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The Dream Program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7227 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 9 of 33 03 March 2005 at 10:45am | IP Logged |
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I agree with the basic format so far.
I would make sure there are plenty of lexical drills taken from the dialogues (one of the major faults of "Modern Russian," in my humble opinion). As for grammar, however we want to label the drills, they should be as unpredictable as possible for the student (at least in the advanced lessons). For example, there could be multiple cues which force the student to quickly manipulate the sentence on multiple factors....not just simple fill-in-the-blank type drills. I would also make sure that the speaking voices are fast and not overly articulated. To date, the most realistic program I have ever heard, insofar as listening is concerned, is the "Colloquial _______" series--very little audio, but the dialogues are at least rather fast and a bit slurred. This dream package would also have to be huge--ideally like 100 tapes for each language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 33 03 March 2005 at 11:55am | IP Logged |
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Seth, did you find any good Russian drills, even text-based? It seems the only thing you can find is fill-the-blank exercises that look like mathematical puzzles. I long for those repetitive drills found in FSI Spanish. Now I have to make my own drills and work with a Russian speaker to do them.
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| Languagelover Heptaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 7379 days ago 41 posts - 50 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 33 03 March 2005 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
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I would say that FSI spannish was not far from the perfect language programm. The great thing is that it doesn't abandon you at some intermediate level and brings you to a very high level. It is the proof that a language method with books and tape can do it.
Pimsleur is good in general but it would be better if they much more different speakers. On the Pimsleur that I have done, it is always the same 3 people, you get use to their accents and that doesn't prepare you correctly for the real world. Furthermore, after the 3 volumes of Pimsleur, you may feel lost without a sufficient level to be fluent. So my dream method would be a much longer Pimsleur, with many different speakers, a script, some grammar explanation and a variation of drill exercices. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7241 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 12 of 33 03 March 2005 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
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FSI Spanish had great substitution drills. They would take something in the middle of the sentence like say, (el) agua, change it to (las) puertas, and then you would have to change your verb and the definite article at the same time.
Then they would do stuff like change las to unas and go back to agua. The (sigh) French FSI seems to be not as well thought out... is it just me? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7210 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 33 03 March 2005 at 5:41pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, I really like the substitution drills in the Spanish program. I did the first level of the German program more than 20 years ago, and I seem to remember that it was even better than the Spanish. But that was a long time ago.
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| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7227 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 14 of 33 03 March 2005 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
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Francois,
I regret that I have not. At learn-how-to-speak.com I found what I thought was a long lost FSI program for Russia. It wasn't; and what it is is a waste of time and money. It's really too bad. I have a Russian tutor and a few Russian friends with whom to practice. Moreover, I have exhausted about every audio/book course out there--95% of being pretty ineffective--and I still make enough mistakes. I long for better drills as well. I'm interested in the Defense Language program should anyone find out more about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 15 of 33 05 March 2005 at 11:55am | IP Logged |
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Three or four stages of audio files for each lesson.
As an example, the Penton Overseas "Learn in your car" series has a format something like this: English: I go Spanish: Voy Spanish: Voy English: to Spanish: a Spanish: a English: the museum Spanish: el museo Spanish: el museo English: I go to the museum. Spanish: Voy al museo. Spanish: Voy al museo. Call that stage one. 2nd stage would remove the repeated phrases and make the pauses shorter. It would cover the material in about 60% of the time of the original. English: I go Spanish: Voy English: to Spanish: a English: the museum Spanish: el museo English: I go to the museum. Spanish: Voy al museo. Stage 3: English: I go to the museum. Spanish: Voy al museo. You can say that most courses already do something like that and to a degree it's true. For instance, FSI basic spanish will have different sections with different exercises to teach you a specific language point. singular/plural. (adding s or es to noun). definite articles. (el, la, los, las) indefinite articles. (un, una, ...) masuline/feminine adjective forms. As the course progresses, the exercises begin to incorporate multiple aspects that you should know. For instance, in a substitution exercise after the grammar points above have been covered, they'll have something like: I have a good table. Tengo una mesa buena. mesas Tengo unas mesas buenas. escritorio Tengo un escritorio bueno. So at this point in the program, they are expecting you to recognize several things may have to change in a sentence when the direct object changes. (although you won't be thinking, "the direct object changed and I have to change gender, number, and make the adjective agree with the noun." FSI gets you to know this intuitively, or as I've heard it described, "with automaticity". What FSI doesn't have per se, is a shortened version. Typically, there is time to repeat an each exercise three times. For instance, in a translation exercise. recording: I want to eat something. you say: Quiero comer algo. recorded confirmation: Quiero comer algo. you say: Quiero comer algo. Taking out the second pause for you to repeat would save about 25% of the time to review. Having said that though, there are a couple tricks I've used with undoctored FSI recordings. 1) shadowing, following, or echoing the confirmation. That is, you try to speak at the same time as the recorded confirmation. This is helpful for pronunciation. It works better for exercises that have you saying a phrase, rather than a word or two. I've used this with "learn spanish in your car" too. 2) Improvisation. This is a little harder, but when I can do it, I really feel like I'm making progress. Using the example above, here's an improvisation: recording: I want to eat something. you say: Quiero comer algo. recorded confirmation: Quiero comer algo. you say: Vamos al restaurante. or you say: Quiero beber una taza de cafe tambien. or you say: Tengo mucha hambre. or you say: Tienes hambre? or you say: Quiere ir al restaurante conmigo? So with improvistation, you're using the second pause not to repeat the original phrase, but to make up a phrase that's related in some way. It's a very active learning process. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7318 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 16 of 33 16 April 2005 at 4:50pm | IP Logged |
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I just thought I'd revive this dead topic to add my suggestions for a dream program.
I'd start with a 20-minute Pimsleur lesson which would introduce the sentence structures and vocabulary for the lesson. This would just be a warm up. After that would be 15 minutes of FSI-style drills to reinforce the grammatical patterns covered in the warm up. This would be followed by another 15 minutes of vocabulary drills. These drills would basically involve translating English words and sentences into the target language until you've mastered the vocabulary for the lesson. The final section would be a 10-minute dialogue at regular speed which would operate within the confines of the grammar and vocabulary taught so far. The book would merely be a transcript of the course with some extra grammar explanations. It would also contain translations of the dialogues. The course could be used with or without the book. Each lesson would introduce 50 new vocabulary items. In total, there would be 200 lessons, each on its own CD, and you'd want to listen to each lesson 5 times. In the end, after 1000 hours, you would be fluent in the target language and have a vocabulary of 10,000 words. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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