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the old man and the platiquemos | ||
Tags: Platiquemos | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 91 23 November 2012 at 9:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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Excuse my self reflection in a long post here, but I'd like to think a little bit...
I'm 59. I've been back into language learning for about a year now. It was my obsession when I was younger. When I joined Peace Corps, I was trained in Samoan for about 6 weeks before I was dropped into a village where almost nobody spoke English well. I was a bad student in Peace Corps training, but I turned out to be a good language learner in the village. I made rapid progress once I started working at it, instead of waiting for the "magic" Silent Way and Counseling Learning systems of Peace Corps training, and the "magic" of "immersion" to "magically" teach me the language. After a year, I was ahead of all but one of the 60 volunteers I started out with (an FSI 3+), and I was ahead of everybody after 2 years (FSI 4). I got an FSI 4+ in Samoan after 3 years... I stayed there 6 years. I was mistaken for a native speaker twice, a pretty good trick for a white guy. Then I moved to the Philippines to work in the US Refugee program (after a Masters degree in Second Language Acquisition/ESL). The camp was a wonderful mix of languages. I hit Tagalog hard, and made rapid progress, but somehow I stopped making progress at about and FSI 3, about the time that women started to keep speaking Tagalog, instead of switching to English, when I would try to flirt with them. I stayed in the Philippines 8 years. I was on the streets in Manila when Marcos fell. I huddled on the floor with the women and children when the army and the New Peoples Army (the Communist Guerrillas) fought over our town and turned our walls to Swiss Cheese (try to avoid being between armies that are angry at each other). I fell in and out of love in Tagalog, and I finally realized that I was irrevocably, and completely in love with the woman who is snoring softly on the couch as I type. I realized it during Gringo Honasan's second coup. When I realized that the Air Force was doing bombing runs on a rebel positions in the city, and releasing bombs directly over the place where she was under cover, I drove my motorcycle through multiple military checkpoints (talk about a "real world" language challenge) to get to a telephone to talk with her, at a time when it was very dangerous for anybody to move. The embassy was suggesting that we should get ready for a possible helicopter evacuation; I realized that I wasn't going to go without my beautiful friend, Ping, whatever the political situation. Luckily the Filipino military is as much of a romantic as I am. Pingping and I got married a year later, have two kids, and are basically living happily ever after 23 years later. But... I live in a city called San Jose. I teach public school, where many of my students are from Mexico and Central America. I have been sad about how I was just another "old white guy" who didn't really have a good insight into my student's lives and cultures. It felt wrong, but I remembered how that we basically didn't require older refugees (people over 55) to study English, since they were "hopeless". About exactly a year ago, by random choice, I started a book called The Queen of the South. It was a well written "thriller" about ... Well, look it up if you're interested; it's a good read. I love spunky women :) The book reminded me about the huge world to the south of the US, that I am profoundly ignorant of. On a lark, bored during a visit to my parents, I bought a copy of the Spanish version, La Reina del Sur. It tantalized me. I could understand some of it from cognates, but most of it was a mystery... I got a dictionary... I decided to give Spanish a try, even though I was "too old to learn." After some reflection and reading on this forum, I decided to try Assimil for Spanish. My results were typical; I am about an A2 in my active skills on a good day and I'm probably a B1 in my passive knowledge. When I finished Assimil's Spanish with Ease, I decided to plunge into Native Speaker materials. Since then, I have been a disorganized mess. I have started multiple books; I have even gone back to Spanish with Ease to shadow old lessons that are pretty much memorized. I have gotten halfway through newpapers. I have put in the hours, and sometimes I see signs that I'm learning, but I lack the feeling of steady progress that I got when working through a course. Ever since I was writing for Peace Corps language in the 1970's, I've known about the FSI Spanish Basic course. I am astounded that it is available for free on the Internet. I almost chose it over Assimil, back when I started Spanish. Since I am dissatisfied with my progress recently, I decided to look at it again. I got a deal on Platiquemos, so I'm probably going to use that version the most. I'm 59 years old now, and there has to be some question about how atrophied my language learning skills are. I did not have amazing results from Assimil, but I probably did have typical results. In thinking about it, I realize that I have shied away from FSI type courses, because I think that they will show up any age related language learning problems more clearly than a gentler course like Assimil. But, what the heck, I'd like to learn to speak Spanish as well as I can read it. I'm pretty sure, from my experience, that the ability to learn passive skills is relatively unaffected by age. I'm going to try Platiquemos, and we'll give the active skills a workout. I'm going to try to give an honest appraisal of the experiences of an older learner trying to work through Platiquemos. This may be a disaster; I don't know. We'll see. (subject change; ulterior motive) My mother has dementia; my father is slowing too. Many people try to do mental exercises to slow down dementia's onset. My father does crossword puzzles and sudoku. I hate puzzles; when I started Assimil, in the back of my mind, was the idea that trying to learn a language is probably pretty good mental exercise, even if you don't succeed in learning the language. I'm going to approach Platiquemos in that spirit. I'm pretty hungry to succeed, though. I wonder what's going to happen... Edited by sfuqua on 25 April 2013 at 5:53am 16 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 91 23 November 2012 at 9:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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Any advice about how to do Platiquemos?
