Would you find this way of presenting a language useful or confusing?

Hi,

I've had loads of free time recently, and this is the outcome:)

Charts in which grammar is presented through quotes (from songs/films/... other sources) and - I'm not sure how obvious it is when you look at these charts - but it is possible to listen to most of them (which I thought would be helpful for pronunciation).

there's also some background info about each quote (which I thought would be good for inquisitive folks).
And now I'm wondering if anyone learning Polish would see any point in grammar/language presented in this way...

Examples:

polish-grammar-bigos.com/2011/07/present-tense-byc-to-be-chart/
polish-grammar-bigos.com/2011/08/locative-case-usage-guide/

I've only made 3 charts so far, so it's the best time to ask people for some opinion;)

Interesting idea - it has potential. How do you reconcile it with the Natural Order Hypothesis?

When you learn a foreign language you don't necessarily follow this natural order:)
But you're right, it is a problem - e.g. it's impossible to say if these charts are easy or difficult, if they are for beginners or more advanced learners...

That's part of what makes them interesting. It would be quite good to see them graded though.

If it was easy to find a quote that is at a certain level, illustrating a given grammar point, and relatively well-known at the same time, I would.

So far it's total immersion, maybe I need to try harder.

Thanks for your feedback:)

It's still good - you should keep on with this!

many of these are idioms, no? even slang? perhaps (maybe I didn't see it) you could give a definition or a comparison of how they would be used in English?

I think it is pretty interesting- it is not for beginners though.

looks great lalami!

It doesn't look great at all. Different "pieces" of culture picked up at random with no leading idea to the students of the language. Many of these pieces are simply inappropriate for foreign people studying Polish. Even advanced learners will probably find them too difficult to follow. But the very simple things that are presented look fine.

well it looks alot more engaging than more traditional language sites, and putting chunks of grammar into real situations seems a great idea to me (speaking as a low level learner of Polish as well as a language teacher) Maybe you underestimate language learners Zeimowit?

So it's 2 votes for "confusing":)


After reading pip's reply I experimented with draft posts, trying to rearrange/split the tables but unfortunately it didn't seem any clearer. I naively thought "sloppy translation" and a mini-dictionary for each quote would be enough... - more info about the words used in each quote needed then, fine.


There are only a couple of idioms, and when they appeared I wrote the meaning of every single word that makes up the idiom, as well as the idiomatic meaning of the whole phrase (or I thought I did;)


They have to remain random pieces of culture because they are grouped around some grammar topic, their role is subsidiary here, they basically serve to illustrate a certain point, and it's only if someone is interested they can listen to more/look at the whole lyrics/watch a scene for a movie that is quoted.

For those of you who liked the idea - it's not mine; the inspiration came 2 years ago, when I was reading Thornbury's A-Z of ELT (it was on our DELTA reading list) and at the same time was trying to find some self-study books/online resources for my husband who suddenly decided to learn Polish (and gave up quickly).

So this is basically what Thornbury did in his book: esl-library.com/blog/2010/10/29/archives-thornbury/, and Thornbury's post on the subject can be found here [scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/s-is-for-sentence/]


This is my main rationale for doing these charts, the only difference is that most people who start to learn English have heard hundreds of English songs (and seen films, etc), they might be able to recognize a word or two, they know the tune, and it might be more exciting for them to have grammar presented in this way.

For anyone starting to learn Polish, unfortunately - grammar is new and so are these songs/films/politicians...