Exactly!

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Working on losing those 100 first games...one horrible fiasco at a time...

Some of us just have Go book problems we can't get rid of...

Oh, it wasn't just for me. Going over games afterwards was the custom in Japan. Every game a teaching game. BTW, it is also the custom to review hands among tournament bridge players.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Rowson makes the mistake of observing that youngsters learn differently -- and better -- than older players and concluding that the older players should learn like younger players do. But there is an obvious question about that. The older players were young once, and know how to learn like they used to. Why don't they do that?

The short answer is that their brains are different. Older brains are more defined, more structured. They are literally sculpted from their younger, unsculpted form. Building a new structure in a young brain is relatively easy. Doing so does not clash with established structures. If older brains could learn in the same way as younger brains, they would.

I do not mean that nothing can be gained from earlier modes of learning. For instance, when learning Japanese, I realized that one of the functions of language is the organization of experience, and I often spoke to myself in Japanese about what was happening (when I could do so without attracting attention). Later I found out that children go through a phase of talking to themselves.

My point is this. If adults try to understand what they are learning -- and let me fill in the blanks, by associating what they are currently learning with previous learnings -- it is because that is how they learn best. Instead of saying that they should learn like they did when they had less well formed brains, we should tailor our instruction to how adults learn. If they want to understand, help them to do so.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I completely agree...Older brains have less neural plasticity and more previous learning. And of course associating is how learning actually works. But frankly, at some level I think that the incorrectly (read 'incompletely') learnt material interferes with consolidation of new material.

I see this all the time in language learning. Adults want to 'learn grammar and vocabulary' rather than borrowing structures from the target language and applying them (then correcting any inaccuracies). Children learn to speak a language without any formal grammar, and I strongly believe that adults can as well AS LONG AS they learn the same way as children (borrowing, testing, copying, MASSIVE repetition). Not as fast certainly, but that is a clear way to make progress...and it turns out that means practicing the skills of the language (comprehension and expression rather than just the knowledge ('grammar and vocab')).

If you are always trying to get new material to fit what you already know, the new stuff ends up looking remarkably like the old

_________________
Working on losing those 100 first games...one horrible fiasco at a time...

It doesn't seem that way to me. I haven't read Rowson, but from your excerpts it seems like he is more interested in getting learners to adapt to his pedagogy rather than adapting his pedagogy to the learners.



I haven't taught language for a long time. However, I have not met many adults who wanted to learn grammar. Nor have I observed children learning by massive repetition, unless they are forced to do so.

The best adult learner of languages that I have met was the wife of a state department officer. Give her two weeks in a new country and she could go shopping on her own. She didn't study books. What she did was to communicate with people. The analogy in go is to play the game.

It seems to me that the main difference between me and Rowson (and maybe you) is the difference between student oriented and subject oriented pedagogy. When Rowson talks about skill being "adulterated by our attempts to formalize it into knowledge" I think that he is resisting the adaptation of the subject matter to suit adult students. Not that it is an easy task. Especially if that is not how you learned the subject.

Language pedagogy shows the pitfalls of the formal approach. To paraphrase the great linguist, Otto Jespersen, if a student of English says, "Please pass the salt," he gets praise from the teacher, while if an English child says, "Please pass the salt", he gets the salt. But we do not have to follow that example, either.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

It's not repetition though, it's heavy exposure to the language in their environment. Very different things, for them language learning has a context that most adult learners can never have due to circumstance. Go analogy, it might be possible to be dan level strength without playing a game with access to enough study materials but it would take many times longer than playing and studying. They also do have a grammar, and can identify grammatical mistakes from rather early on. It's not a formal grammar but they'll can correct formal grammatical mistakes from a context they're familiar with (i.e. everyday language) so it's essentially the same thing after you cut out the parts that aren't relative to their speech. Adults need the grammar book because they lack the raw exposure to the language to be able to infer mistakes. The analogy to go is doing tsumego or replaying pro games when you can't play suitable opponents. You're drawing a distinction between native learners and adult second language learners. These are two very dissimilar groups. It's a bit like talking about adult go hobbyists and students in a Chinese go school. Different worlds.

