Sir Richard Burtons-language-learning-methods.pdf - MplsESL

Sir Richard Burton’s Burton’s Burton’s methods weren’t so different than what’s emerging today as the most effective principles of SLA

Prioritizing vocabulary above grammar … striving for a “critical mass” of vocabulary … the “artificial assistance” he mentions would include vocabulary and grammar and effort and mnemonics

the principle of distributed practice using familiarity as aid to reading comprehension

self-selected vocabulary vocabulary practice with the words in context “just in time” grammar study uses his own interests as a motivator self-management of learning, metacognitive awareness of progress over-learning for unfamiliar elements to bring about automaticity back in grad school, we would have said “Paivo’s dual coding” this is what Tim Murphy teaches under the name “conversational shadowing”

1

Language Learning Methods Methods Sir Richard Burton1, the 19th-century linguistic, explorer and author, had one of history’s most famous knacks for learning languages. In this excerpt from his autobiography, he describes his method. Learning foreign languages, as a child learns its own, is mostly a work of pure memory, which acquires, after childhood, every artificial assistance possible. My system of learning a language in two months was purely my own invention, and thoroughly suited myself. I got a simple grammar and vocabulary, marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely necessary, and learnt them by heart by carrying them in my pocket and looking over them at spare moments during the day. I never worked more than a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the rain lost its freshness. After learning some three hundred words, easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy book-work (one of the Gospels is the most come-atable), and underlined every word that I wished to recollect, in order to read over my pencillings at least once a day. Having finished my volume, I then carefully worked up the grammar minutiae, and I then chose some other book whose subject most interested me. The neck of the language was now broken, and progress was rapid. If I came across a new sound like the Arabic Ghayn, I trained my tongue to it by repeating at so many thousand times a day. When I read, I invariably read out loud, so that the ear might aid memory. I was delighted with the most difficult characters, Chinese and Cuneiform, because I felt that they impressed themselves more strongly upon the eye than the eternal Roman letters. This, by-and-by, made me resolutely stand aloof from the hundred schemes for transliterating Eastern languages, such as Arabic, Sanscrit, Hebrew, and Syriac, into Latin letters, and whenever I conversed with anybody in a language that I was learning, I took the trouble to repeat their words inaudibly after them, and so to learn the trick of pronunciation and emphasis.

Note the prominent scar across Burton’s cheek in the painting:

In 1854, at the Somali port city of Zeila, before the expedition was able to leave camp, his party was attacked by a group of Somali waranle ("warriors"). The officers estimated the number of attackers at 200. In the ensuing fight, Stroyan was killed and Speke was captured and wounded in eleven places before he managed to escape. Burton was impaled with a javelin, the point entering one cheek and exiting the other. This wound left a notable scar that can be easily seen on portraits and photographs. He was forced to make his escape with the spear still jabbed through his cheek. It was no surprise then that he found the Somalis to be a "fierce and turbulent race".[16]

Burton’s Languages By the end of his life, Burton had mastered at least 25 languages — or 40, if distinct dialects are counted. 1. English 2. French 3. Occitan (Gascon/ Béarnese dialect) 4. Italian a. Neapolitan Italian 5. Latin 6. Greek 7. Jataki dialect (he wrote a grammar) 8. Hindustani 9. Marathi 10. Urdu 11. Arabic 12. Persian 13. Pushtu 14. Sanskrit 15. Portuguese 16. Spanish 17. German 18. Icelandic 19. Swahili 20. Amharic 21. Fan 22. Egba 23. Ashanti 24. Hebrew 25. Aramaic 26. Many other West African & Indian dialects