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Diversion into Programmatic Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 17 30 July 2006 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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After spending a week on FSI Basic Spanish unit 47, I felt my brain was turning to mush. I'd been thinking that 2 weeks per unit would be an acceptable pace, especially with unit 47 being one of the longest units. However, after 1 week I succumbed to a wanderful temptation. Now I'm spending some time going through Programmatic Spanish. I started at unit 14, as I'd gone through to that unit at least twice before. I'd even wandered up into the upper twenties in that 50 unit course.
So this week I did units 14-20. The current plan is to complete the entire shebang. I'm calculating it will take about 2 months. That 2 month target coincides with some of my other short term targets. At the moment, my program consists of: 1) Review of FSI Basic units 24-47. I did 24-27 this week. I think this will take me about 2 months also. So far, I've been doing all the readings. 2) Wave 1 through Assimil's Using Spanish. This is a 60 day course, which is also 2 months. 3) FSI Programmatic Spanish. 4) Audiobook studies. At the moment I'm going through the seemingly more advanced of two books I'm focusing on. (Fast reader, long sentences, plenty of new vocab). My approach for this pass through the book is slower. I do one paragraph at a time like this: a) Read out loud in Spanish. b) Silently read English translation. c) Read out load again in Spanish. d) Read out load with tape, trying to shadow. I generally do a page or two in the audiobook each day. At that rate, the book will probably take about 2 more months to complete. I've found with a previous book that I go faster as I get through the book as more of the vocab is re-used, and/or my patience begins to wane. For passive listening I have these minor supplements are: 1) Dialogs from Ultimate Spanish 2) Dialogs from Street Spanish 1 - 3. 3) Dialogs from Streetwise Spanish 4) Assimil with Ease 5) Puntoycoma free issue. 6) A few Wordtheque stories. 7) Assimil Using Spanish. The passive listening stuff fills up my mp3 player and is around 15 hours of material. It takes about a week to hear it all while I'm doing other things. I spend a little time reading transcripts from the above sources where the audio is difficult to understand. I've been using the mp3 player at work for about 2 weeks. Before that, it was the mp3 player built into my computer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7236 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 2 of 17 30 July 2006 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I find that when you're stuck in a program/book and unable to go further, it's time to pick up something else. For the Chinese I'm now studying, I'm rotating between FSI, Teach Yourself, and Pimsuler.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 17 05 August 2006 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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This week I did Programmatic units 21-25. I've thought about turning some of the variations/comprehension recordings into dialogs for listening. I haven't done that though. I understand them pretty well, so it's probably not worth the time.
I reviewed FSI Basic units 28-30 this week. So far I've kept up on the readings. There were a few parts of the Platiquemos conversational stimulus that I didn't get down as well as I'd like, but I figure this isn't my last review. Happily, some of the tougher drills, the double clitic contextual situations in unit 30 were much easier this time through. Week 2 in my wave 1 through Assimil Using Spanish. For the look away from the book and repeat portion of the study, I break up the sentences into very small fragments of just a few words. When the lessons I've done wave 1 on come up in my passive listening, I follow them much better than the others which I've only done what I call wave 0 on. In the tough audiobook, I did about 1 chapter. (The book has about 26 chapters in almost 190 pages). Tomorrow I plan to review the tape aloud for the first 5 chapters. I just finished the 5th chapter tonight, and this first 20% of the book has taken a few weeks. I figure it will be an opportunity to refresh some of the vocabulary which may help so I don't have to look up the same words as frequently as I continue through the book. I read/listened through the dialogs for units 16-20 in Ultimate Spanish. The earlier units I'd read before and were more comprehensible. Another item on my mp3 player is La casa en Mango Street. I've read the Spanish and English for about 7-8 chapters from the 2nd CD this week. The chapters are generally short. It has some new vocabulary and idioms. The writing is vivid, more picturesque than the other audiobooks I'm using. I plan to use this thread to track my experience through this 9 week study path. I'm already thinking that when I finish it I'll want to work in some more realistic materials. Perhaps a short daily news program, a book by Dan Brown, and just listening to the Spanish radio on the commute home. It seems like it would be less work, and may recharge my studies. I'll still do FSI Basic drills on the way to work when my mind is fresh. For the time being though, I'll keep plowing through the material at hand. In the end I expect it to bear fruit. Edited by luke on 05 August 2006 at 8:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 17 13 August 2006 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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At the end of week 3, I made a good bit of progress in my FSI Basic Spanish review. I had a trip and was able to review the audio for units 31-37 this week. I've only done the readings up to 33 though.
