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Making sense out of "too many" resources | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | Resources | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5350 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 11 09 November 2011 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
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A few select of us are only studying relatively "obscure" languages, for which learning materials come few and far between, thus rendering unnecessary any attempts to "prioritize" amongst a competing array of products.
For the rest of us, however, the "Information Age" has bequeathed to us an effectively endless supply of resources, and the question has become how to structure all these various potential allocations of one's time into a logical and comprehensive curriculum that can, once created, be faithfully adhered to without allowing the capacity for one to constantly second-guess its pedagogical merits. I finally realized my own personal need for this sort of a structured framework when I realized that, without it, I was just jumping from resource to resource, always fretting that I wasn't giving the other resources their due attention. I finally spent one afternoon taking inventory of all my language materials, cutting out all the fat (including all the resources for the languages that I don't fully intend to master over the long-term, which was profoundly soul-crushing), segregating them on the basis of general medium, and sorted each "stratum" for pedagogical utility by considering the level of difficulty at which each course begins and ends. I eventually ended up with this: 
Note that each cell is one separate learning material, and consequently space limitation necessitated the use of abbreviations (e.g., each of the books is denoted by one or two key words from its title). Essentially, this curriculum structure implies that at any given time, I have 15 different possible resources I could spend time on—which is still quite claustrophobic, but at least it's better than the alternative 51. I could further reduce the potential for "wanderlust" by designating each day to only a single language, at which point my only decision thus becomes a matter of which medium I wish to use at the moment, rather than the additional variable of which language to study across each medium. All in all, for me, the issue was cutting down my possible options so I don't spend so much time thinking about WHAT to do and instead can spend more time just DOING it. So, how about y'all? For those who have access to more relevant resources than they could ever exhaust within a single lifetime (in other words, any resourceful would-be polyglot with Internet access), how do you consolidate it all into an actual personal curriculum? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4800 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 11 09 November 2011 at 8:34pm | IP Logged |
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For my self-study in Spanish I'm using the following resources:
Novels and short stories in Spanish Assorted Spanish grammar textbooks Platequemos Albalearning audio books (with LWT software) Spanish language movies, TV and radio Assorted Spanish podcasts and YouTubes like "Notes In Spanish", "Showtime Spanish", "Professor Jason", etc. Spanish conversation course at my local community college Except for the community college (non-credit adult education course) which is once per week, and Spanish language movies, which I watch whenever I need a break from "real" study, my approach is to devote my time to one of these resources only, until I get sick of it and need something different. Then I switch. I may spend two or three weeks on each resource until I get burned out and need a fresh start with the next one. --gary 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4944 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 11 10 November 2011 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
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Thank you, it's great to know I am not the only one!
Your table is an excellent way of doing it. I need to get to such way of writting things down because keeping it in mind takes too much time as you well said. What I do: 1.I try to know what I have in the shelf/file. A few minutes spent now to look at what I have will save me more time later when I am looking for that or something similar. Either I will know where to look or I will know where not to look. This is the moment when I decide what to put in the "curriculum" as you say. 2.I do not take more than two "main" resources for one language at a time. 3.I have a couple complementary sources always ready to go to when I am bored. But I give myself promises like: "I won't do the next chapter of Deutsch Interaktiv (which I trully enjoy) until I have finished this chapter of grammar (from a grammar book I enjoy as well but can stick to for less time). 4.I have a category "later". Things from this will not be pulled out until I am finished with something I have on my plate already. It is huge. 5.I need to learn to get rid of things I don't need. Delete links and files I know I will not use for exemple. (My links list is huge. I think I'll post it some day, there are some nice things) This is actually difficult because I am a bit "greedy" and thinking "what if this could be useful one day and I won't find it again". I just need to accept that even if I delete a useful source of examples I haven't seen yet, audio and exercises, nothing horrible will happen. I'll start with this during this weekend. an exemple-German: main:Assimil, Basic Grammar complementary: Deutsch Interaktiv, German Grammar Drills, Langensheidt Basic German Vocabulary, one graded reader with audio (perhaps)later:many things, including courses (FSI for exemple), vocabulary books, graded readers, audio books, many internet links to get rid of: a lot of things, some of which I consider being part of the "later" group. But I just have too much resources hoarded and taking space in my harddisc/room. a different example-French: main:a book I'm reading (a detective story by Fred Vargas), a tv series (Vampire Diaries, first season) complementary:an exercise book, a grammar book (both Czech, huge, and wonderful) "later": other books (mostly detectives now), next seasons of the tv series, a few textbooks I should go through before trully considering the DALF to get rid of:e-books and courses which are under my level and which I don't plan to review. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5584 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 4 of 11 13 November 2011 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
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I was a language course junkie when I started learning Spanish, but if I had to do it all over again I'd just stick with Michel Thomas and Assimil. I'm now of the opinion that doing too many beginner courses is not a good thing, and that just two good ones should be enough before moving on to native materials.
