In the past decade, the popularization and high accessibility of language learning have created a global "learners boom". This explosion is characterized by learners from all over the world, from children to elders, eager to learn a new foreign language and to immerse themself into a new culture, experience, and country. As a result, the language community devotes enormous efforts to the hunt for new methods, techniques, and learning resources. From Spaced repetition systems to shadowing and language apps, It became difficult to find creative, innovative, or disruptive ideas and methods. This post is here to help you discover the pretty unknown and most effective method for language learning that I know.
By now you are probably wondering who is the man in the old photo. Our story takes place mainly in Jerusalem, but before that will need to come back to France in the 19th century.
François Gouin was born in Normandy in 1831, where he attended school. Later he went to university and started to work as a teacher in the Lycée of Caen. Despite being a successful teacher and having studied philosophy, Gouin faced difficulties in learning German. He attempted to learn the language through grammar, lexical roots, translation, and various other methods but was unsuccessful.
However, his breakthrough came after observing his nephew use language to understand and organize his experiences during a visit to a mill. Gouin realized that language and cognition are closely linked, and this insight formed the basis of his method. He believed that language should be learned in context, using appropriate themes and series based on everyday life experiences. Gouin's method also involved making a distinction between objective, subjective, and figurative language. This allowed learners to understand how language is used to convey different meanings and perspectives.
Despite gaining popularity in England, Gouin's method has not received much attention from researchers. However, his ideas have influenced language teaching and learning methodologies, particularly in the area of communicative language teaching, which emphasizes learning through meaningful communication and real-life situations.
Overall, Gouin's experience and insights, which can be found mainly in his book "The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages" (L'Art d'Enseigner et d'Étudier les Langues), provide valuable lessons for language learners and teachers, highlighting the importance of context and meaningful communication in language learning.
The Renaissance of Series
Almost 150 years later, Prof. Christophe Rico, a French linguist and the Dean of the Polis Institute in Jerusalem is on a mission to renew and implement Gouin's lessons and insights into his work on second language acquisition.
Building Upon the work of Gouin, Prof. Rico has created the method of "Living Sequential Expression" (LSE):
Living for the immersive nature of the method.
Sequentiality for the connections and links between actions and phrases as a way for enhancing memory and acquisition.
Expression for the focus on speech, speaking abilities, and active learning.
Although LSE is mostly referred to as a method, Prof. Rico classifies it as a technique. There is a long discussion that should be made over the terminology of approaches, methods, techniques, and tools. This is not our goal for today so I'll just briefly say that LSE can be seen as a procedure or a technique with the potential to be developed later into a full method, given enough time and theoretical background. Also, the Natural Approach of Krashen and Terrell for example can be seen as an approach that both the direct/natural method and LSE can correspond to.
Apart from Basing itself on "Gouin's Series", LSE uses and implements different concepts and tools from second language acquisition research such as:
Total Physical Response - a method that emphasizes the use of physical movement to reinforce language learning.
Comprehensible Input - language acquisition happens best when learners are exposed to interesting and rich information that is slightly over their level of understanding.
Images - the use of visuals as a tool for enhancing memory and understanding.
Ultimately, LSE is looking to map the whole human experience into series and sequential actions and expressions. This covers daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and "once in a lifetime" events and tasks. By doing so, a person is capable to describe his/her full human experience in the new language.
LSE is best understood through a demonstration. The following video is a 50 min class on ancient Greek (Koine) where Prof. Rico uses LSE methodology to teach ancient Greek from Zero. In only 50 min you can learn to understand 15-20 phrases and start speaking the language. Just Imagine what is possible in 1 year.
A Challenge and Opportunity
LSE is a method that allows us to speak a language from day 1 in the most direct way possible. Its biggest challenge is that it requires an active native speaker, who is also a certified LSE teacher, in order to teach through this method.
I believe that advances in technology and in AI are in a place where a smart and innovative integration of LSE's methodology with language/image generative models can create a disruptive and effective language learning platform that will exceed any language learning app or website on the market. Now add that a thriving community, gamification, and everything else we know about language acquisition and you have here a recipe for the greatest language learning app the world has never seen.
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