In Assimil Using Spanish, I faithfully listened to the daily lesson, but haven't done the "look away from the book and recite" step for several days. I only did units 26, 27, and part of 28 in Programmatic Spanish. A couple days I side tracked into some news programs, which is the time I'd normally have used for PS. In the audio book, I did complete the quick pass through chapters 1-5, but have only made it through a few more paragraphs in the new chapter. I started listening to Angeles y Demonios this weekend and can get the story pretty well without looking at a book. Some descriptive setup eludes me, but that's often not what propels the story. I'm considering a diversion into this book to break up the pace and make things more fun. Since the impetus of this thread was a diversion, perhaps no one will be surprised. I do really feel like doing some things different will help me. Part of me is thinking, chuck the whole study program and do more extemporaneous and real material. I did read this week that part of the evolution of language learning at FSI is to use more realistic material than they did 50 years ago, and also to allow flexibility in their programs for the different learning styles of their students. I reiterated to my boss this week that I'd finish FSI Basic Spanish this year. Oddly, I feel responsibility to you all (the readers who follow this thread) to carry on with my plan. Perhaps though you'd forgive me another diversion/experiment in language learning. Edited by luke on 27 August 2006 at 8:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 5 of 17 13 August 2006 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
It has been helpful as far as motivation to take this diversion. As stated directly above, I'm thinking about a more dramatic detour. One idea is to use vocabulearn as seeds for improvisation. I.E., rather than just hear "beans" and say "frijoles", make up something like "Que pedo estás haciendo con esos frijoles". That might be fun. Another thought was to describe what I see driving around. Rather than drill, concoct some off the wall monologue. Who knows, if I get really crazy with it, I could make up dialogues. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 17 20 August 2006 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 4.
I reviewed FSI Basic Spanish units 38-41 and caught up on the readings in units 33-41. I delve into the grammatical/linguistic explanations when one of the units seems more difficult. That has helped a lot as far as "focusing on form". I.E. one of the units this week was talking about obligatory usage of the subjunctive with certain phrase relators. Reading that explanation helped me a lot as I could formulate why the subjunctive was used. Going into unit 42 will be my first review of the upcoming units. In Assimil Using Spanish, I went through listened and repeated a little. Only once this week did I do the "look away and repeat" step. I can see that is a vital step, but I wanted to catch up on the FSI readings this week. At some point, I'll do a legitimate wave 1 through Using Spanish, but that currently seems some months away. I still plan to continue with at least my second feeble wave 0. In Programmatic Spanish, I went through unit 29 and part of 30. My enthusiasm for that program is waning again. I could just make a decision to cut it out right now. Part of my thinking for PS was that it covers the subjunctive pretty well, as far as talking about 9 situations where one uses it. With my discovery that reading the Basic Spanish explanations may be sufficient to get a grasp of when to use subjunctive, my strength to continue PS is being sapped. I think both Assimil Using Spanish and Programmatic Spanish are substantial enough to warrant closer attention. By making them each a small quarter of my 9 week program, I'm not doing them justice. Then again, there's always the "quick but poorly" philosophy that may be worth applying here. Of course I can always review them again, and perfection of their content isn't the goal for this run. This whole 8-9 week run is a mild diversion, and I was thinking it would help me to inject some more material just so continue progressing. We'll have to wait and see how nature takes it's course next week, as to how much further I get in PS. On the "tough" audiobook, I finished chapter 6. I've adjusted my approach a little there as well to reduce the time I have to spend on the book. Current approach: 1) Silently read native translation 2) Read Spanish out loud with audio. Theoretically, that should let me cover a chapter in 1/2 the time. Some of my study materials at times seem like a bit of drudge, but I think they're working. I picked up a book on Latin American Literature for 300 level students at the library (3rd year university), and I can understand it pretty well. At some point I'll have to make a break into more interesting material. The only question is when. I have this small fear that if I jump head first into extemporaneous speaking (if only to myself), I'll start to set some incorrect patterns in my speech, which I really don't want. Edited by luke on 20 August 2006 at 7:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 7 of 17 21 August 2006 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
There are some interesting threads on the FSI programs from FLTeach. One bit that caught my attention:
Edited by luke on 25 August 2006 at 6:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 17 27 August 2006 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 5.
In FSI Basic Spanish I did units 42-45 and about 1/2 of 46 so far. I'm happy with my progress in FSI this week, since I'd only spent a week each on units 42-47 in the past. I've done the readings through unit 43. I'm considering not continuing with the FSI readings for the moment. Units 44 and 45 are missing from my hard copy of the manual, and in the 4th manual (units 46-55), it looks like they no longer offer any vocabulary translations. Not a big deal, but if I'm going to struggle with some readings, I'd rather do it with something I want to read in the first place. In Using Spanish, I did lessons 29-35 as scheduled, although I didn't do the repeat while looking away step, nor did I shadow several lessons. In Programmatic Spanish, I read through units 30 and 31. I skipped several of the translation exercises. At minimum, I read the explanations and edited the audio for the drills for future use. I haven't touched PS in almost 4 days. In the audiobook track, I went through pages 60-103. I didn't write down translations for all of the unknown words, which I had been transfering from the dictionary or a translation, into the book I read from. As the week progressed, I went through the material faster. Rather than a paragraph at a time, I was doing a page at a time, then a couple pages between the "read translation" and "shadow audio with transcript" steps I mentioned in last week's post. Suddenly the idea of using an upcoming road trip as an opportunity to knock out a bunch of this diversion exercise. I believe I'll get through units 46 and 47 this coming week, which would complete the review of FSI that I'd planned. I could burn through a couple weeks of Assimil lessons, albeit sin perfección, and knock out the last half 75 pages or so from my audio book during the road trip. I'd be dropping the goal of completing Programmatic for the short term. It seems like a good idea at the moment. I'm itching to get into some different material. The last leg of FSI Basic Spanish course, units 48-55 will be demanding enough. I don't need to pile on a bunch of other stuff into my study knapsack for the journey. Edited by luke on 27 August 2006 at 8:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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