Unconscious language learning

November 4, 2011

When linguists talk about unconscious or implicit language learning, they don’t mean learning while you sleep. Rather, they are talking about one of the most intriguing of all mental phenomena: the ability to learn the complex and subtle regularities that underlie a language without even realising.

For children, such ‘implicit’ language learning seems to happen spontaneously in the first few years of life; yet, in adulthood, learning a second language is generally far from effortless and has varied success.

So marked is the difference between first- and second-language learning – at least when it takes the form of classroom learning – it might suggest that implicit learning makes no significant contribution to learning a second language. Or it may indicate that typical foreign language teaching doesn’t take full advantage of the process.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-unconscious-language.html

"Conscious learning" in a traditional classroom setting refers to the content-based learning of grammar rules out of the context of daily conversation.

"Unconscious learning" describe the spotting of sentence patterns without attention to the content in the context of daily usage.

The former approach, commonly used in second language learning in school, is proven ineffective.

The latter approach, found in first language acquisition in early years, is proven to be very effective.

"Spotting of sentence patterns" can be facilitated by games, activities and story books. Le Beaumont would develop story books incorporating "the spotting of sentence patterns" as a distinct feature.

Le Beaumont would develop and publish these books and learning kits in Chinese, English, French, Spanish, German, & Japanese.

We hope that our R & D in Le Beaumont Language Centre can push the frontier of knowledge in language acquisition and benefit more children in language acquisition.