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Super Challenge discussion thread 2014 | ||
Tags: Organization | Super Challenge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 73 of 432 07 February 2014 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry I'm a bit late to this particular party (forum notifications are hit and miss for
me, so I missed the launch of this thread). I have skimmed over the whole thing, but I personally like the way Solfrid designed the challenge on the first post of this thread, and I like option A: 100/100, with a star awarded for each 25 completed. Although with the star system (1 per 25), we don't really have to set a limit at all, it is still nice to have a target. As to "winners", I don't really care, especially as I don't expect to come close! For me it's just about participating, and enjoying my progress while observing the progress of others. But if there has to be a winner, I think we could give a set of wreaths, and this would hopefully work well for learners like Serpent who do a lot of languages, as well as those who will focus on only 1. 1) A prize to the person who gets the most stars overall (even if it's just 1 star per language in a load of languages). 2) A single language prize, to the person who gets the most stars in a single language. 3) A film prize, to the person who gets the most film stars (however gained). 4) A book prize, to the person who gets the most books. It could also be fun to award special mentions to the people who get the most stars in a specific language. Some languages would have a lot of competitors, others might only have one. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this one! 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| RMM Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5228 days ago 91 posts - 215 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Swedish, Japanese | Message 74 of 432 09 February 2014 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
This may be theoretically possible to be sure, but I really think we need to keep in mind what people actually were able to accomplish during the last Super Challenge. Unless I missed something, NOBODY successfully completed two or more full 100/100 Super Challenges. Please keep in mind too that of all the many people who did the Super Challenge, only five successfully completed a single 100/100 challenge. If we are changing things at all, why not make this legitimately doable for a larger number of users? Also, I think the results also clearly suggest how much less of a challenge movies are than books for the average person (a 25 to 1 difference, counting each language challenge!), so why not try to balance these up better too?
Surely, we should take the actual results into account for the next round. These results indicate pretty strongly that the current challenge is too hard and that the listening/watching and reading parts of the challenge are very imbalanced. 5 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 75 of 432 09 February 2014 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The list you use as a reference (completed film parts) is incomplete because 1.not everyone was in the bot 2.some of us tried the Advanced SC (200/200) which was a beautiful madness but still madness. I suppose I am not the only one who is missing on the list for these two reasons. I completed 200 English films and 100 French films (but I signed up for 200 French films, true).
So, while it is a nice argument, the numbers are somehow incomplete and therefore nothing to swear by. And I dare say 2 SCs are definitely possible for many learners who normally manage to study 2 languages. The people who are too busy usually have enough sense not to sign up for too much. Especially considering the vast amount of experience we have got as a group trying the first round. Noone forces you to take on 2 SCs and noone forces you to personally aim for whole SC and not "2 stars in Italian, 3 stars in Swedish and 1 in Japanese". It's just that the rules should be simple enough and the variability should be in the hands of individual participants. Holding everyone's hands by dumbing down the challenge (I could think of a few analogies in the educational system :-D ) will lead to no good, in my opinion. 100/100 is a challenge. Significantly less is not a challenge. Or will people need to take on 2 SCs per language in order to make a goal dragging them further? Really, "watching a few films and a few hundred pages", that is not a challenge. That is the usual, slow paced routine for most learners relying on real input. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 76 of 432 10 February 2014 at 1:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Do we really need to say that it's not winning that matters, it's taking part? The point is that it is a tough challenge. A mad challenge. That's why we like it. If everyone could do it there would be no point to the challenge. It would be like one of those (possibly mythical) school sports days where every student wins a medal.
And yes, the film part is obviously easier to complete. That's nice also. It enables us who are less superheroic to achieve something. But doesn't that make the few people who managed to complete their reading challenges even more proud? Of course! 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 77 of 432 10 February 2014 at 9:50am | IP Logged | |||||
Also, all the stuff about free choice reminds me on this (the comment above it also works out of context). I'm all for having a required number of stars to "count", such as 4-5. But don't tell me the choice between going for the official goal and not going for it is equal. I think it's time for a poll about the number of films being the same or more than the books. can someone start one on easypolls.net? not sure how specific the options need to be. i'd really like to know how many people just think it's nice to keep it simple with 50/50 or 100/100 or whatever. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 78 of 432 10 February 2014 at 10:17am | IP Logged | |||||
And yeah, in reality even more people completed the film challenge. If you did 200 and 100, you should be on the list, post in the official thread with the results. I completed a Spanish challenge despite trying hard not to. But if anyone didn't report completing it, it's because they didn't finish the reading part. And there's no way we might somewhat plausibly have more than 2-3 people who completed reading and never reported it. Also note how the only complete full reading challenges are for English, Spanish, French and German. As for the last part, I think one of the goals of the challenge is to promote input. I don't think most learners get enough, even on HTLAL. Many people are not used to reading/watching a lot of L2, and this will make the challenge far less doable for them even in one language. They will need to learn to tolerate ambiguity, to find the resources suitable for their level, to know when to give up on a book or put it off and when to continue plodding. Even we experienced learners have faced some dead ends every now and then. This will happen much more to someone who's not accustomed to using input (especially extensively and especially reading). And if we imagine someone who's learning two languages with Assimil and Teach Yourself and whatever... impossible. And it really shouldn't be, this is one of the most common categories of HTLAL'ers. BTW I've been considering a pre-SC challenge, for intensive work on smaller languages and for getting used to reading and whatever. I know that if we go for stars for 2500 pages, my actual goal will be 3k in two years (at least in Finnish and Spanish). Thoughts? I also think we'd benefit from a standard questionnaire for everyone who signed up and maybe a separate one for those who've completed a challenge. Edited by Serpent on 10 February 2014 at 10:49am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5396 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 79 of 432 10 February 2014 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wow, really? Isn't the whole point of a challenge to do something challenging? Edited by Kerrie on 10 February 2014 at 3:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 80 of 432 10 February 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That was not a general "you". No challenge will ever be doable AND challenging for everyone.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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