The drunk snail’s journey (TAC14) (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

The drunk snail’s journey (TAC14)
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Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log

161 messages over 21 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 6 ... 20 21 Next >>

Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 41 of 161

08 February 2014 at 4:19pm | IP Logged

1e4e6: You made me laugh, thanks! I needed it before an exam. Surely those items may make you a rich man if any museum found out you've got such treasures. And, if you search your attic thoroughly, you might even find a wormhole to French speaking Luisiana or Russian speaking Alaska ;-)

Suzie: I think teachers who lack basic knowledge should be exemplarily punished. Bart Simpson at the beginning of each episode could be an inspiration on the method. The result is for example a girl (high school age) I met in Austria who was German and had no clue where is the Czech Republic (or that it exists). I was having bad grades because I had trouble learning what is produced in each state of the western africa and there was someone who doesn't know a neighbouring state :-D

garyb: I think those people are just too used to the normal, uneducated foreigners. They are just to prepared to explain reality for the 1000th time that they just switch to autopilot during the conversation.

Thanks, s0fist!!! I didn't think of those snails during the log creation, but I suspect the Hypnotoad has been visiting some of my study sessions. I never know where did the time go and no new knowledge is present in my brain.

mrwarper: I agree partially. Some of the small countries are "natural", like the Switzerland. But the Czech Republic should never have happeded and the same applies to the Czechoslovakia. The European history would have been totally different if the A-U emperor hadn't been an old senile fool and just gave Czechs the semiautonomy and kept the empire together. It was a huge and very progressive state and our country was the most industrial part of it. It had been less easy to swallow than the handful of small states it got dissected into.

I agree that the classroom with TA may be too slow. But I am used to working on several lessons at once which makes it different. The stories are much better than in other textbooks and I especially like the exercise book. The exercises are something I miss in most grammar books as I find them (most of them) to be a useful step in the learning. If the Concise is different, it may be an interesting alternating, thanks for mentioning it.

I learnt to read German and pronounce it before starting the TA so I haven't encountered the problem. And all the textbooks require you to use other sources as well. There is not a single one that would just take you from zero to somewhere by itself. It's a nice dream but nothing more. I take a textbook as one of the sources. A central structure which suggests what to learn after what and it gives me some more or less related beginner audio. Even though the "ladder" is not perfect, it's better for me than going through a grammar from cover to cover right at the beginning.
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mrwarper
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Spain
forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5224 days ago
1493 posts - 2500 votes

Speaks: Spanish*, English^C2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

Message 42 of 161

09 February 2014 at 4:05am | IP Logged

Cavesa wrote:

mrwarper: I agree partially.

Wouldn't it be terribly boring otherwise? ;)

Quote:

Some of the small countries are "natural", like the Switzerland. [...] the A-U [...] empire together.

A very interesting possibility indeed, but one we'll never get to see. While I'm all up for smaller countries merging to form bigger ones, I'm afraid very little is natural in most until a very long time passes by. So... Switzerland is rather curious, with the cantons with different languages, etc. but being astonishingly old. Curious, and a possible example to many others.

Quote:

[...]TA [...] and I especially like the exercise book. The exercises are something I miss in most grammar books as I find them (most of them) to be a useful step in the learning. If the Concise is different, it may be an interesting alternating, thanks for mentioning it.

Well, don't let the title mislead you: it's not just a grammar but actually a complete method with its (missing) audio tapes, etc. It just assumes zero prior knowledge, and leaves "practice" mostly up to the reader. Other than that and being packed cover to cover because it's just one tiny book, it's somewhat similar to TA/TN exercise books: a little bit of grammar, exercises and dialogues to show how it works/ensure it sinks, another little bit building on the previous one, more exercises...

Also, sorry about polluting your log with walls of text that might be better back at mine -- I get carried away sometimes :)

Edit: added "old" to "astonishingly" above, so it all makes some sense...

