Donovan Nagel's Lexical Chunking Method

In my last post I wrote an interest I've had in Donovan Nagel's approach to language learning. I believe it's not a departure from what I've been doing so far, but an adjustment of my daily activities to better fit my current abilities and goals.

I've been piecing together what I believe his method to be from the various articles and videos he has put out. 

In an interview he said:

  1. Learn a little at a time and use it a lot. Focus on just a handful of new expressions at a time and use them repeatedly until they become habit. It’s much better to master a few things at a time than to try and take in everything at once and learn very little.

  2. Speak very early on as much as possible. If you wait until you’re ready you’re wasting time. Use what you know now even if it’s grammatically wrong at first as this is the best way to improve.

And on Twitter he wrote:

“Successful language learners got there in spite of grammar study, not because of grammar study. Language acquisition is memorizing patterns, not rules. People who focus on learning grammar rules will eventually learn the same patterns; it just takes them a lot longer to do so.”

and

“Ultimately, the effectiveness of every language “method” or resource boils down to how well it can help you hear and repurpose lexical patterns.”

My guess is he does something like the following

  1. Finds a course that contains lots of dialogues, with audio. In the case of Irish he mentions the book / site ’ Gaeilge Gan Stró’ is the best.

  2. Work through the course as instructed but don’t worry too much about the grammar.

One of the most important aims of following a standard course with audio recordings is to be able to hear and produce the various sounds of the target language.

  1. Collect lots of phrases and language chunks and memorise them either through deliberate practice or ‘passively’ by consuming media. (could be audio from the course or other beginner level media).

  2. If the target language is on Glossika then use it to get lots of exposure and practice speaking.

  3. Consume lots media in the target language.

While steps 1 - 5 are happening the learner should start practicing speaking the language using the short phrases and language chunks. At some point the learner will have enough of these bits of language available to them to be able to have speaking practice sessions with tutors, such as those found on iTalki.

Finally if possible the learner should take the opportunity to immerse themselves in the language, like visiting the country where that language is spoken in order to fully ‘activate’ the language. If that's not possible then they should have lot's of online conversation practice with native speakers.

In these two short articles Donavan discusses the background to practicing lexical chunks:

How Chunking Can Speed Up Your Language Learning

You Don't Need To Study Grammar To Learn A Foreign Language

And in these two short videos he gives an overview of how he puts these ideas into practice.

How to learn foreign languages through 'chunking' (no grammar study)

How To Go From Basic Fluency To Mastery In A Foreign Language Using The Chunking Method

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