I do not understand why teachers are deciding which books their students should read and listen to. We know that the brain learns best from meaningful, relevant abd enjoyable content. Only the learner can decide what is meaningful and enjoyable. <br>
<br>Today, with all of the resources available in libraries and on the internet, it should be possible to help students find content that is of interest to them. That is probably more important than any explicit instruction on how to read, or teacher directed discussions of elements of the culture, that may or may not be of interest to learners.<br>
<br>I certainly would never use children's books to learn another language. But for those people who like them, fine. I am also not interested in having a teacher select which elements of the new culture to present to me. As an adult, I prefer to start my learning with audio and text material from normal adult daily life, since that context is familiar to me. From that starting point, I gradually explore the culture on my own terms. In most languages there is no shortage of such material to choose from, and in English such resources are particularly abundant.<br>
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Regards,
<br><br>
Steve Kaufmann<br>
<a href="http://www.LingQ.com">www.LingQ.com</a><br>
1-604-922-8514<br>
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