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Increasing Language Automaticity via FSI? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 9 of 17 31 October 2013 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think automaticity is something you want to train up from day 1. You can't be B1 or B2
without automaticity in your speech. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5764 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 10 of 17 31 October 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
Please elaborate. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 11 of 17 01 November 2013 at 5:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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I did many of the FSI Basic Spanish exercises dozens of times, perhaps 50 or more times over the years. In the beginning, it was my primary course. When I want to brush up my Spanish speaking skills, it's a very helpful review. I believe the course is about automaticity rather than simply a course for learning the grammar. Many features of the language are drilled over and over in many different contexts. Articles (la, las, el, los), noun/adjective gender agreement, verb tenses, as well as many features and subtleties of the language take root with this method.
Although I used it as my primary method, now with more experience, I think it may be better as a supplement for the more advanced student. It depends on when you want to start speaking. If you want to speak correctly and generally without hesitation, it's helpful from the start. I agree with James29 that starting at the beginning may be useful. FSI Basic French has a lot more hours of drills, so it may not be necessary to repeat it as many times, as you'll get practice from the sheer volume of the course. Doing even 10 minutes a day as an intermediate speaker really activates the spoken language when it's done day after day for a few months. Edited by luke on 01 November 2013 at 5:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 12 of 17 01 November 2013 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
But you can be B1-B2 in other skills even if your speaking is behind. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 13 of 17 01 November 2013 at 11:36am | IP Logged | |||||
(I agree with the point on the separation of skills, but I'm talking about speaking skills here) Yeah, you do need automaticity. At an intermediate level it means that basic structures such as "I want to" "is/am/are" or simple case distinctions are drilled into your brain and you can produce them automatically when asked for. You would still have trouble putting together a longer phrase, but if someone asks you for example откуда вы? then you should be able to respond with я из Голландии/я голландец immediately. That is implied when you are a B1-B2 speaker. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 14 of 17 01 November 2013 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes knowing something and being able to produce it on demand are two quite different
things. I used to be rather sceptical of the "drill" approach, but I'm rather in favour now, although I have not used FSI. I realised that my active skills (mainly speaking) in German were continually falling way behind my passive ones, and no amount of increasing the latter was going to help the former (at least directly), unless I did something about it. What I have done is start "You Speak German" which in terms of content is far below my level, but when I was truly at that level, I never got enough practice in actually speaking and have always felt somewhat inhibited in that regard. FSI would probably have helped, as would Michel Thomas, but anyway, YSG came my way, and I'm trying it, and quite liking it. Spending (say) a month in Germany every year would probably have worked as well or better, but that isn't a realistic possibility for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 15 of 17 06 November 2013 at 9:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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I’ve been using FSI French recently to increase my spoken proficiency, but only specific drills. The slight problem with a number of the FSI drills is they use inversion in the question. E.g.
Veut-elle les essayer ? Though this is correct, a number of sources such as Hachette (Grammaire Pratique du Français) imply this is only used now in the langage soutenu, and rarely in the spoken language. I remember learning this as standard French many years ago in school, but what is the current situation ? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 16 of 17 06 November 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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The current situation is that you get a very odd look, followed by the other speaker
switching to English. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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