Applied Linguistics at KMUTT

FROM: Hai Lin (05/04/14 8:21 AM PST)
SUBJECT: Fluency

Dear all:
Just a couple of days ago, i saw a 63-year-old guy on the youtube who could speak 10 languages. I was impressed by his Mandarin. He claims that fluency can be realized in three months.And what he emphasizes is the importance of input,which is associated with Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis.

Here is the website:

http://www.youtube.com/user/lingosteve

Have you ever been fluent in a second language in three months? What do you think of Input Hypothesis?

FROM: Stuart Towns (05/06/14 3:01 AM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Fluency

Thanks for sharing this link, Harris. I think that whether or not someone can become fluent in a foreign language in three months or not depends on what the definition of "fluent" is. Does fluency mean that one is able to order food from the market and tell a taxi where to go? Sure, that can be done in three months. Be able to debate politics or any other serious topic? I doubt it.
It seems like this guy is very talented at learning languages. But he also owns a website that you can pay to learn using the input method (http://www.lingq.com/). So I think that his claims would be much more believable if he wasn't trying to talk us into giving him money.

So in other words, I don't think any of us should feel bad for studying a language for years and still not feel like we are fluent in it!

FROM: Hai Lin (05/13/14 6:04 AM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Fluency

Thanks for your reply, Stuart Towns. You are right.The definition of fluency can be interpreted differently. As for LingQ, it's a paid system.I begin to doubt his words.

FROM: Richard Watson Todd (05/18/14 11:09 PM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Fluency

Given that this is a language learning website, the claims made can fairly easily be seen as potentially more influenced by marketing than by reality. But what role does marketing play in reporting research?

Some research is linked to profit-making products (e.g. standardised tests, CALL programs) and the possibility that research is influenced by marketing priorities is clear (even if it's only reporting and disseminating positive results). Other research is linked to brand-building, especially where the output of the research is an eponymous method (e.g. the Canter model of discipline), again with clear motivations for marketing.

But all research can be viewed as marketing of ideas, since the goal of publishing is to persuade other people to believe you or buy into your ideas (as the goal of advertising is to persuade people to buy things). To what extent does (and should) this need for marketing affect the reporting of research?

FROM: Stuart Towns (05/23/14 10:33 PM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Fluency

I believe that we should try to "market" (i.e. disseminate) our published research as widely as possible. Hence my post a few weeks ago about not wanting to be an academic hermit. But I don't know about what you mean by the "reporting of research". If you mean the actual publication itself, wanting people to believe your results should have no effect at all, other than trying to write in a clear and unambiguous style so that your results can be understood. But there are plenty of things you can do to spread your research findings: join academic social networks online, give presentations, attend conferences, take part in mailing list discussions, etc.

That is my pure idealistic view of research. There are plenty of examples of research that is shared in the media that once you read the fine print, you see that it was paid for by the company who will gain the most from the findings. This kind of research is not very trustworthy.

FROM: Stuart Towns (05/23/14 11:48 PM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Fluency

I just thought of another way that academic research results can be "marketed", and that is by overstating the findings. For example, a researcher can say that the results are more generalizable than they really are. Or they can make other claims that make the research sound like more than it is. In my personal opinion, the Coh-Metrix articles come very close to crossing this line. Aj. Richard's example of WordNet Connect is probably a better example, as it seems to only work in very limited specific cases.

Over-hyping our results might be difficult to avoid, however. We all want our research to be meaningful and interesting, in order to get it published. So there is a chance that we might over-exaggerate the findings or the implications in order to make it sound as good as possible.