Oh this is going to get complicated...I'll answer this one first because I have to figure out how to cut up quoted posts before I respond to Bill Spight

Boidre, strange as it seems, I think we're mostly saying the same thing. When I said 'massive repetition' I didn't just mean that THEY repeated things...I meant that they were exposed to things repeatedly (can't squeeze 'massively' into that sentence..sorry

Yes, children have a 'working grammar' of their native language (they know when things sound wrong)....without being able to quote a 'rule', often just correcting the mistake. They (we) just know when something's right....because it sounds right. Personally I would LOVE to be able to apply a system like this to Go (or chess) " This move seems good!" , "Why?" "Because I just know it's good!"

I've been a language trainer for the last 21 years, and I honestly believe that the major difference between native speakers and adult second language learners stems from the way adults tackle a language including (and perhaps especially!) all the props involved (artificial methods that short-circuit the natural way people learn languages). Not sure how this really applies to Go in fact, but something I absolutely believe in my daily professsional life.

_________________
Working on losing those 100 first games...one horrible fiasco at a time...

I'll take the blame for this, I've cut two paragraphs out of hundreds of pages of work. Rowson has a psychology background I believe, and has a good hard look at why so many chess players don't improve in spite of all the work / time / books. He is very much worth reading for his insights into the 'human'side (as opposed to the abstract knowledge side of chess theory). Oh and yes you're right, I only agreed with some parts of what you were saying (not the bits about how adults should learn...sorry if that wasn't clear )




Oh adults don't always SAY that they want grammar...but they (we! ) are often determined to attach strong (and often simple) labels to things which are inherently complex, and I think kids DO get heavy repetition, I'd even go as far as to say it's an inbuilt advantage that children have...they have a kind of fascination for repetition. How often do adults watch the same film every day of the holidays like my kids did with Avatar last holidays?! (Adult material DOES NOT COUNT thank you very much!). Young children want the same story every night, sing songs 50 times in a ro etc etc

Getting back to games, kids like learning chess, but even more they like PLAYING it...even if it's 'just' lots of blitz games...



YEs! This bit I can fully agrre with (phew!) What's she doing...? Learning some sentences/expressions, getting hold of some vocab she needs and testing it out in the real world. That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say about playing/working (here read 'doing') and too much study.



Again, I'll take the blame...I think actually he's saying that you CAN'T adapt some things without losing something, it ties in with other trainers who are starting to say that expressing some things in words is a poor substitute for getting it straight in chess moves..Like a problem of translation between the game itself and the way we try to explain it (yeah, kind of heavy, but it seems conceivable to me).



And this I completely agree with...

Please don't get me wrong, I have nothing at stake in this type of discusion...I just find it interesting and welcome your views on it.

_________________
Working on losing those 100 first games...one horrible fiasco at a time...

What's a language trainer? Never heard the term before over here.

What is formal grammar other than a bunch of rules laid down based on what sounded right? Does not grammar (and spelling) change with usage shifts? (both are true with English). In go moves start looking unnatural after a while, someone playing on an open side on the first line is an extreme example.

I've always found it easier to just grab some basic vocabulary and knit it together on the fly.

It's a LOT faster than trying to sound perfect, and you get more of a sense of flow if you are conversing with someone. The grammar rules don't come naturally to anyone, and there are always exceptions because people are difficult. It's much better to constantly try using and gradually expand a set of phrases from real-world experience.

You can use a phrase book, but that won't tell you how people pronounce it (there are often some hints, but they're usually too basic to let you sound normal), how people feel about that phrase (simple? wooden? too informal? childish?), and it doesn't really tell you what people will commonly respond with. And even if it did, one or two years after the phrasebook was printed, there might be some changes already.

