Interesting alphabet history

I stumbled upon this website that visually tells the history of the alphabet.

Three tasks of language learning

So, here is the most generic entry into how I think about language learning:

Three general tasks enable a student to learn a language, they are: massive amounts of input in the language (exposure to the language), massive amounts of output in the language (opportunity to use the language), and plenty of opportunity to adjust understandings and utterances to closer match those of native speakers. Though these three tasks seem fairly obvious, it is surprising how routinely they are misunderstood, or misapplied. The third task--opportunity to adjust understandings and utterances--is critical, but many teachers overdose on an ugly step-sister to this task: the dreaded grammar drills. Such drilling before a student has a sort of feel for what is being drilled is a waste of time and effort.

The gravity of tradition

A significant barrier to progress in language teaching is the gravity of tradition. Even if you have the best methods, and best materials, if this is handed over to another teacher, the methods will usually morph into something more closely resembling traditional methods. Most people have only experienced traditional listen-and-repeat, or focus on limited sets of words to memorize, so their instinct in a teaching environment is to repeat this. Unless someone has been raised with properly-executed good (and non-traditional) methods, there is tremendous gravity to fall back to the listen-and-repeat, memorize word lists kind of approach.

A couple implications:

1. You can't simply "hand-over" a curriculum based on innovative approaches and expect that the approaches will retain their unique and powerful advantages in the hands of a nauvice or experienced teacher. (Indeed, if the teacher is experienced only in traditional methods, the curriculum will usually more thorougly and rapidly morph into a traditional curriculum than in the hands of a nauvice.)

2. Teacher training in innovative methods is not just an introduction to new methods, but a battle against the gravity of tradition.