On the General Shittyness of Textbooks

A language textbook is at best an approximation; at worst a distraction. 

In The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes two types of knowledge (admitedly an overgeneralization): nerd knowledge, and non-nerd knowledge.   The former is the kind of knowledge that comes from mastering the rules comprising artificial, human-created systems.  Some examples of nerd knowledge would be Keynesian economics, computer programming, chess, and most of what we learn in high school.  Non-nerd knowledge on the other hand is the kind of knowledge that comes from intuitively grasping parts of reality.  My corresponding examples are Austrian economics, biology, business, and most of what we learn in college.  The key difference is that it's possible to master nerd fields, while non-nerd fields remain elusive and amorphous.  For this reason, the non-nerd is often unsure of himself, depressed, without rewards, and in need of a nerd hobby, like car-maintenance or Halo 3. 

(Admitedly, I've taken some liberties here with Taleb's idea.   I've used it to justify a few of my personal biases, albeit semi-whimsically.  I've also glossed over the fact that some fields which we may someday discover are actually under the umbrella of nerd knowledge - such as biology as information-science - are for the meantime effectively non-nerd fields, in the sense that their complexity eludes the elucidation of many predictable patterns, and so I have accordingly classified them as non-nerd fields.) 

Taleb specifically applies his concepts of nerd knowledge and non-nerd knowledge to language learning, my field of interest for the last four years; as Taleb discusses in The Black Swan, a nerd would study a foreign language by mastering a particular textbook, memorizing grammar rules, and thoroughly practicing through drills.  The nerd's approach would have the advantage that its goal is tangible and reachable, and the nerd's path is clear.  A non-nerd, on the other hand, would go to the particular foreign country in question, visit bars, and talk to women. (Taleb's examples; not mine.)  The non-nerd's knowledge would be unpredictable, intangible, and personal/existential - that is, partly incapable of being shared with others via linguistic mechanisms, but his knowledge would at least have the advantage that it fit his own interpretation of reality. 

Which approach is superior?

As a teacher of English as a foreign language and a learner of Japanese as a foreign language, I would say that, while the nerd approach produces more-immediate returns, without a doubt the non-nerd approach is superior in practice and in the long-run.  Both the non-nerd approach to learning and reality are unpredictable, undefineable; with the non-nerd approach students must refine memory and logical skills to succeed, as in reality - for which the students are presumably learning the foreign language in question in the first place (This is not necessarily the case with non-real foreign languages like Elvish, Klingon, Esperanto, and Latin, which surely fit under the big umbrella of nerd-knowledge.  And I say this having studied Latin for ten years.  Litotes and chiasmus and whatnot.)  With the nerd approach, there is only the incentive of completion.  "To excel" is meaningless. 

Yet, if non-nerd knowledge is superior by such a standard, why is a nerd textbook the norm when learning from an instructor who is a native speaker of the language in question?  Why do students complain that the foreign teacher is not using a testbook?  Why do the students not pay half the price for a reasonably competent Japanese teacher to go through the textbook for them?  Or why don't they pay no price at all to go through the textbook by themselves?  Why don't they use the opportunity of having a foreign teacher in the first place to learn by copious trial-and-error in a non-nerd fashion?   

Perhaps because the life of the non-nerd is lonely and without the necessary Pavlovian rewards that come from completing a textbook or being "leveled-up" (as all the big, successful, corporate schools do).  I, on the other hand, when given an initial student, try to milk conversation for all it's worth before succumbing to a particular textbook (usually a best approximation for that particular student), and I think my non-textbook students are superior to those of teachers who use textbooks, because life - and foreign language learning - is not a videogame.

So to clarify my initial point that a language textbook is at best an approximation and at worst a distraction, there comes a point where mastering a particular textbook resembles knowing everything there is to know about Pokemon: you might know exactly when Charizard is superior, how long each battle will take, how many hit-points will be exchanged, and whether or not Blastoise should be used instead. 

Great, but you'd be better off studying real animals.

But of course, there are some things that cannot really be taught through simple conversation, which require readings and drills - things like taking the train somewhere, ordering food at a restaurant, etc., which require the use of a textbook on the part of a teacher.  Or do they?  (And I'm not talking about role-playing here, by the way.)  The students generally hate these lessons, and I generally hate teaching them.  Personally, I'd rather just take turns asking each other questions and answering them until the student is ready to move on.  But there seems to be a preference here, in the cut-throat, free-market English school system, for qualification collecting, for instant gratification, for "language-learning for dummies" i.e. level 3 EIKEN, 700 Toeic score, whatever floats your boat, which props up an already artificially-created demand for English education.

That is to say, there are too many people learning English privately in Japan, who - if it weren't for the kind of Bernaysian marketing that defies the rational actors assumption - would otherwise not be.  Who cares what the textbook says about how to order food at a restaurant?  Students don't need to learn that bullshit.  They don't need to memorize lines like, "What's Tom Yum Kun?" "Oh, it's a spicy Thai noodle dish.  It's delicious!" - first because no one uses the word "delicious"; second because no one knows what Tom Yum Kun is, third because students should be focusing on the many usages of those words instead of this one particular usage, and fourth because everyday tasks are learned quickly when the day of reckoning comes: any foreigner can ride the train anywhere or communicate what sort of food he wants in a restaurant after a shockingly small amount of initial exposure.  There is no language barrier here.  Everyday consumer activity like furniture shopping transcends grammar, culture, and formal memorization.  Speaking from experience, you learn quickly these elementary nerd tasks once exposed to the non-nerd ether.   

Comments

[IchiBan troll]

Certain textbooks are great for teachers.