I have long considered this question: how can I gather a sufficient amount of Czech "context" when I live in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa (i.e. immersion is unfeasable). I decided that one sentence in a novel is not enough context; it would be better to see the word (or words that come from its stem) in other contexts.
You can put this question in other words: should I use the internet and its infinitely amazing tools (such as corpora or this sweet little tool my friend just pointed me towards) to find example sentences for myself?
I am still not sure.
Here is why. I am not an idiot; if I wanted to just find a sentence, I could simply search the internet for whatever word or phrase is causing me to scratch my head. I could do that.
I could even narrow it down a bit smaller to searching just Wikipedie, for example. In fact, I am playing around with that idea for chapters 7-9, which are currently serving as some sort of "buffer" zone while I wait for my patient collaborators to give me some example sentences for chapter 10.
One of them, by the way, used the above SkELL tool mentioned. But here's the thing: even him using the tool will not produce the same results as me using the tool (you know, first of all, if it worked; the site consistently crashed for me). He can very quickly pick which sentences are "good," assigning a judgment to them, and skip the ones that are less useful. I can't do that.
The best sentences I have had so far are the ones that were designed specifically for me. If there were a tool somewhere which tried to explain terms in simplish Czech with shortish sentences using lots of cognates or at least drawing on familiarish situations and stereotypes, then sure. I could draw from that as a source.
(There is not a robot that can draw from context that we actually do share, which should be mentioned.)
But like...a sentence like this, taken straight from Wikipedie?
Čest (od slovesa ctíti) je vlastnost bytosti (entity, která používá přirozenou inteligenci), nejčastěji člověka, již lze charakterizovat jako morální kredit, vážnost, hodnověrnost nebo dobré jméno.
Is that really better than what my collaborators came up with?
Veškerá zbylá čest byla pryč.
Když nepolkneš ten prášek, tak se nuzdravíš.
No. They aren't.
My gut tells me this: if you ask a native speaker to use a word in a sentence, especially a list of words where there are a lot - if they have the patience to tolerate such an exercise, and if they care about me at all (which I think they all do), the sentence will be better for me.
Now that my mind has been opened to the prospect of the ability to measure words and phrases using statistics, I guess it would be possible to quantify what a "better" context is. For the sake of L2 learning, it means it helps me achieve my goal of mastering Czech better.
What is the secret sauce to learning a new language?
I've had long conversations about this both within the classroom, during office hours, and more recently over the phone with one of my amazing professors (Kirk Belnap, director of the National Middle East Language Resource Center, PhD in linguistics, MA in Language Acquisition, etc. etc.)
- persistent practice
- targeted feedback
- small victories
When I automate the collection of sentences, does it help me with my persistent practice? Sure, I don't see why it wouldn't. That is more of an issue of doing the work. I am going to do the work no matter what.
(Tonight at the dinner table my dad was telling our kids the story about how I learned how to play all the piano music from "the Phantom of the Opera" by myself as a 9 year old because my dad simply told me, "Oh...I don't think you can do this. It's too hard." It was kind of interesting to me to hear him say this, since I've never heard him say it in my life: "Never tell your mother she can't do something, because if you say that, then she will always just do it to prove you wrong." After he said that, I immediately thought of about half a dozen other examples of times in my life when I've literally done just that. So why not Czech. It may be really difficult and my learning situation may not be ideal. But it wasn't for this guy either, and he literally created the system by which Japanese is transliterated into the Latin alphabet, which is amazing. I can do amazing things, too.)
When I automate the collection of sentences, is it targeted? Well, certainly it is faster to find words this way. But is it as targeted, for example, as what somebody who knows me, who has spent lots of time speaking with me in both English and Czech, might try to say in order to get me to succeed? I guess it probably isn't.
Where this model significantly fails is to give me small victories. I do not know if it is possible to quantify the motivating feeling that I get when I discover the meaning of a sentence that was meant for me. If somebody was working closely with me on a task, the feeling of elation that comes when they say, "dobrá práce!" or even just a, "hmmm...how to answer your question? I will have to think about that..." Or even "Hahaha that is completely wrong, and not only that, but you ended up insulting me/coming on to me in a hilarious way! That's so embarrassingly funny!" So I turn a bright shade of red while working on my sentences. How can that possibly be a "small victory" - yet it is.
I guess for me, the victory comes from succeeding in communicating at all with someone, even if it is failed communication.
Can that be automated? Can computers eventually be taught so well that they can take the place of my collaborators beyond a flashcard drilling type area? Will I be satisfied and motivated to continue if I can't imagine that there is a human being on the other side of the world who is reading my writing 7 hours ahead of me, especially if they are people who I have actually seen both via skype and with my own eyes? I have thought about these ideas a lot. I do not know.
My gut still tells me no, it can't be automated because I believe in communicative language learning. Basically, the TLDR of my TESOL minor is this: "To teach your students, you have to know your students. To know them, you have to listen to them and talk with them."
Since my situation with Czech is like, the ultimate flipped classroom approach, I could rephrase that to be, "To learn, I have to know my teachers. To know them, I have to listen to them and talk with them."
Reader, you can basically see me tearing my hair out in frustration with the fact that I do not have a really set schedule yet with this infant, so arranging skype calls has to wait. Though actually, I think I might start to attempt that again sooner rather than later, depending on how the Quest for Czech Female Collaborators goes. And now you can imagine that I am basically bald (kidding - the postpartum alopecia hasn't kicked in yet. Though I know it will.)
From this book called Corpus Linguistics for English Teachers, I read,
The Oregon Department of Education (2002), in a publication distributed to its teachers, suggests that it is necessary for teachers to ask themselves the following question: Will the use of technology make this lesson better? Will it facilitate student understanding? Will students' capacity to demonstrate their understanding increase because of it?" This publication notes that, by asking these questions, teachers will be able to determine when these technologies are appropriate and when they are not. The answers to these questions can be useful to English teachers as they formulate goals in incorporating CL tools into the classroom. The recognition that CL tools will not work all the time, across language topics and lesson settings, is very important for teachers. Knowing how the tools work and being able to take control, in case they don't work, are necessary in the successful integration of CL in the classroom. By thinking about CL tools within the frame of instructional technology, English teachers will come to view these tools as everyday, nonthreatening classroom devices. The tools will not be as tep ahead of the teachers in their instruction, and they can use the tools when they are needed for a collocation exercise, for example, but not when it gets too complicated or confusing for learners. [emphasis added]
So, I will play around with some of these interesting ways of automating the gathering of example sentences, especially with these "buffer" chapters. I will definitely start to explore the fascinating world of concordancers and corpora. I asked some 20 people to supply me with example sentences, and typically about 2-6 respond, so while I am waiting for them I can at least work on those three "buffer" chapters.
But will it supplant my annoying weekly emails begging for my collaborators to use the words in a sentence?
No.
Hey, I can always ask, right. At least now I know what to do if all of them simultaneously decide to abandon me. But I am (mostly) sure that won't happen.
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