone wants to teach them the tecky bits, in the same way as some adults go off the rails about techy things.

surely there has to be some leeway on all this language learning ?
yes a guy/gal of 65 wants to hold a conversation but their accent immediately identifies them as guiri. surely they should be allowed to learn some of it at the rockface as it here without having to learn all the tecky bits ??

Originally Posted by JLFS

what do you mean by tecky bits?

Originally Posted by JLFS

what do you mean by tecky bits?

Originally Posted by lynnxa

all that grammar stuff

I teach without using the techie terms..............which doesn't mean I don't teach grammar

Originally Posted by Domino

conjugation of verbs - when you don't know the words in the first place

surely when a child is walking around in that pea soup sound of language there isnt a big bad teacher shouting "you havent conjugate that the properly", its done by experience.
how many hundreds of words does a child have in its vocabulary before teacher comes along to start conjugation.?
any one wanting to learn a language wants/desires some words behind them before starting to conjugate.
why does a child have to wait to, what ?, 8/10/12 before starting to conjugate, when an adult with only a dozen words is thrown into conjugation.

surely its like teaching advanced maths to people who still don't know their numbers !?!

I am not saying I am right, but surely when an adult wants to learn then the teacher should have a more flexible learning style to suit the different learning styles of the individuals who have spent decades by learning/not learning, learning by experience, rather than learning by rote.

I have had to adjust industrial training courses at the last minute to suit the needs of the attendees to achieve the final goal, so why cannot that be the same for language.?

Originally Posted by JLFS

you are not right.
FYI achild starts to conjugate very in every language more or less at the same time they learn to talk.

Children will say "I WANT" that is the verb contugated. simple as that.
they dont wait till 8.10.12 before conjugating verbs....what are you saying?

Originally Posted by Domino

they don't know what they are doing...
they are hearing words, sentences, and re-using them, when they make mistakes and others tell them what they have said is wrong that is teaching and learning at its most basic. You don't tell them they are clever because they have conjugated a verb properly, you then progress to teach them the difference between "want" and "need".

I learnt to ride a bike and drive a car by watching and copying what my father did. I didnt get put into a classroom and read a book or have a teacher tell me what to do before I got behind a wheel

I learnt the morse code by learning the basic letters by rote, learning to make words from them and learning the special signs. During that time I improved my speed by practice and use of common words to build confidence.

I would suggest that those who walk away from language training because they are "bored" are just that, they feel they aren't learning enough operational words to allow them to go into a bar and ask for a coffe with milk or a beer without tapas - along with learning some of the tecky bits.
Teaching/training can be a skill that is hard to learn, standing in front of a dozen people and telling them something is not teaching or training, some people call it lecturing. A good teacher has to ensure the pupil(s) walk away from the session with something, that can be difficult with children of mixed ability, it becomes almost impossible with grown adults having mixed ability and different desires.

Poor teachers should not blame the pupil - in all walks of life.

Originally Posted by Domino

they don't know what they are doing...
they are hearing words, sentences, and re-using them, when they make mistakes and others tell them what they have said is wrong that is teaching and learning at its most basic. You don't tell them they are clever because they have conjugated a verb properly, you then progress to teach them the difference between "want" and "need".

I learnt to ride a bike and drive a car by watching and copying what my father did. I didnt get put into a classroom and read a book or have a teacher tell me what to do before I got behind a wheel

I learnt the morse code by learning the basic letters by rote, learning to make words from them and learning the special signs. During that time I improved my speed by practice and use of common words to build confidence.

I would suggest that those who walk away from language training because they are "bored" are just that, they feel they aren't learning enough operational words to allow them to go into a bar and ask for a coffe with milk or a beer without tapas - along with learning some of the tecky bits.
Teaching/training can be a skill that is hard to learn, standing in front of a dozen people and telling them something is not teaching or training, some people call it lecturing. A good teacher has to ensure the pupil(s) walk away from the session with something, that can be difficult with children of mixed ability, it becomes almost impossible with grown adults having mixed ability and different desires.

Poor teachers should not blame the pupil - in all walks of life.

Originally Posted by Domino

conjugation of verbs - when you don't know the words in the first place

surely when a child is walking around in that pea soup sound of language there isnt a big bad teacher shouting "you havent conjugate that the properly", its done by experience.
how many hundreds of words does a child have in its vocabulary before teacher comes along to start conjugation.?
any one wanting to learn a language wants/desires some words behind them before starting to conjugate.
why does a child have to wait to, what ?, 8/10/12 before starting to conjugate, when an adult with only a dozen words is thrown into conjugation.

surely its like teaching advanced maths to people who still don't know their numbers !?!

I am not saying I am right, but surely when an adult wants to learn then the teacher should have a more flexible learning style to suit the different learning styles of the individuals who have spent decades by learning/not learning, learning by experience, rather than learning by rote.

I have had to adjust industrial training courses at the last minute to suit the needs of the attendees to achieve the final goal, so why cannot that be the same for language.?

Originally Posted by Domino

they don't know what they are doing...
they are hearing words, sentences, and re-using them, when they make mistakes and others tell them what they have said is wrong that is teaching and learning at its most basic. You don't tell them they are clever because they have conjugated a verb properly, you then progress to teach them the difference between "want" and "need".

I learnt to ride a bike and drive a car by watching and copying what my father did. I didnt get put into a classroom and read a book or have a teacher tell me what to do before I got behind a wheel

I learnt the morse code by learning the basic letters by rote, learning to make words from them and learning the special signs. During that time I improved my speed by practice and use of common words to build confidence.

I would suggest that those who walk away from language training because they are "bored" are just that, they feel they aren't learning enough operational words to allow them to go into a bar and ask for a coffe with milk or a beer without tapas - along with learning some of the tecky bits.
Teaching/training can be a skill that is hard to learn, standing in front of a dozen people and telling them something is not teaching or training, some people call it lecturing. A good teacher has to ensure the pupil(s) walk away from the session with something, that can be difficult with children of mixed ability, it becomes almost impossible with grown adults having mixed ability and different desires.

Poor teachers should not blame the pupil - in all walks of life.

Originally Posted by Lynn R

The trouble with not learning the difference between, say "I want" and "he wants" (which is all that conjugation in its most basic form is) is that when the waiter or whoever replies to your stock phrase with another question, eg (and do you want anything to eat) you are completely floored because the one phrase is all you have learned. You really do need to know the basic stuff before building a wider vocabulary on to it.

A good teacher will not teach grammar and nothing but grammar in a one or two hour lesson. Mine certainly didn't - from day one she would spend some time teaching us the present tense of just one or two verbs then have us use those to construct meaningful phrases and sentences, and then get us to play some simple "word games" to make it more fun. She would also take us out to a local bar sometimes for coffee break time, and make us do the ordering to get some practice in - maybe so she could have a cigarette as well as this was before the smoking ban came in!

Originally Posted by JLFS

I can see you understand the steps of learning another language, and it makes perfect sense.

People get terrified as soon a conjugating is mentioned, and I know plenty of people who can ask how someone is with the but find it impossible to ask how more than one person is........a simple bit of conjugation is all thats needed.