My uni however has an awesome sensei who – while teaching us from a textbook, could also see flaws and explain how it would be used naturally. Some of the other teachers were actually qualified to teach computers but because they were native Japanese speakers they taught us without really having spent time studying “How to teach Japanese”. As a result our lessons often fell off the textbook rails and we would instead spend 60 mins discussing how sake was made. Classes really did nothing for my listening abilities because aside from some stilted practice speaking we mostly ended up falling back into English. However in our own time one of our assessments was to keep a journal – we could do whatever we wanted to show the teacher how we’d been attempting to learn Japanese outside of class hours. Of course we were recommended to try and expand on what we were doing in classes although it really wasnt a requirement. The requirement was effort. Our sensei encouraged our interest outside of the textbook. For me it was always kanji – never grammar. Also part of the course was a 10 month exchange in Japan. That’s were I still contribute ALL my language skills to…. and not to the university over there either.

It was my host family who taught me Japanese.

I can track it to them because for the first 5 months I was in Japan I was failing exams, I couldn’t order a freakin cheeseburger from maccas (Has anyone ever seen in ANY textbook the phrase “ここでお召し上がりますか” Honestly!? Try and go into a maccas and get the person behind the counter to speak in 普通形 … 無理だよ！ They’ll try bad English – but not plain textbook Japanese…. and you can hardly whip out your genki textbook and say – “No … you’re now meant to say xxxx”. But when I started living with my host family I could ask them what they actually were saying (even getting the sentence repeated is nigh impossible – they see gaijin and assume you cant speak Japanese). On top of that my host dad was the only member of the family who could speak any English and he refrained as I requested. I also started picking up Manga and with my trusty denshi jisho I started to improve. I still barely passed my Japanese uni exams – but fortunately my favourite sensei could see how much I was improving compared to the other girls (who kept speaking English with each other) and kept giving me multiple chances.

True immersion is the only way to learn.

We create a new sense of necessity and somewhere in our subconscious is probably like “Oh shiat, I really need to understand this Japanese otherwise I’m going to be basking in nonsense and seem like an idiot and such.” Furthermore, on a conscious level, we’re enjoying the language and wanting to be part of it.

The study claims that we’ll never be able to achieve true native-level fluency, which is bull. One of the star points they brought up was accent, which is merely a parroting act. Sure, some are a lot worse at mimicry than others, but those individuals just need to work harder at it (I’m probably one of those guys).

And then, slightly besides the main point, they say it’s not natural and that it’s all hard work. Well, like Khatz/Antimoon/lots of people say, you’re an adult with some sort of life and you’re probably putting too much English or L1 into that life as opposed to L2. I’d read the Momoko kid article. It’s basically the point. Yes, a four year old doesn’t have the “disadvantage” of knowing a language already, so there’s the heightened survival aspect, but at the same time, a four year old doesn’t know persistence and isn’t very intelligent, either. Adults may have that “disadvantage”, but there’s certainly an advantage in already knowing a language.

The other advantage is AJATT-style (or whatever precedes AJATT in this style) learning. You do what’s fun and you do a -lot- of it. Repetition is the mother of learning, as the Russians say; but not rote memorization as the study-author seems to interpret it. Read any of the articles where it mentions doing small tasks frequently (and being immersed 100%) and doing those tasks consistently instead of assuming cram sessions will allow you to learn.

We’re living in the greatest instant gratification period ever. So it’s natural to assume with all the tools at our disposal we can learn anything quickly. But really, we just learn about things quickly. There’s a veil that covers our eyes, hiding the true hard work it takes to accomplish anything great. (Read any of the posts that have Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, the 1000m Kenyan runner [sorry, forgot his name])

Anyway, the study’s perhaps not complete bollocks, but it’d do you a wealth of good to take it with a grain of salt. 

But the reason why tried getting a Japanese tutor was so that I could feel like I went to school; I wanted to prove through a diploma or certificate that I could speak and read Japanese. So I got a tutor and something strange happened. We were speak in STRAIGHT JAPANESE THE WHOLE TIME! I did’nt need the tutor, sure I learned what “you ni” means and how to use it in a sentance but everything else I knew already because I listened Japanese music and watched SANTAKU all day(Sanma and Kimura Takuya are HE-LAIR-E-US together!) My point is naturally Japanese is the better way to go when going for natural fluency. It has worked for me and it still is working. SRSing(when I am not lazy about it) has an interesting effect. Just like Jack, when you immerse your self and srs your self and really have FUN doing it, your brain is able to decipher kanji in a way that is shocking. I can read Japanese a figure out what is being said and what the context is. I think what is even more shocking is that this process gets better the more I read and listen to and watch and enjoy Japanese.

Thanks for the post Jack, get your Japanese ON MAN. And Khatz, thanks for the site, it really helps.

pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test4materials/secondlangacquisition.htm 
 

I don’t know. Maybe I just excel at classroom learning. Teachers loved me, I was always number 1 in my classes getting 100% on every assignment, with few errors, and I was nominated the best student out of all the sections at my particular level. 

How did I do this? Yeah, by listening to directions. Instead of doodling in other classes I would write kanji over and over again. Vocab I would learn on the drive to school. And yeah, after college was over, I could live in Japan with no problem so I guess you could call me fluent. 

Am I just a good student? Maybe.
But, not everyone has a bad experience with classrooms. In fact, I would love to go back and have a teacher guide me to improvement again.  

Now, it’s 6 years later and when I got my masters in another subject I had to put aside my Japanese for fours years. Two years ago I started up again, this time studying on my own. I had to teach myself a whole new method of learning Japanese outside of the classroom. And neither one to me feels “superior”. They both feel right.  

Leave language classes alone.

It’s not classes your problem. They haven’t done anything to you. Even if they did, nobody forced you to take them.

You wanted to learn a language, so you went to a language university and got yourself into a language course and did exams and all that. That’s just reasonable.

You followed the methods that you were given. Reasonable, but that’s what screwed you.

That’s right! Because classes suck and their method sucks!

Yeah, right. No.

It’s because you *followed* their methods. That’s why you didn’t learn.

You don’t learn by following. You learn by leading. You learn by making choices.

That’s kinda the point of AJATT. SRSing sentences is nothing more than another way to say: “Write your own textbooks.”

I learned english AJATT-style long before AJATT even existed. Khazt, as we say in Italy, “invented hot water” with his method.

I’m glad you had a blast learning all the japanese all the time.

And I agree, classes suck. They really do.

But they are not your problem. It’s following that held you back this whole time. That’s what makes you feel like you wasted your time.

It’s not school, your old master, the problem.
And your new master “AJATT” is not the way.

The Way is no-master.
Best of luck

I understand that the success deemed appropriate in the classroom is not necessarily akin to fluency, but seriously, you shouldn’t blame your failures in the classroom on the class itself. It’s not hard to adhere to the structure of the class for the very limited amount of time requested. When people take language classes, they seem to think that they just need to do the work requested and nothing on their own time, then when they aren’t fluent after 4 years they are angry and confused. Time to wake up buddy, class doesn’t own your life, and it certainly doesn’t follow you home and babysit you for 24 hours a day. Take the initiative.