The Scriptorium Method by Professor Arguelles
A Scriptorium (which literally means “a place for writing”) is a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes.
I’d like to share with you a language-learning technique that is not something I would personally prefer to use but I do think that it will suit a lot of personalities out there–if you’re a grammar nerd, or really feel like you have to learn the formal grammar and syntax of a language to actually learn the language itself, then this is for you. I don’t take a side in this argument, I don’t think there should be an argument: it’s simply a matter of different personality types and what works best for you. The two extreme opposites here are people like me and Benny who hate any kind of formal classroom-like learning and just prefer to speak, speak, speak and sort of learn as we go, then there are people like Professor Arguelles (who speaks 13 different languages and is certainly no slouch), Randy, and Iversen on HTLAL who much prefer to learn the formal grammar and syntax of a language so that they can really get a ‘feel’ for the structure of it and this allows them to effectively put everything together and truly understand the language, which is fine, too. Whatever works most effectively for you is what you should do.
The Scriptorium Method
What is the Scriptorium Method? This is something that Professor Arguelles developed and currently teaches to his students that forces you to really focus on every last little detail of the language as you’re transcribing these sentences, you learn vocabulary and grammar all at the same time, and since it’s so focused you learn a great deal of it in a relatively short amount of time. The key here is to really take your time and focus on what you are doing. You will find that short sessions of about 15-30 minutes each are the most effective, as you simply cannot maintain the requisite level of focus for much longer than that.
The 3 basic steps that make up the essential Scriptorium method are:
- Take a sentence and read it aloud.
- Speak aloud again as you write it carefully.
- Read the sentence aloud from what you have written.
What you are essentially doing is transcribing a text in the language in question, but you’re not just doing that, because as you go along you must look up and make sure you fully understand any and all grammar related to what you are writing and any and all vocabulary that you do not fully understand. Do you see how you could easily spend 10 minutes on a single sentence? The point is that you must FULLY understand EVERYTHING that you are writing, and you will do absolutely anything and everything necessary (up to and including contacting native speakers over the internet to help you, or a local one if you know one) to make sure that you do. Now, if you were to do this and go through just, say, 10 pages of a normal (adult reading level) non-fiction book in the language that you’re learning, do you see just how much you would learn??? An enormous amount. This isn’t my style, but that’s certainly not to say that it isn’t effective.
Demonstration Video
Here you can see Professor Arguelles doing a short demonstration of the Scriptorium method; he goes into further detail and answers questions about it in this thread on HTLAL:
The secrets of how to use free online resources to teach yourself Spanish, from home, in just a few months - Also: Here are the internet's Top 33 free online Spanish-learning resources
I run a newsletter entirely about how to learn Spanish online for free where I send out every cool new tip and technique that I learn to my subscribers and not only do they get it before anyone else but frequently they get things that no one else ever does. Additionally, I've spent a great deal of time putting together a 3-part series of articles for you on the internet's best free resources for the Spanish-learner that you'll get when you sign up for my newsletter--in addition to all of what you get below, I'll be sure to send you any updates about cool new sites, resources, and learning tips and techniques that I come up with:Part 1: An article called “Spanish Learning Systems: Should you bother?” about whether or not you should even bother with a pre-packaged Spanish-learning system (e.g. Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur) and, if you do decide you want to, where you can go online to find programs that are literally 1/10th the price of older, more common systems like Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur but actually work even better. Also, at the same time, you’ll get a separate e-mail with a very long list of my favorite Top 33 free online Spanish-learning resources (tools, references, sites with free lessons, articles, blogs, forums, etc.) that's far to long to include here, especially with all the other stuff I've got below that's just on this site alone, and I'd like to offer it to you (completely free, you don't have to do anything other than sign up) right now.
Part 2: I explain what language exchanges are (essentially they allow you free access to an unlimited number of native speakers to practice your Spanish with), why they're absolutely essential if you're teaching yourself (I'm serious when I say this: it's impossible to get fluent without them if you're learning a foreign language on your own), how to use them, and which ones are the best.
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Andrew
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