Edited by mrwarper on 15 February 2014 at 4:50pm
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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4080 days ago
818 posts - 1189 votes

Speaks: English
Studies: German

Message 43 of 161

14 February 2014 at 2:39pm | IP Logged

mrwarper wrote:

There's much fluff and propaganda / preaching and little humour in most textbooks of
today, and certainly TA runs circles around all of those, but how much *language
learning* is there even in cream-of-the-crop TA? I don't mind the occasional discussion
about something in the news, but to me even the best modern books like TA feel like
they're more interested in getting you to go through some stupid 'contents', er, I
mean, all-relevant and current topic from the press, day after day, than in actually
teaching you stuff you'd need to know before can properly discuss whatever you may want
to discuss. I *used to like* TA. But it's designed for a class model where students can
be anywhere from 15 to 75, i.e. all of them are expected to advance at the lowest
possible speed, need to constantly 'be motivated' by stories in the textbook, etc. I
don't know if I ever was like that, but I'm not any more, that's for sure.

My 'Concise German Grammar' covers practically everything you'll ever need in orderly,
organized fashion, and has explanations, dialogues and exercises nicely interleaved so
you can process it all linearly. It even has some humour in a few dialogues, but it
generally just expects you to use the stuff you're taught on your own. And it's less
than 300 pages. I think there must be a reason why this book has been regularly re-
edited at least from 1961 to 1999 (I have a 34th edition from 1992).

A friend of mine put his finger on the main problem I see now with TA. Even if it
somehow acknowledges that learning in the TL is not the way to go (In my workbook, all
explanations are in Spanish) it still clings to it too much. How are you supposed to
read stuff in German from lesson 1, if you're never taught to read? [Not that reading
in German is very difficult, but it's way far easier if you're taught how to do it.]
When my friend mentioned it, I remembered how I had originally learned the basics of
reading in German for a week or so before we could even start with the textbook (Themen
Neu at that point I think). From that point on, I started noticing how besides the
other problems, I get a general feeling that the learner is expected to learn stuff
somewhere else in order not to struggle while going through the book.

And you'll think I am a weirdo, but if I have to learn somewhere else to follow the
book I am supposed to learn from, why bother? I'll go somewhere else and stay there :)

My CGG, OTOH, has a 20-page leading section 'Prosody and orthography': "The alphabet",
"phonetic symbols and pronunciation", "vowel and consonant pronunciation", "division of
words into syllables", "use of upper case", and "stress", followed by a one page
grammar summary, "parts of a sentence", before even going for lesson one "the definite
article" :)

Multi-culti, PC, or anything else that we specifically dislike may be an artifact of
publisher perception, i.e. they publish contents that they think their public will
happily swallow and/or applaud -- which may be a wrong assumption depending on the
learner. But language textbooks publishing is an enormous industry, and they generally
get it right when targeting demographics, or we'd see more changes of direction. So, if
the industry target most of their business at foreign immigrants who will be learning
in classes of international origins, I take that's actually the most likely scenario
today.

That same scenario was the axis of my TEFL qualification course and it couldn't be
further away from the reality we'd immediately face (homogeneous class of nationals
attending classes in a foreign language school). Still, I think that's where most (just
obviously not all) language classes are imparted nowadays, so no wonder (and no
offence) they're not targeting me.

My guess for the prevalence of teach in TL camp is that it is targetting the bottom
half of language learners. The book/class is meant more of a test than as something to
teach. I had argued about the utility of teaching only in TL in an A1 course with my
teacher, where students had no prior exposure to the TL. The teacher basically said
that if TL is the only thing allowed, you will have to learn it. The million euro
question on how would the students learn the language was left untouched. For the top
25% of language learners [ie the HTAL crowd], who are motivated and thus do not need
this test, these books are crap. For the bottom 30%, these books serve as twice a week
reminders that they do not know the TL, and that they must make an effort to learn it.
Without these twice a week reminders, they might not put in the effort.

Another trend that be seen in the teaching community is that students are being viewed
as getting dumber. To cater to the bottom 30%, then, the texts are made more dumb, with
less text, bigger fonts, more pictures. This backfires, and these newer texts lead to
students learning even less. So then a crop of even more dumb students emerge, feeding
the cycle.
1 person has voted this message useful

Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 44 of 161

12 March 2014 at 8:37pm | IP Logged

Hi everyone!

It's been some time because life got busy as usual (good bye my worst 6wc ever, I
hadn't expected to fail that miserably). School is annoying and so on. But good news
(not that good for language learning): I've recently fallen in love :-)

But I keep going on somehow.