At the moment I'm reading a book called El Sueño de La Cuidad Perdida by José María Latorre and listening to a podcast called Rincón del Irreverente, but once I'd moved on to native materials there was no need for a "curriculum" any more because I simply swapped many of the things I did in English to Spanish. Come to think of it, I haven't read a book for pleasure in English for almost two years now. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5197 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 11 13 November 2011 at 2:19pm | IP Logged |
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Many people get lost in the never ending quest for the "perfect" course or program thinking that maybe the next one will have the key to success. I think people rely way too much on courses and programs which will only take you so far. Then, inevitably, disappointment and discouragement ensue.
@amethyst32 has the right approach. Stick with one or two courses and then move on and away from courses. That's the difference between learning and not learning. Speak, listen and read natively. Your language is alive! Even the so called "dead" languages are still alive. Literature always speaks to us. Interact with the language. Let it grow inside you. You can study all you want about weight lifting but it won't change your body until, hmmm, maybe you start lifting weights. A good course is designed to give you a foundation on which to build, but you are the one who must build on that foundation yourself. Edited by iguanamon on 13 November 2011 at 5:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6854 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 11 14 November 2011 at 8:46pm | IP Logged |
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The odd thing is that back in high school, when I had ONE book to learn Spanish, ONE book to learn German, etc. and there was no internet, I made much faster progress than I do now that I have 100 books to learn Arabic, 100 books to learn Japanese, etc. because there are too many things to choose from!
4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6638 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 11 15 November 2011 at 2:14pm | IP Logged |
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I have a certain number of books on my shelves, and in practice there are some I use almost on daily basis while others for some reason aren't used (this includes books in or about languages which I so far don't study). This collection is relatively stable so I don't need to go through it systematically in the way nway does above - I have just sorted it after languages (and sometimes size).
I have divided my favorite internet links on my home computer into groups. Things like Google and Google translate and Verbix and the keyboards at Lexilogos are in the main menu, but then I have submenus for Germanic languages, Romance languages etc., each with one submenu for texts-and-tools and another for podcasts and live media. I have nevertheless seen a lot of content filled pages which didn't make it to these submenus, and then I may forget about them - which is a shame. For intensive reading - which is slow - I normally keep one or max. two or three sources within reach (quite literally - I have a notestand filled with printouts 'in use' beside my armchair), while I don't do anything to keep track of things I read extensively. Once read they go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5308 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 8 of 11 17 November 2011 at 2:40am | IP Logged |
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Funnily you say that about tiny languages having so few materials compared to huge ones - I have found myself prioritising more with Icelandic resources than with Hindi. It doesn't make too much sense on the face of it: Icelandic is spoken by 320,000 natively and maybe only 1,000 as a second language; Hindi, if joined with Urdu (which, in the colloquial register, is basically identical) and counted as Hindustani, is the lingua franca of 490,000,000.
Icelandic has a few beginner's courses, but as far as I can tell no intermediate courses exist. I had bad experience with Teach Yourself, so I stuck with just Colloquial and Hippocrene, and the course Learning Icelandic never really looked appealing either. Hindi has equally very few absolute beginner's courses but a few more higher ones. All I could find in a bookstore, though, was Teach Yourself, so I ended up with that. I've now ordered another course and have a GCSE one to start once I get more of a foundation, and there's the odd PDF which is handy, but right now if I ditched Teach Yourself I'd have almost nothing to work with. There's very little online, too, for beginners, although more than for Icelandic. I'm looking forward to picking a language where I have an abundance of materials. I feel my Hindi resources will dramatically improve once I can access the native materials. Sorry this post wasn't at all about how I organise my materials, but it really shows the importance of geography when you look at abundance of materials. P.S. I really wish I could utilise Glossika's videos for something. He looks like a great teacher for Chinese. Edited by PaulLambeth on 17 November 2011 at 2:41am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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