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Cycling Intensive and Extensive | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7196 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 9 11 December 2013 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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Definitions for the poll:
Extensive Methods: Listening or Reading for longer periods of time. Focusing on what you can get, ignoring what you don't. Intensive Methods: Focusing on the details. Trying to understand each word or grammar point. Stick with it until you've got it. Do you use intensive or extensive methods to learn? Examples of Intensive Only: Taking one Assimil lesson and a time. Getting it down completely. Don't move on until you've mastered the lesson. Reading a short passage. Look up all the unknown words. Examples of Extensive Only: Listen/Reading a book that is a stretch for you to comprehend. Watching a TV show or listening to a podcast and trying to figure out what's going on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7196 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 9 11 December 2013 at 2:24am | IP Logged |
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This poll is to explore the idea of cycling between intensive and extensive activities, especially for those who are working on more than one language.
I have this idea knocking around my head, that is to cycle between intensive and extensive activities. For someone studying multiple languages, do you focus primarily on one at a time so as to bring it up as much as possible, or do split them up fairly equally in the hope that over time, they will all gradually improve? What I've noticed is that with some extensive activities, it takes a while to really get in the groove so you're focusing more on the story line and forget that you're listening to or reading a foreign language, or even what the language is. I've noticed this "switch" or "getting the groove on" sometimes takes 15-45 minutes or so where I'm not thinking, "this is French", or "this is Spanish", but rather, "that's an interesting idea", or "I like this story, I wonder what will happen next". The "cycling" idea is to give one language 30-60 minutes a day, and put the others in "intensive" (short) mode, perhaps giving them 5-10 minutes a day of more challenging material which introduces something new, vocabulary, a grammar pattern, etc. When the "extensive" cycle is finished, which could be a 2 hour book or a 40 hour book or a course, then put that language into maintenance mode and bring another language forward for an "extensive" cycle. Have one or two languages in extensive mode all the time, and put rest into "intensive" mode so you're learning or consolidating, but they aren't taking too much time away from your current obsession. What do y'all think? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 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 3 of 9 11 December 2013 at 2:58am | IP Logged |
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Well, I've been trying to focus on Italian since October, Tadoku and now the 6 week challenge. It probably won't fit other people's definition of focusing on a language, but even that is starting to cause burnout now.
Normally I spread them more evenly - not just "in hope" but *knowing* that they will improve over time, and that they need time to improve anyway. To grow in my head. I've certainly noticed the "groove" thing, the flow. That's why I always say that if you want to add reading or movies or other media to your routine, it's better to have 1-3 long sessions per week than to follow the usual "do something every day" advice. It's good for when there's a danger of quitting, but even in this case it's better to do something else during the shorter sessions. I voted for extensive, but of course I do some relatively intensive things too, like GLOSS and lyricstraining (with the latter there's no time for looking up, but it makes me notice all the small prepositions, endings etc, the important details). If something is truly important, I also look up more than usual to be absolutely sure. The study plan you describe sounds good for those who can follow it, similar to the "one book at a time" advice I've seen recently. It also depends on your personality of course. I've recently realized that a good trait I have is that I love coming back to things, fixing all the "loose ends". If I complete something in one go, it feels like a lower degree of devotion, really. My obsessions are always long-term and I never get so carried away that I risk quitting other languages just because one gets a bit more special. For females, following your own cycle is also worth a try. When, so to say, the hibernation is over, I'm so full of energy that I can't sit down with a book for a long time. In this case shorter sessions/different kinds of activities are the best. Whereas the male hormonal cycle is daily, so you may want to experiment with the best time of the day for intensive and extensive studying. Edited by Serpent on 11 December 2013 at 4:01am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5180 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 4 of 9 11 December 2013 at 3:03am | IP Logged |
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Definitely use both. I would guess 70% intensive, 30% extensive. My first choice would be intensive work, it just feels like the more pro-active learning choice. But if I'm too tired for intensive I will just stick on a film, tv show or podcast, or pick up a book, and read for some passive-style learning without taking any notes.
Learning feels more efficient for me when both methods are used in the right ratio. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4135 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 5 of 9 11 December 2013 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
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I tend to read extensively (just for fun, never looking up words) and listen to podcasts intensively (4-5 times each,
adding words to anki). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4630 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 9 11 December 2013 at 11:15am | IP Logged |
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I'v voted both, but of course it depends at what stage of learning I am. To give an example, in Greek, where I am still at a beginner level, I have only worked intensively so far, i.e. with course books and corresponding audio, trying to learn every word and do grammar exercises. With Russian, where I have now gotten to A2, I do more and more extensive stuff as well, like listening to radio or TV programmes and trying to read newspaper articles etc. Although I often don't get half of the meaning, due to lack of vocabulary mostly, I still think it is useful as it gives you more exposure to the language.
As for languages where I have a more advanced level, like German, I do almost only extensive activities, like reading books. However, from time to time I do small intensive activites, especially when I write in German, as I like to look up everything I am unsure of in order to get it right. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4349 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 9 11 December 2013 at 11:23am | IP Logged |
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Intensive Primarily, simply because that works for me. I do read and listen for fun whatever I can, but I never remember things unless I have spent time on them.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4679 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 8 of 9 11 December 2013 at 11:21pm | IP Logged |
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I said just extensive. Whenever that is remotely possible, this tends to be easiest for me, because intensive reading
feels like work, whereas extensive reading also teaches me things but it feels like I'm slacking off. I still stop to look up words from time to time, but try to do so infrequently. This only works, however, once you have sufficient knowledge to be able to get things from context. For unknown material, that level has been estimated to be a minimum of 95% recognizable words or so, for the AVERAGE reader. I probably have a higher tolerance for unknown words. I also start off using very familiar texts, so that I get an "unnaturally" high recognition rate due to background knowledge and also an "artificially" high tolerance for unknown words, because I already know what the text is about. Unlike renaissancemedi, I find that it's only when I see terms in my EXTENSTIVE reading that they stick best because that involves recognizing them in NEW contexts. Simply reviewing OLD contexts isn't usually enough to make something really stick for me. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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