I've watched a terribly sweet Angelique, Marquise des Anges (+1 to my ASCR) and I'm
still progressing through seven books in English and French (yeah, the "reading now"
shelf got a bit crowded).

I've done bits of Spanish grammar but I have to dive in seriously now.

To what has been said a month ago after my last post:
mrwarper: You're one of my favourite people to partially agree with ;-)
Gemuse: I agree about the cycle of students getting dumber and books getting dumbed
down. It is sad but true. And it happens not only in language classes and their
coursebooks.
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Emme
Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 5345 days ago
980 posts - 1594 votes

Speaks: Italian*, English, German
Studies: Russian, Swedish, French

Message 45 of 161

12 March 2014 at 9:27pm | IP Logged

Good to see you around!

And happy for you about your latest “sentimental” events! ;-) Don’t worry about their being detrimental for your language learning: there are more important things in life than languages!

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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6595 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 46 of 161

12 March 2014 at 9:55pm | IP Logged

Ohhh congrats! :)))))

I did Romanian for the 6WC because of a seemingly promising relationship... also one of my worst target scores ever. That's the only real disappointment though, otherwise it was nice while it lasted.

Edited by Serpent on 12 March 2014 at 10:06pm
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 47 of 161

09 April 2014 at 7:30pm | IP Logged

Thanks, friends. My "sentimental event" is still going on and looks really promising. (He obviously isn't easy to scare :-D).

But about my languages:

Spanish: Some grammar done, I'm still working on it but soooo slowly!

French: Some grammar reviewed, need to prepare for a terminology exam. I've got two weeks. Tonight, I plan to get through a nice chunk of grammar again. I can only recommend Grammaire Progressive du Francais Perfectionnement. There is quite everything! With exemples, nicely sorted and focused on common mistakes.

Others: sleeping.

ASCR:
French: books: still reading (and a few in English as well, I am just a bit busy to read and I am progressing through several at once)
movies:
+4 = 8 episodes of Les Revenants. First half was exciting, the end disappointed me. I hope the second season (beginning this autumn) will make up for it)
+2 = Merveilleuse Angélique and Angélique et le Roy. Well, I know I know. It is silly but I enjoy these.
And despite having fulfilled my English movies part, I am watching Once upon a Time (and spin off OuaT in Wonderland), Arrow, Big Bang Theory and Grimm. Fortunately for my studies, they are all taking breaks every now and then. If only I wasn't that prificient at procrastinating in any other way as well. And if only I could all these in French/Spanish dubbing as soon as the american original is out.
1 person has voted this message useful

Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 48 of 161

13 April 2014 at 10:07am | IP Logged

ASCR: French movies:
Underworld 4 : dubbed, accidentally found, enjoyed. It's nothing too intelectual, the language isn't hard. +1
Belle et la Bete: new, original, romantic fantasy, I had expected a bit more from it. Good for relax. Language harder than in Underworld but still nothing complicated. +1

I found out my main and quite the only weakness, when listening to French movies or series, are the unclear parts where there is murmuring, other noise, sobbing and so on. But it's getting better. My comprehension is usually at 99% so I don't mind much.

I'm sooo looking forward to the SC starting in May!

Other than that: I am focusing on French.

I've been reviewing some grammar. Toute la conjugaison (which I've already mentioned a few times) is totally awesome. It is aimed at the natives so it is perfect for people who have got lots of input but need to polish their writing. There is a whole chapter dealing with all those "details" like where to write double consonnants, the rules for accent changes during conjugation and so on. It is perfect for an advanced learner in my opinion. Some parts (like the beautiful colourful tables) are suitable for any level but some of the chapters count on the fact that you've heard the thing many times, you can say it, but you are unsure when it comes to writing.

Medical vocabulary is the main topic now. I need to continue as soon as I finish this post, exam is tomorrow in the evening.

And as soon as I've got the exam, I can focus on Spanish! I have two months left until I'm going to the internship in Spain.

P.S. Tomorrow, when I'll have the exam and nothing to worry about for Tuesday, I'll be a good teammember (or rather stop being a horrible one) and I'll go through logs! I am curious how is everyone and how are you all progressing. I could do with such an additional motivation dose you usually provide me with :-)

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