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Building SE Asian Courses - Right Track? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| snoonan Triglot Newbie United States learningindones Joined 6252 days ago 23 posts - 56 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Indonesian | Message 1 of 40 29 October 2013 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My wife and I are working on online resources primarily focused on Southeast Asian languages. We've been doing Indonesian for going on 6 years, but we feel like there's a lot more we can contribute
to other regional languages such as Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. Here's what we think is a very good way to learn from zero to about basic fluency: * A starter self-study audio "main course track" ala Michel Thomas or Pimsleur. Good for passive study. A hundred hours or so of core lessons. Michel Thomas is usually 20 or so hours and the biggest Pimsleur ones are I think 64 hours. I have always thought both were too short and didn't cover enough. This is really just a kickstart for building a base of vocabulary and implicit grammar to get past absolute beginner. This is also actually more than 100 hours in practice as it produces customized audio lessons adapted to their needs if they use the SRS-based tools mentioned later. Could be a lot more for slower learners. * e-reader and PDF companion for the above track. Can order a physical book off of Amazon since they have printing on demand for authors. Neat! * A non-nonsense technical guide book - All the grammar people want to learn explicitly. I say "want to" because we believe implicit is much more effective way to learn. Still, it's there and good to know. Again, e-reader, PDF or dead trees * Write and we reformulate it, as much as you want. - Learners write short texts in L2 and submit them to a group of native speakers for native reformulation. Not correction, rewording for native usage. Embellishment might also work here too. The idea is it can just be email, though it may make sense for it to be built-in to a site to link in dictionary tools and such. * Live skype/whatever conferencing tool for group or 1-on-1 with trained native teachers. We'd pay them for their time, but the economics are good for most parts of Asia so should be affordable if people want it. Also staffed chat areas. * Lots of interesting comprehensible input text passages and audio dialogs covering learner-requested topics. Maybe users submit and vote up what they want? Why would we come up with all the topics when it is for them? This is likely where most of the effective learning actually happens. Includes e-reader format, PDF, dead trees, etc. for offline. * Online/Mobile personal lexicon and SRS flash cards, exportable to Anki. Maybe even embedded Anki since it's open source * Online / mobile sentence practice with tied back to SRS database (a bit like Duolingo, but lighter without the tons of L1/translation aspect). This might be dropped off... I am finding this to be very boring if you don't wrap a game around it like Duolingo. It's also less effective in theory, though we don't have empirical data yet to back that up. * Some periodic evaluation / exams to tune the knobs on the SRS, provide feedback and "level up" to learner. People should consume stuff they enjoy. * Actively recommend and encourage resources outside our site -- no method is an island unless they're just selling something. The idea is sort of a buffet style of learning where you can load up your plate with whichever resources you prefer and the site adapts a plan based on this. We'd recommend a path, but give the learner the flexibility. Everything would be compatible, so it's up to them to choose. So, are we way off or does it seem like we're on the right track for getting this right? Anything we missed? Thanks! 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 40 30 October 2013 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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That sounds totally awesome, it nearly made me want to learn Indonesian. What other
languages are you planning? I hope to learn an asian language in future (not sure how distant), such a resource would be a blessing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| snoonan Triglot Newbie United States learningindones Joined 6252 days ago 23 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Indonesian | Message 3 of 40 31 October 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks! I'm also hoping to get criticism on the overall approach or any omissions, so please fire away. We're now in the process of producing content for an updated Indonesian. We're currently doing word list analysis, finding writers, voice actors, etc for Malaysian and Tagalog. The next planned group is Thai and Vietnamese. After that, more or less every major South/Southeast Asian language at a measured pace. How long it will take is like asking how long it will take to drive to work in Jakarta. We get there when we get there. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 4 of 40 01 November 2013 at 3:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It really does sound really great and if you get some courses that will take you to basic fluency that would definitely encourage me to dive deeper into Asian languages. Indonesian isn't on my hitlist, but i'd gladly sign up for Thai, Vietnamese, or especially Tagalog, even if just to check the course out. Is the Indonesian course the course on your website? I'm guessing what you're talking about is an updated version of that course? I don't want to sidetrack the topic, but are you looking at a similar pricing for the final course?
As a whole it sounds great, i can only say that personally i've found Michel Thomas courses much more enjoyable. I also really like the Language Transfer courses, which, even though they aren't complete yet, seem much more comprehensive than the MT ones. I'm also curious how you plan to build vocabulary, even the FSI courses which are generally pretty comprehensive don't usually cover more than 2,000 basic words. It's certainly an interesting project, i just really wish it were for a language on my hitlist. If i can scrape up enough cash i might just give in and try it out when it's ready anyway. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| snoonan Triglot Newbie United States learningindones Joined 6252 days ago 23 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Indonesian | Message 5 of 40 01 November 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks. That's the goal. We think the way to get there is by building up different kinds of material that work best at different stages, and blending the tutor/native speaker support and SRS tools together. We want to teach people to learn like polyglots without them necessarily knowing that's what's happening. We think a basic fluency goal is certainly possible if they learn.
The Indonesian course on our site was our first work. It doesn't contain everything we've learned over the past 6 years of study and working with people try to learn a less popular language online. What I'm talking about above is a rebuild (or replacement in most topics) of what we have there with a cleaner methodology, just under 4x the material plus the other resources I mentioned. As to pricing and such, it's definitely too early to say. We have a few ideas -- the first of which is to make it very very inexpensive and try to deflate the whole market. A lot of it will be free for everyone, of course. We may have to have some kind of recurring bill if you are using the tutor/native speaker's time, though it would be affordable because of the economics of these countries. My guess is that it would lot cheaper than our current course. We'd share accounts here for free, though.
Thanks. We are incorporating the anxiety reduction aspects of Krashen & MT into our main "baby steps" audio track which is that more or less fixed audio program (with some adaptive stuff if the SRS tools are being used). We are targeting 3k words in it. As its outlined right now, we have about 150 lesson groups, 20 average vocabulary items per group. We think the real growth is going to come from the library of comprehensible input materials that will become more important after that base (or during it, whenever you want to go to the next stage). And supporting all that with the SRS tools. We're also working on a way to break a lot of rules if your goals differ from our view. We have mapped out material that collects all of the known English obvious cognates/borrowings in common use (hundreds of words you already know). We integrate some of the tactics from Boris Shekhtman (How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately). Focus early on reasoning, expression and negotiating meaning in conversation. This is all starting to sound like an ad. I'm just so excited we've finally saved up enough money to do this work. There's no way we would ask for payment -- we'll share accounts on the forum down the road if anyone here wants to use it. I have learned so much from lurking over the years. Edited by snoonan on 01 November 2013 at 5:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leroc Senior Member United States Joined 4312 days ago 114 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 6 of 40 01 November 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just to show support, I would pay for a Thai course within the next 5 or so years.. I love martial arts and studying Muay Thai for a couple months is on my bucket list. Your course for Indonesian is really cool, I loved the method when I checked it out last March.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5733 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 7 of 40 01 November 2013 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It would be great if you did one for Malayalam. Despite being very large, the most literate language
group in India, and having probably the largest diaspora, there are almost NO resources for it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 8 of 40 02 November 2013 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the response, i'll be following along as you get closer to releasing the course(s) :)
1 person has voted this message useful |
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