Pimsleur
Language Techniques: Start Learning Mandarin Chinese Today!
The Pimsleur Language Learning Technique is a highly effective, proven
method to learn a new lanugage quickly and easily!
Dr. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and
was one of the world's leading experts in applied linguistics. He was
fluent in French, good in German, and had a working knowledge of Italian,
Russian, Modern Greek, and Mandarin Chinese. After obtaining his Ph.D.
in French and a Masters in Psychology from Columbia University, he taught
French Phonetics and Linguistics at UCLA. He later became Professor of
Romance Languages and Language Education, and Director of The Listening
Center (a state-wide language lab) at Ohio State University; Professor
of Education and Romance Languages at the State University of New York
at Albany; and a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. He
did research on the psychology of language learning and in 1969 was Section
Head of Psychology of Second Language Learning at the International Congress
of Applied Linguistics.
Each lesson is approximately 30 minutes long. Dr. Pimsleur's research
shows this to be the optimum period for learning, after which the mind
loses its ability to retain new information. Try your best to work through
one lesson each and every day. Whether you move on to the next lesson
daily or repeat those you feel unsure about, it is important that you
familiarize yourself with the language on a daily basis.
Dr. Pimsleur's Method of Learning is based on two key principles: the
Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory that he
called Graduated Interval Recall. This program incorporates both of these
principles to provide you with the most simple and effective learning
method possible. His method also incorporates two other unique components
that are also important: Core Vocabulary Acquisition, and the Organic
Learning Method.
The Principle of Anticipation requires you to "anticipate" a correct answer.
Practically, what this means is that you must retrieve the answer from
your own memory before it is confirmed in the lesson. It works as follows:
The lesson will pose a challenge—perhaps by asking you, in the new language:
"Are you going to the movies today?"
There will be a pause, and, drawing on information given previously, you
will say:
"No, I went yesterday."
The instructor will then confirm your answer: "No, I went yesterday."
Before Dr. Pimsleur created his teaching method, language courses were
based instead on the principle of repetition. Teachers drummed words into
the students' minds over and over, as if the mind were a record whose
grooves wore deeper with repetition. However, neurophysiologists tell
us that, on the contrary, simple and unchallenging repetition has a hypnotic,
even dulling effect on the learning process. Eventually, the words being
repeated will lose their meaning. Dr. Pimsleur discovered that learning
accelerates when there is an "input/output" system of interaction, in
which students receive information and then are asked to retrieve and
use it.
Graduated Interval Recall is a complex name for a very simple theory about
memory. No aspect of learning a foreign language is more important than
memory, yet before Dr. Pimsleur's work, no one had explored more effective
ways for building language memory.
In his research, Dr. Pimsleur discovered how long students remembered
new information and at what intervals they needed to be reminded of it.
If reminded too soon or too late, they failed to retain the information.
This discovery enabled him to create a schedule of exactly when and how
the information should be reintroduced.
Suppose you learn a new word. You tell yourself to remember it, but after
five minutes you can't recall it. If you'd been reminded of it after five
seconds, you probably would have remembered it for maybe a minute -- then
you would have needed another reminder. Each time you are reminded, you
remember the word longer than you did the time before. The intervals between
reminders become longer and longer, until you eventually remember the
word without being reminded at all.
This program is designed to remind you of new information at the exact
intervals where maximum retention takes place. Each time your memory begins
to fade, you will be asked to recall the word. Through this powerful method,
you progress from short-term to long-term memory without being aware of
it, while avoiding the monotonous rote repetition used in traditional
language courses.
The Principle of Anticipation and Graduated Interval Recall are the foundation
of the Pimsleur Method, but there are other unique components that are
also important. One is the theory of a core vocabulary. We have all been
intimidated, when approaching a new language, by the sheer number of new
words we must learn. But extensive research has shown that we actually
need a comparatively limited number of words to be able to communicate
effectively in any language.
Language can be divided into two distinct categories: grammatical structures
(function words) and concrete vocabulary (content words). By focusing
on function words and enabling the student to comprehend and employ the
structure of a new language, Dr. Pimsleur found that language learners
were able to more readily put new knowledge to use. There are very few
content words that are used every day. The essential core of a language
involves function words, which tend to relate to human activities.
The Pimsleur Method centers around teaching, in the shortest time possible,
functional mastery in understanding and speaking a language. You will
be working on your vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation all at once,
while also learning phrases that have practical use in daily life. It
has been said that language is primarily speech. With this concept in
mind, Dr. Pimsleur created his language programs on audio because he knew
that students of languages would learn better with their ears, not their
eyes. This is achieved through what Dr. Pimsleur called "organic learning,"
which entails learning on several fronts at once. His system enables the
student to learn grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation in a natural and
exciting way.
This course is designed to teach you to understand and to speak the essential
elements of your new language in a relatively short time. During each
half-hour lesson, you will actually converse with two people, using the
type of language spoken by educated citizens in their everyday business
and social life. The program's unique method for presenting dialogue relieves
you of most common learning problems.
