Quotes About Learning

learners made more progress when they were given a simple rule and then worked together to find the correct possessive determiners (Spada, Lightbown, and White 2005).

Enhancing the input

Learning conditions Young second language learners are often allowed to be silent until they are ready to speak. They may also practise their second language in songs and games that allow them to blend their voices with those of other children. Older second language learners are often forced to speak from the earliest days of their learning, whether to meet the requirements of classroom instruction or to carry out everyday tasks such as shopping, medical visits, or job interviews.

research has shown that older children and adolescents progress more rapidly than younger children particularly in the early stages of learning. The knowledge and skills that older learners are able to acquire in a relatively short period of time will satisfy the needs of many learners whose goal is to use the language for everyday communication, to succeed on foreign language examinations, or to read texts for an academic course rather than to speak with native-like pronunciation.

all learners benefited from the deductive instruction regardless of differences in aptitude.

Decisions about when to start second language instruction in schools should be based on realistic goals and on realistic estimates of how long it takes to achieve them. One or two hours a week will not produce advanced second language speakers, no matter how young they were when they began. Older learners may be able to make better use of the limited time they have for second language instruction.

Nevertheless, Michael Erard's (2012) review of the cases of some of history's most successful learners of multiple languages shows that their unusual talent was also associated with a willingness to work hard at tasks that many would consider too boring or difficult, such as using word cards to study vocabulary.

when pair work functions collaboratively and learners are in an expert–novice relationship, they can successfully engage in the co-construction of knowledge.

learners sometimes fail to notice certain language forms—grammatical morphemes, vocabulary words, syntactic patterns, pragmatic features—when their focus is on understanding meaning.

learners who were given pronunciation lessons emphasizing stress and rhythm were judged to be easier to understand than learners who received lessons focused on individual sounds.

Whenever I go out, so many people who respect me ask me what to do in a certain situation. A lot of times, I didn't know the answers because sometimes I was going through the same sort of thing. But then later on, I would think of things that people told me.

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book." (Acceptance speech, National Book Award 2010 (Nonfiction) , November 17, 2010)

I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth

I have loved books all my life. There is nothing more beautiful in our material world than the book.

The mind of a child is like a kiss on the forehead — open and disinterested

Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs were all my teachers, each one passing through the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel, my new university.

Aprendi com ele que muitas vezes a contradição é o caminho mais claro para a verdade.

El taxi llega tan rápido que no me da tiempo a elegir qué libros llevarme. La perspectiva de embarcar en un avión sin un libro me produce una oleada de pánico. El libro adecuado puede ser una especie de maestro, que marca el tono o incluso altera el curso de un viaje.

Gregory [Corso] made lists of books for me to read, told me the best dictionary to own, encouraged and challenged me. Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs were all my teachers, each one passing through the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel, my new university.

Always keep learning. It keeps you young.

Good education means learning to read, write and most importantly learn how to learn so that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.

History is the error we are forever correcting." —Anthony Marra, The Tsar of Love and Techno

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little," wrote Mark Twain, "it's that they know so many things that ain't so.")