luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 321 of 439 18 October 2014 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
FSI Basic French - I made it through tape 11.5. I may have approached it a dozen times. I say "approached" because if I hadn't finished the tape in 30-35 minutes, I moved on to something else. I also read through the grammar point several times and the exercises a few times as well. I listened to tape 11.5 with "truncated silence" several times sort of in the background or when walking around a bit at the office. All that extra exposure was necessary to get through the tape with a sense of accomplishment. Now I'm on tape 11.6 and it doesn't seem like it will take as many repeats as 11.5 did.
French In Action - I'm beginning lesson 3. I watched the video yesterday. It took about a week to go through lesson 2, studying about 30-60 minutes per day.
French Frequency Dictionary - word 1100 is concevoir. I changed the first easy interval back to 4 days from to 3. I became afraid the reviews would pile up too quickly and the 10 or so words a day pace wouldn't be quite as sustainable.
Radio France International - RFI has been fitting nicely first thing in the morning before Anki. I like to use google translate when it's working, which doesn't seem to be the case this morning.
Using French - Leçon 61 pour aujourd'hui. J'écoute dans la salle de bains.
Audio Livres - I'm into the appendices of the old favorite in the car. I've got a couple others audiobooks going on that memory stick. The other old fave is still on chapter 7 of about 24 - 26 I believe.
Learn French in your Car - probably lesson 66 or 67. I don't do this one every day. I usually do it when FSI has defeated me on a particular day and I just listened to audiobook during most of my commute. I use LFIYC to ease the guilt a bit.
Sur la Liberté - by John Stuart Mill. Three weeks ago I finished a grand tour of this listen/reading in En/Fr, Fr/En, and Fr/Fr. I'm still on chapter 2 in a listen wave in the car. It's a very long chapter - an hour or two.
Vol de Nuit - by St-Exupery. I finished the listen only wave in the gym, which was preceded by 4 listen/reads in 4 days. I'm satisfied with my work on it for now.
Philosophie Vivant - is back in the gym slot. Lecture 9 is next.
Other things - I listened to chapter 1 of Democracy in America one morning when I couldn't sleep. That's 40 minutes and my comprehension is pretty decent. I have Assimil Business French on the memory stick I use in the car. That's around lesson 31. Those recordings are just over 5 minutes per lesson. I usually slide one of these in when it fits well in my commute. Same story for Using French on the memory stick. Those lessons are shorter, so they often slide in right before I arrive at my destination. I also have New French With Ease and Using French on my phone for 2 minute commutes "between classes". Sometimes I shadow NFWE pretending I'm talking on the phone when I can't be overheard. I listen to some other audiobooks in the background while working if intense concentration isn't required by my actual work. I don't know how much background listening helps, but there is comfort in mentally shifting focus for a second and knowing exactly what the book is saying. I do this with non-fiction I'm already familiar with. I also listened to "old faves" for a couple hours yesterday while doing mostly mindless housework.
I'm not getting enough sleep these last few days. I probably have too much on my plate right now.
Edited by luke on 19 October 2014 at 2:07pm
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 322 of 439 28 October 2014 at 2:54am | IP Logged |
I was on on the road last week with work, so my routine was atypical. Details in the sections below. I'm on the road this week too.
FSI Basic French - I've made it through tape 11.6, which wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. Since I wasn't commuting, my FSI time was cut almost to nothing. I so looking forward to the end of unit 11 so I turn around and start reviewing. I may even retreat early.
French In Action - This got all the extra time. I brought the books and first couple DVDs with me and have the audio on a memory stick. I've started unit 5, which is good progress on this front. This course is not as fast going as I'd hoped. It's not that hard. Basically it's lower intensity. I'm not certain this is a better track, but I'm sticking with it for now.
French Frequency Dictionary - word 1100 is still concevoir. Since I was travelling and haven't setup Anki Web I did no SRS while out of town. It kind of showed. Anki is better to do every day. When I have caught up again after my return, I think I'll try the "low hanging fruit" method, which is to set the leech threshold very low. In conjunction with that, I'll add words at a faster rate to pick up the easier words. I don't know that this is technically smart either, but it will get me to word 5000 faster.
Radio France International - No RFI while I was on out of town, but since this doesn't have an direct metric, I'm not really falling behind.
Using French - Leçon 64 dans la salle de bains.
New French With Ease - This was/is on my phone into lesson 99. I came up with a brilliant idea. That is, listen to the audio, then, if I didn't understand something, read the lesson, then later listen again. I'm surprised I hadn't thought of this earlier. It seems like the right approach for picking up the miscellaneous missed words in the course without spending too much time on it. Today I went through lessons 105-113 on the plane. They are pretty much down, but I didn't delete them as I usually do when I finish a lesson. I'll do that on the way home at the end of the week if they are still in my head.
Audio Livres - I finished the appendices of the old favorite in the car. The other old fave is probably still on chapter 7 of 24 since there was little time in the car this week.
Learn French in your Car - still on lesson 66 or 67.
Sur la Liberté - by John Stuart Mill. Five weeks ago I finished a grand tour of this listen/reading in En/Fr, Fr/En, and Fr/Fr. I'm still starting chapter 3 in a listen wave in the car.