This does mean you run around sounding silly, saying things wrong or confusing people with your odd turn of phrase. That's fine, though. Nearly everyone is at least mildly positive that you're trying their language. Even if you're not very good at it yet.

I think this is the biggest barrier to language learning in adults. You sound like a moron with a severe speech impediment at first. You need humility and the patience to endure being unable to say everything you want. There is a long period of poor ability, where you can't assert yourself as much and most of the things people say fly right past you.

I second what Bill said, about trying to think in another language as a form of rehearsal. If you skip the step of first forming your idea in English (or whatever your primary language is) you can respond much faster and eventually listen much better. Once you get to expressing your own thoughts directly in a language, it stops feeling quite so alien.

Linking this to go, I guess tsumego are like vocabulary, theory is like grammar, and actually playing is a conversation. Starting to see why go theory doesn't find me very receptive.

I do think tsumego are a bit more of a pain to rehearse than vocabulary. They require more effort than pure memorization, and you can't really map them to anything pre-existing.

It's probably why so many people prefer reading words about chess, too. Solving problems repeatedly is drudgery, and doesn't feel all that exciting. You can't really use them in conversations as much either. They're completely inflexible, with only wrong answers as alternatives. There's no room for personal expression at all.

Another thing which really blows my mind, is that I somehow still want more tsumego books, despite having enough to last me at least a year. I don't know what's up with that, but so far I've managed to stop myself from making such a redundant purchase. I've got over a yard of printed material related to go. If I master it all, I should be quite formidable already. Putting books on my shelves really doesn't automatically make me smarter or more knowledgeable.

I guess just reading books kinda gets boring after a while.

I have been reviewing pro games, reading books and watching hundreds of lectures + live streams without playing.

You simply hit a brick wall and you can't advance any further without playing.

I decided to create new accounts on some playing servers but I put my rank +9 stones or so higher.

This way I get destroyed by stronger players however I learn how they crush someone my own level so that I will be able to use similar tactics, tricks etc. to simply win over someone as strong as I currently am.

At least in theory :/

This is very true.
The problem isn't grammar. Grammar is actually a good guideline to navigate a language. The problem is that adult won't tolerate to stumble like little kids. You can talk to people very quickly with very little knowledge if you stop trying to show off a perfect sentence. Just put together the three words you know and forget conjugation, and you're ready to go. But if you try mentally reviewing twenty different complex rule to check if they apply, rather than accepting the obvious fact that you're going to make a mistake, people will give up and leave before you got past "hello".

And this applies to nearly everything we have to learn from scratch.
In my job, the most knowledgeable and precious people are not the ones who say "Sorry, I don't know how to do this" but the ones who say "Well... let's see what happens when I try that."

I don't know about you, but I have the irrational feeling that whatever problem shows up in my life, the answer has to be in a book somewhere, and it's just a matter of finding which one. Having books makes me feel better even when I don't open them

Labels like thickness and kikashi, for example.



And so the answer is to subject adults to repetition to the point of boredom and beyond?



Ah! I think that you may have discovered the secret to adult learning.

----

In go the best players by far learned to play as children. It is tempting to believe that players who learn to play as adults should learn in the same way as children, but that is unproven. And if adults resist learning that way, that is prima facie evidence that that may not be the best way for them. Generally speaking, adults want to learn concepts.

What is a concept? In A Study of Thinking, Bruner, et al., define a concept as a strategy. That definition works well for strategic games. The snapback, which my example illustrates, is a go concept. It consists of certain conditions, a certain configuration of stones with a certain number of dame, and a certain sequence of play. It also has a label.

Maybe it is best for kids to discover or pick up the concept of a snapback without having it taught directly, but I expect that it is best for adults to be taught the concept.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

The concept of a snapback is useful and all, but what I need in a timed game is the ability to instantly see a snapback several moves away from the board position.

