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TAC 2012 Teams and Inds (General Info) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 33 of 51 01 December 2012 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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For this TAC we made three substantial changes: We allowed for much larger teams, and for people to join
several teams and we had common team threads. I assume someone will soon start organising TAC 2013, and therefore I am curious as to how this has worked out, and whether this is something we should keep, and whether basing the teams on languages is still the best idea. I participated in the Russian team in both 2011 and 2012. In 2011 we were 6 people, but half way through the year the activity was so low, that I merged with people from a couple of other teams. We were still just two people left standing at the end of the year. In 2012 we started out with 20 participants, so even though we have lost quite a few, we are still enough left that are active so that we can have discussions, and we have people that comment on our logs as well as the occasional Skype session. A couple of us have even met up. The only disadvantage of such large teams is that you get little time to visit the other logs, which is something I have missed. Lots of good logs out there. I would therefore support continuing with large teams in 2013. Since I have only participated in one team myself, I have no experiences when it comes to being part of several teams, so I am interested in knowing the experiences from others. Why did you chose that, did you get the effect you wanted with it, were the "cultures" of the different teams challenging or were the levels of activity, team sizes and methods similar? As for keeping a common language as a common criterion, I have been particularly happy with that this year where we have actually had some Skype sessions where we have talked a bit of Russian. I am sure we could have achieved even more with this, but I am still happy we did it. I saw however that the second part of last year when I was on a mixed language team, that worked out quite well too, so even if we as a general rule should keep the language groups, I see no problem with some people having mixed groups. I believe we have had that this year too? And what are the experiences of those with two focus languages - what has been the advantages/disadvantages of that? And I love the idea of the common team thread. It is the perfect tool to leave messages for the whole team to read, and to discuss times for Skype sessions, and to give each other a gentle nudge when motivation was low. Particularly on big teams it is practical to have a common place to discuss. I am sure we could have made more out of that too - writing to each other in Russian, but some of us (blush..) are still a bit hesitant about writing Russian in public, Nevertheless - a great tool. So how about the rest of you - what are your experiences? Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 01 December 2012 at 12:59pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 34 of 51 01 December 2012 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Team い seems to be down to a core of around four survivors now, but those who are left are still heading for a strong finish I think! My own experience of TAC 2012 is that it's my best yet.
I totally agree on large teams - it makes for a hectic start but there are so many casualties on the way, at least with a large team you have a chance of finishing the year with some teammates! I like having a focus language for the team as it really helps with sharing recommendations of language specific resources. But perhaps that suits me because apart from occasional flirtations with other languages, for now I seem to remain largely focussed on just one. But I quite liked the way teams formed themselves last year as people declared interests and found teammates that way. I think there is space for more mixed teams to exist if people want to do that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6448 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 35 of 51 01 December 2012 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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TAC groups - organize them any way you like, not just by language (for some it may seem too much like a classroom - or the home for the elderly. I feel as if someone's constantly checking someone else's pulse). If you want the threads to remain active and easily joinable you should have one group per language.
Themes: Animaniacs, movie buffs, lit freaks, grammarians, sport jocks, iversonians (or babylonians). So you can participate in the German thread and the movie one. Jump in and out of interest groups as your interests change but stick to your language of choice. Switch languages, but stick to your favorite movies. Keep it simple and fun. This would allow team members from different groups to meet and mingle and drop in on their language of choice. Anyway, I hope this place livens up a bit. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4869 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 36 of 51 02 December 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I would definitely like to be part of an Asian Team again. I think it's very helpful to have shared study languages. I'm also planning to study Persian and it would be awesome to have teammates for that, but I guess that might not happen.
The only think this year's TAC seemed to be lacking was the Total Annihilation aspect. Maybe it's just our team that was a little too laid-back for my taste. I think it might be possible to have less drop-outs (or rather less people who vanish without a word) if there's more accountability. I'm not sure if it's desirable or even possible to implement more accountability in the overall TAC organisation. It would maybe be good to have some successful TAC logs as examples in the TAC 2013 explanation, maybe with a commentary on how much people manage to improve in one year. As for the details, I guess it's best to leave that to each team. I'm still mystified as to how the TAC organisation works... Who is going to organise the overall challenge? What if no one feels responsible? :D If I understood correctly, this year didn't really have an organiser. Ellasevia started the thread, but was actually looking for someone else to organise... How is the evaluation of TAC 2012 going to be done? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6448 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 37 of 51 02 December 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
sheetz log 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 38 of 51 02 December 2012 at 2:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it would be good to somehow..account for the Super Challenge. I'd love to be in the team with other people who do it:) I'd also love to be in the team with all my current teammates, though. And a few other people like Julie, Marikki, Chung :)
One disappointing thing for me is how the 6WC had nothing to do with TAC. too many people seemed to do languages unrelated to their TAC teams:/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 39 of 51 02 December 2012 at 7:32am | IP Logged | ||
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But I'm too "good" at Japanese to do the 6wc with it, but not good enough to drop it as my main focus language. Otherwise I'd be 6wc Japanese at every opportunity!
Druckfehler, I hope we can have laid back TAC teams too. Although I do find it amazing how many dropouts there are when all you have to do is keep a log for a year. Admittedly that means you need something to write about, but still, it's not so hard! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 40 of 51 02 December 2012 at 8:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with g-bod (my teammate) that this has been a great TAC year, and I think our team, those of us who remain, have made a pretty good attempt at annihilating, or at least badly butchering :) Japanese. I don’t feel like I’ve improved much at all or even gotten anything done. On the other hand, I spent several hours yesterday lying on the couch with a Japanese crime novel, often reading several pages without touching the dictionary, so I must have made some progress. It’s too bad we don’t have before and after pictures ;)
I think the way it was organized this year was pretty good. Some popular languages like Japanese and Russian easily ended up with large teams and in those cases a same-language team works. Others enjoyed having mixed language teams. I liked having big teams because as Cristina said, a lot of people disappear. So with a big team, you have some hope of having some team members at the end. I’m already looking forward to continuing in 2013 and I hope that the four of us who are left on Team い would all like to go on to TAC 2013 and Team う. (Or maybe we should be more creative in our name this year?) I wouldn’t mind doing some organizing, but I will be at my ex-husband’s house for Christmas/New Year (unless we drive each other crazy before then and I come home early), and that’s probably the most important time as far as organizing the TAC goes. If the neighbors still haven’t secured their Wi-Fi and the signal is strong enough, it would be fine, but I can’t guarantee that, unfortunately. I think last year, we had a bit of organizing in the beginning, but after a while people just asked the various teams if they could join them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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