Philosophie Vivant - in the gym slot did get attention. Lecture 15 is next.
Other things - So I'm having second thoughts about changing my study program as drastically as I've done. A bit afraid that French in Action, which is a time sink and the other reviews I have lined up will lower the intensity of my study and I'll slide a little.
The bright side would be that I shouldn't become burnt out on FSI at least.
I also watched a fascinating lecture on vocabulary by Iversen. That has got another SRS wheel turning with word lists. That is, to put those unknown words from Assimil into word lists and measure progress by knowing everything in a lesson. Although I think this is a great approach, for the moment, I'm holding off because I'm ratcheting down Assimil for a while and going to try that "low hanging fruit" approach for Anki.
Stay tuned to find out what happens next in this exciting saga!
Edited by luke on 28 October 2014 at 2:59am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 323 of 439 28 October 2014 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
So I've slept on it and watched some more video and I'm thinking I might should follow the counsel of the grand masters. This morning's thoughts are that the writing word lists using the Iversen technique would help gather some of the fruit from the Assimil tree. In the long run I won't think, I wish I didn't know that vocabulary and focusing on what I explicity didn't know or was fuzzy was silly.
So maybe I'll wind down Anki for a bit. The physicality of writing and holding 5 words in my head long enough to write them down seems like it would be effective.
On the Arguelles front, continuing to give attention to listening and reading and speaking aloud all seem like they have to help. In my experience, they always have.
A few notes from Professor Alexander Arguelles - Reading Literature in Foreign Languages: Tool, Techniques, Target talk...
5 audiobook techniques
1) Listen/Reading (L2/L1) which is good for global learning.
2) Reading/Listening (L2/L1) - good for reading knowledge.
3) Listen/Reading (L2/L2) - the step beyond the first two.
4) Listening only - a challenge and skill of it's own.
5) Listen/Reading (L2/L3) - a way to study two languages at the same time.
http://www.keybr.com/ is a site the Professor likes. I did it a bit and it does seem like a great way to learn the French keyboard layout. That is a skill that can be built on especially in the context of vocabulary and perhaps grammar too. Focus on details, etc.
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 324 of 439 31 October 2014 at 1:40am | IP Logged |
Notes from the French in Action Instructor's Guide.
There is a "Short Cut to French" set of 7, 30 minute videos for the student who comes in half way through the course. These just have the story of Robert et Mireille up to lesson 27. I didn't find them on youtube.
The Study Guide can be forbidden if you want to make the student's work harder to figure things out. It can be helpful though, so teacher's can make their own rule with regard to using it.
A lot of the audio should be done without looking at the workbook first. This forces the student to rely on their ears more. If the student has any difficulty figuring what is being said, they can look at the words for help.
One could do completely blind dictation exercises. That is, rather than just fill in the blank on the current grammar point, one could write the whole sentence, perhaps without even looking at the workbook for help. That would also bring up writing skills a bit faster.
The downside of that is it may be too difficult. The student isn't expected to learn everything. Some workbook exercises are meant to be very challenging and others should be easy. This and other things makes the course suitable for fast and slow students. Advanced students can be challenged more.
There is alot of encouragment to use the material creatively rather than just as it's laid out in the book.
Have headphones or a good sound system to make the audio easier to hear and distinguish.
A teacher can use the video and stop it and ask questions like, "how might he respond"?
There are lots of ideas in the book on how the teacher can adapt the course to the classroom.
The Instructor's Guide covers the whole 52 lesson course in one book. It is not split in two parts.
spoiler alert
Part 2 of the Study Guide is also in English.
Edited by luke on 31 October 2014 at 1:42am
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 325 of 439 31 October 2014 at 8:49am | IP Logged |
Somehow I missed the notification for your previous post (notifications seem rather random at times). Thanks for all of the links. I am especially intrigued by the keybr website. I had a quick look, and the settings don't include any non-English keyboards. Does he just leave the settings "as-is" and supply his own content to type?
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Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4010 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 326 of 439 01 November 2014 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
Thanks so much for posting the link and your summary of Professor Arguelles' presentation. I was able to
watch it this morning, and found it very interesting - particularly in reference to the Super Challenge I am
working on right now and the book selections and my approach.
Cheers!
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 327 of 439 01 November 2014 at 12:22am | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
Somehow I missed the notification for your previous post (notifications seem rather
random at times). Thanks for all of the links. I am especially intrigued by the keybr website. I had a quick
look, and the settings don't include any non-English keyboards. Does he just leave the settings "as-is" and
supply his own content to type? |
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I only spent a few minutes on the site but I found a French keyboard and did some exercise. I think it will be
very helpful when I get to the point of switching my keyboard when I want to write in French. Up until now,
I've been copy/pasting the special characters.
I also think the keybr.com will be super helpful if you can tell it what texts you want to type. I haven't delved
that far into. First step, get used to the French keyboard using their exercise templates.
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 328 of 439 01 November 2014 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
Mohave wrote:
Thanks so much for posting the link and your summary of Professor Arguelles'
presentation. I was able to watch it this morning, and found it very interesting - particularly in reference to the
Super Challenge I am working on right now and the book selections and my approach. |
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I find myself listening to most of his lectures more than once. The reading one in the link above is one of
them.
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