Having a well-rehearsed song and dance about snapbacks in my mind doesn't allow me to see it. What I need is to rehearse many times how to cause a snapback to arise, and how to avoid it, so that I can control whether we go there today.

So while I don't have anything against people who want a nicely worded explanation of the concept, I don't actually care. Being able to articulate it doesn't meaningfully aid how well I play.

Repetition is quite boring as an adult, though. I imagine that this is the biggest factor limiting adult go players' development, rather than any mental degradation.

You wish to be a pro.



Really?



Really?



Why is repetition boring?

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

My mind craves variation, even when that is not a good thing.

I get very restless, even to the point where I have to split up especially boring tasks in small chunks so I do them with the necessary care. If I don't do that, there is a big risk that things will be done hastily, poorly and I might get so fed up with it that I don't finish the task at all.

I don't think I can be a pro though... That requires more effort than I think I am capable of. But I'm very happy to be able to see many snapbacks 3-5 moves away (still working on making that "all"). I didn't get that ability from understanding the concept of snapbacks as explained in words. It's all from playing and tsumego.

I prefer to call snapback a "shape technique" instead of a "concept". All techniques together form one of the concepts.

I remember very well learning about snapbacks. I first encountered the concept in Graded Go Problems for Beginners. I tried to solve that problem for a long time then gave up and looked at the solution. After the book explained the concept to me, I could see it and I noticed it in my games many times. Each example of course offered me a new variation and insight on the concept and expended my experience about it. But without initially learning the concept, I could have stumbled on it a hundred times and not see it was there.


I don't believe anything can be learned deeply without building up experience, which is a result of both repetition and variation (encountering the same concept in many different circumstances). But it doesn't mean initially reading about it is wrong or unhelpful.

While I'm sure there must be differences between the way adults and children can learn, I think they are much exaggerated.

The basic difference is that adults talk too much. If you put an adult in a learning situation where they can't talk back, such as in the army, they learn by being shown, by doing, by repeating, just like children and do it well. I have heard countless stories from people of an earlier generation than mine who say they learned many things (bayonetting, driving, carpet-laying, peeling potatoes) profoundly well from their time during national conscription.

We see the same thing in learning to drive in ordinary life. Through having to concentrate so hard out of sheer fear, the adult stays stumm and just does over and over what he is told, and within a few weeks he can drive.

But where the learning environment mistakenly allows the adult pupil to keep asking questions of the teacher, the tuition just degenerates into a conversation. It may be enjoyable but it's not effective.

I actually saw the difference in action in a taiji class. A large group of people who were normally used to chatting with the English teacher during class, and who were frankly not very good, invited a world-class Chinese lady for a day's seminar on a form they had never seen before. Within that one day the clumsy class, including geriatrics, had learnt to do passably well a complex and novel form with an implement (a fan) they had never used before. The difference was that the Chinese lady allowed no chit-chat ("if you do not practise you are not my friend") during the lesson and simply drilled the moves over and over again with no distractions. What astonished me most is that this new form stuck - or so I was told and when I saw the class some months later for a follow-up session with the same lady they did seem still to have the first part off pat.

At the other end of the scale, there is much exaggeration about kids just picking things up. I think that's mostly stuff and nonsense. They have to be shown or told what to do, just like adults. Where they appear to have picked it up from the ether, it's because kids are great at earwigging. They pay more attention to adults' words than the adults do. To use the example above, a kid might overhear two adults laughing over missing a snapback. That's enough for him to learn the concept and he will then relentlessly try and create it in every game until he gets it just right - and the growns-ups are impressed.

In contrast, in most situations teaching an adult about a snapback, he will be desperate to show how intelligent or affable he can sound by asking where else snapbacks can occur, what other snapback shapes exist, how do the various rule sets treat snapbacks, are there any similar shapes, what's the price of fish today, do you fancy a drink later... Of course the adult learns nothing, but he may have networked a new friend.