|
 |
Reducing Self-Study Method Abandonment | ||
Tags: Burn-out | Self-Study | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 121 of 139 03 September 2013 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'm not sure that the economics of a regular book are the opposite. Opposite to what? Doing the development and design oneself plus printing a book in black and white with no illustrations is quite inexpensive. But what are we comparing that to? Converting that file to an e-book format costs nearly nothing. it's the website and the marketing costs that may run up a bit if one cannot do it oneself. As I said earlier, I think there will always be a market for the artisanal niche product because the big players don't want to invest in what is perceived to be a small or insignificant market. I think the economics even favour the online approach. I notice for example that few people attempt to publish new books on French, a market dominated by the big publishing firms. But I can't begin to count the number of sites that are offering some form of French instruction ranging from software-based systems to private or group instruction over the phone or Skype. In fact the barrier to entry in the online teaching market is very low. How many people actually make significant money is another story. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 122 of 139 04 September 2013 at 12:49am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
There's another growing branch in the tree of language learning: easy readers for the Kindle. There seem to be dozens of these, with new ones appearing all the time. As this review suggests, they are created by amateurs, and not necessarily of very good quality. The review made me wonder if perhaps the book was written by a student of French, who then saw the opportunity to make a few bucks in self-publishing. With the help of Google translate, it would be easy for a shyster to produce these by the bushel.
But perhaps the legitimate language teachers among us should look into this? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 123 of 139 04 September 2013 at 3:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I looked at a sample page of this book, if you could call 40 pages a book. Really shitty stuff with lots of mistakes. It looks like a scam. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 124 of 139 04 September 2013 at 10:05am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
AFter a bit of snooping around, I found out, as @jJeffers had mentioned, that there exists a whole world of very
inexpensive publishing in general in the ebook arena. It made me think about the economics of ebook self- publishing for @Arekkusu. It costs nothing to convert a doc file to Kindle format and you can be selling your product on Amazon in minutes. Pretty amazing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4888 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 125 of 139 04 September 2013 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Gear them towards modern adult learners, not some hypothetical 'student.' Give us something that we'll want to read / watch / listen to in real life, not something that we'll only read 'cause it's a chapter in a language book. Look at a sample of what's been popular in French for the Super Challenge: Harry Potter in translation, sci fi, classic novels, football games, bandes dessinées, Le petit prince & Le petit nicolas, Le dîner de cons, Kaamelott, Twilight, and Amélie Poutain. On audible.com the most popular French title is 50 Nuances de Grey. Now look what I got from advanced Assimil: a dull romance between Anne-Marie and some dude whose name I forgot. You can't please everyone, but if the course has enough variety than you would at least keep everyone involved. I would rather suffer through a chapter from Fifty Shades of Grey (and I would suffer, I guarantee you) than be bored by standard language-book dialogue.
Technology is changing so fast it would be hard to pinpoint one idea. For myself, I would love to have integration between my smart phone, kindle, and audible account. It would be the holy grail of methods for me ... until everything changes again in five years. But someone else might have a flip phone and an ipad, and someone else only a laptop and a skype account. I don't know how you'd design anything for all the variables out there.
Packages like Living Language and Teach Yourself are definitely overly ambitious! I usually hit a wall around the seventh chapter - I generally have not had enough time to assimilate the early grammar and vocabulary by the time more advanced info is presented. I wonder if anyone, ever, has finished one to the end! However, these courses are only around forty bucks; I think they offer an excellent value, and I wouldn't buy a 'half' course. Pimsleur is the opposite - they take a slow and steady approach, but never attempt to teach the more complex elements of a language. This method works, but I can't imagine it taking anyone to an advanced level.
This would definitely be the case for the harder languages. Le Grec had enough grammar packed in for a three-year course - in retrospect I wonder if it is even possible to finish some of these courses without outside help. I never had a problem finishing Assimil for Romance languages, though by the end of the active phase I was absolutely ready to be finished. In part this is because Assimil dialogues just aren't as interesting as they pretend to be, especially in the second- level books. They're fine for a round, but not so much when you are repeating each dialogue five or six times. Here's what I finish, and what I don't, and why: Pimsleur: I usually finish, mostly because I can do it without any preparation, and can do it while driving or walking. I can also usually commit to the month or so it takes to do one level. The ones I don't finish are the ones that start becoming too difficult to do without spending more and more time outside the recordings (Japanese) Assimil: I will finish the Romance language courses, but often take long breaks en route. I have not been able to get past the half-way point of Le grec or L'arabe. FSI: I have not finished a full course, but one day I will! What I like about FSI is that I can put it down for long periods, and pick it up again when I am prepared for the next round. To me FSI is a multi-year course, not something that an auto-didact will push through non-stop. Teach Yourself / Living Language / etc: I have never finished a full course, for the reasons noted above. I don't know that it's an issue for me! Unlike FSI or Assimil, I never think: I need to go back and finish Teach Yourself. These are more books I use at an early stage of language learning. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 126 of 139 04 September 2013 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
hmmm....I'm sure loads of people have finished TYS courses. I have, and if I can, anyone
can. Whether they actually work is another matter. Depends completely on the language and the approach used of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 128 of 139 05 September 2013 at 11:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Do them once or twice. That's what I do. I can't stand stupid repetition so I don't do stupid repetition. If I forget something, woop-de-doo, it'll come back if it's important. If not... well... who cares :D 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
