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FSI by the drill or by the unit or both? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 8 11 December 2012 at 5:10am | IP Logged |
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Is it better to do and FSI course one drill at a time, or is it better to do the course one unit at a time?
Is it a good idea to review at the end of each level? What about: each drill 3 times each unit 3 times each level 3 times the whole thing 3 times if I'm still learning...? steve Edited by sfuqua on 11 December 2012 at 5:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 8 11 December 2012 at 7:35am | IP Logged |
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Review is important, but there isn't much sense in reviewing things you already know very well. If a drill is very easy, it doesn't need to be reviewed so much. For instance, the FSI Substitution drills are about the easiest drills in the unit. They are the drills that do things like convert singular to plural, or something very mechanical and easy. For me, the response drills were typically the hardest drill for the chapter. So, if time efficiency is important, doing the substitution drills until you've got them figured out may be once or twice perhaps. The response drills may need more repetition.
FSI is also something that I felt it was helpful to make forward progress in and review when it was getting very tough. Also, I started the course as Barrons (Basic Spanish) and had cassette tapes. Tapes can force you to repeat a drill when you really just want to get to the next one, but fast/forward isn't practical. One other thing, when I went through FSI Basic Spanish, it was my primary learning course. Although it worked, I'm using FSI Basic French differently. In fact, I haven't started FSI French yet, other than looking over the course. For me, I'd rather get a foothold in the language with Assimil before doing the grind with FSI. I believe getting a foundation with Assimil will allow me to not repeat FSI lessons nearly as much, as I expect them to start out seeming pretty easy. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4659 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 8 11 December 2012 at 9:45am | IP Logged |
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If I could give you an advice, I would go through all the "learning drills" for one grammar point at once - it somehow works better together - and repeating them as an unit. Similar with the "practice drills" - not repeating a single drill, the whole sequence. At least for me, it is a better way.
I went through FSI French almost entirely in audio, using it on my commute and when running errands etc. This means that I didn't concentrate at it as much as many others here. This means also that I often repeated the dialog several times in audio only, before even looking at the script. In comparison, I didn't repeat the drills nearly as often - if I could get it right for the first time, this was it for me. I repeated the review drills at the end of the lesson, again, till I got it right in all cases. And these drills I used for further reviewing - I have simply cut them out, put on my mp3-player in one directory and randomly played the drills from time to time. Every new lesson got put there the same way. I am not a fan of prescribed repeats - you will know yourself if the drill went well or not, if a repeat is needed. Sometimes, it is better to go with the next lesson and repeat the previous one later as whole - some points wouldn't stick through forced repeats but after a few days or a week pause it simply clicked. What I found useful is to memorize the dialogs and repeat them from time to time. I didn't do it from the start, although I was halfway there through the repeats, but you find hitting yourself in the head because you utter a sentence wrong and than going "oh, it was in the dialog, how could I?" The FSI knew what they were doing demanding from their students to memorize the dialogs. Edited by Majka on 11 December 2012 at 9:50am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 4 of 8 11 December 2012 at 10:00am | IP Logged |
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I repeat more often if it's harder. I never repeated a single drill more than four times.
Most drills I did twice for reinforcement. I did this for FSI Swedish 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 5 of 8 16 December 2012 at 2:26pm | IP Logged |
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FSI is a long, tough course. I would not set out a "plan" to do something too ambitious unless you are certain you can/will do it. For example, if you repeat the drills several times and then each lesson several times when you finish going through the drills and then the units several times as you complete them you may never finish the course. You will also spend a ton of time on the earlier units and possibly be burned out for the last few units. My advice is to go through it fairly "fast" (maybe two or three times per unit) and then, if necessary and able, go through the entire course again and possibly again.
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| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 8 06 November 2013 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
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I think I bombed out on FSI before because I didn't follow your advice well enough James29.
I slowly found myself grinding down into just reviewing, and this took so long that I finally gave up... I'm going to follow your advice exactly and try it again... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 7 of 8 06 November 2013 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't even go through the entire course - just the bits you got stumped by.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 8 of 8 06 November 2013 at 4:28pm | IP Logged |
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There is natural review built into the Spanish course. Every lesson has review drills. I'd recommend, sfuqua, to do each lesson twice and then move on. Your Spanish is advanced enough that it should not be too hard to do that. If you have major problems with a drill or a lesson do it a third time. Take notes of which drills stump you and then, when you are done with the whole course, maybe go back and work on the tough drills.
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