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Traditional Comprehension Exercises | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5491 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 1 of 26 20 April 2012 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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While my computer is still warm, I'll just ask a quick question that I have always wondered about.
Does anyone think that text or audio comprehension exercises are useful? I mean the sort of thing that is one of the main fatures of traditional language classes, and text books for such clases, and exams. For example, you listen to some audio, then have to answer questions, usually relatively simple, like "how many bears did Goldilocks see" which unfortunately for me is the sort of detail my brain never pays attention to. Or you read a text, and have to answer questions which can be surprisingly tricky if you're not familiar with the style and level (e.g. it could be something like "list all the conclusions of the study" and you have to wonder wether they really mean exclusively "conclusions", or would things that were merely "mentioned" be included. We also used to do this sort of question in School for English. I just wonder if anyone knows what the paedagogic benefit of these is supposed to be. I understand using them in exams, although they seem more to be a test of intelligence than pure language skill. But when I do them as exercises, it never really feels like I'm learning anything, but maybe I should be doing something more creatively. Does anyone find them helpful? (I know not many here really like anything that sounds like it might belong in a classroom) (Actually, the reason why I finally asked, is, I'm just looking at a text book, Ziel, that does seem to combine its comprehension exercises creatively with other tasks, but it's too early to comment really) Edited by schoenewaelder on 21 April 2012 at 6:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6528 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 2 of 26 20 April 2012 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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The purpose is largely the same as many translation exercises: the teacher needs to see that you understand. In group classes, it's also a way for the weakest/shy students to get involved. They might get the easiest questions. It's also an indication of whether the level is right: if even the best students can't reply the medium difficulty questions, the text was probably too difficult.
And far more importantly, reproducing/retelling is considered a fairly difficult activity while if they aren't required to do anything, most students will get distracted. So questions are the lesser evil here. Yikes. I like the questions when the text teaches me something apart from the language itself, such as at http://gloss.dliflc.edu/ or in "________ for doctors" textbooks (I'm not a doctor but I'm interested in medicine. And since these are aimed at professionals, it's not a big deal if I misunderstand something). At GLOSS I especially love the lessons of the type "structural", where there's usually a timer and you can skim the article for 1-2 minutes and then you have to answer a question (which ISN'T shown before the text disappears). If you fail, you can skim the article once more now that you know the question, and then if you fail again they highlight the parts that convey the needed information. Edited by Serpent on 20 April 2012 at 9:07pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5912 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 3 of 26 20 April 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't do that kind of exercises just to kill the time, but I reckon that, as part
of a language course or when you're preparing to get a language certificate, they may be useful. They train you to focus your attention while listening, skim a text searching for a piece of information, pay attention to the exact meaning of a word, not just approximate, etc. I find that a only passive approach to reading and listening doesn't teach me the language as deeply and quickly as I would like. Comprehension tests, adding sentences to your SRS to illustrate a grammatical point, rephrasing, etc, they are all means to take a more active approach. I do feel that I'm learning. Actually I think that working with an expression in an exercise or adding it to my SRS collection have the same effect as having heard it 200 times on the telly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5157 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 4 of 26 21 April 2012 at 12:44am | IP Logged | ||
Because you're not learning anything from the exercise, you're just checking if you understood what you heard or read. Even if you understood it perfectly, you wouldn't learn anything from it if you knew beforehand everything that was in it, would you? Are they useful? Of course, just not equally useful for everyone. Even good learners, i.e. those who don't usually delude themselves into thinking they understood what they actually didn't, may use them every now and then to check they're not being overconfident. You know, because sometimes you just need to retain how many bears there were ;) Edited by mrwarper on 21 April 2012 at 12:44am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5239 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 5 of 26 21 April 2012 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I think those exercises where the question appears AFTER the audio are more memory exercises than language exercises. I hate them.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4940 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 26 21 April 2012 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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One use is for text preparation.
But they can be very useful normally as well, as long as they require more than just crossing the right number. If you need to rephrase the part of text or audio, where the answer was, than you are practicing your own speaking or writing and you are finding your weak spots, missing vocabulary etc. But you don't need prescribed exercises for that, you can do it with any piece of input. Or I take the classical exercise and add some questions to make it more challenging :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6528 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 7 of 26 21 April 2012 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6840 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 26 21 April 2012 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
So do I. I think our teacher did that in nearly every English class in high school. I suck at listening (and reading) comprehension tests even in Swedish, and that's a language I've heard almost every single day in my (so far) 38 year old life. Give me a few pages about something I like and I can give a summary of it. Give me a one-minute newscast about economy/politics and I won't be able to name even one person mentioned. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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