I edited this post because I sent it before I meant to :) Platiquemos is a partial rewrite and rerecording of the famous FSI Spanish Basic course. There are many, many posts on this site about Platiquemos and FSI, including some by Don Casteel, the developer of Platiquemos. Many people hate FSI type drills; others love them, or more to the point they love the results. Pretty much everybody thinks that completing Platiquemos would put the learner solidly at the Intermediate level. Many people have trouble deciding when to move forward and when to review. The original FSI instructions seem to suggest that a learner who is a complete beginner would need about 10 hours of instruction to complete each unit (around 600 hours); this translates, roughly, to about 10 repetitions of each unit. Platiquemos's instructions suggest that the course may be successfully completed with fewer repetitions and fewer hours, perhaps 360 hours, or about 6 repetitions. Learners who are more advanced have been pleased with even fewer repetitions, even as few as three. Most learners seem to work through the course a unit at a time; others work through it one drill/activity at a time (Platiquemos is divided up into tracks, which generally correspond to drills. This facilitates working through the course one unit at a time.). Some people seem to review earlier lessons a lot; others head through as quickly as possible. The course works through Spanish grammar in a step by step fashion, which means that things like the subjunctive are months into the course. I want to be sure I "master" everything as I go along, so I guess this will be OK. OK; that's the course, now what about the learner. I'm a 59 year old male with a history of successful language learning earlier in my life. I don't have any known mental or physical problems that would affect my learning; there is some question about how successful older learners can expect to be. I have completed Assimil Spanish with Ease, and I have completed Michel Thomas Foundation. I had no background in Spanish a year ago. My results on the Learning Styles test are (I hope this will format OK) 11 REF 5 INT 3 VIS 1 GLO I am strongly (an 11!) at the reflective end of the reflection/action scale. I suspect that this may mean that a course like Platiquemos, with its drills, may be extra hard for me, but it may also be extra useful. I'm probably not the guy who is going to go out and learn Spanish sitting a a coffee shop talking to random people with my broken Spanish. I have a preference for the Intuitive style (5) over the Sensing. This suggests that I am not going to prefer memorization as a learning strategy, among other things. I'm pretty balanced between Visual and Verbal styles, with a tiny preference toward Visual (3). I am balanced in my preference between Global and Sequential learning (1-1). I'm an older learner, and I suspect that developing active skills gets more difficult as one gets older. This effect may be slight, but it may explain some of the bad results older learners get. The best I can tell, older learners may need more time to get to the same place in active skills. This might make them think that they are bad language learners, when all it means is that they just haven't tried long enough. I wonder if older learners in general have a greater preference for reflective learning. Of course, this is just speculation about older learners. I'm hoping that Platiquemos will drag me out of my reflective learner hiding place and get me so that I can spit out my sentences quickly enough to keep my interlocutor interested. When I get nervous, I get soooo.... sloooow.... So, realizing that Platiquemos may force me out of my preferred learning style, here we go. Edited by sfuqua on 23 November 2012 at 7:20pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 91 23 November 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The first thing to figure out, is how to approach Platiquemos. One thing I intend to do is to spend some time going through each lesson/drill with the book before I even try to do the drills with the sound running. I want to be sure that I understand what's going on rather than trying to figure out the drills "on the fly." I hope this will soothe my preference for reflective learning. Perhaps I will work through each drill or dialog about 5 units at a time memorizing them a little bit at a time. I don't think this step will be very hard, although it will take some time. I don't really see much new grammar or vocabulary in the first half of the course that I have skimmed. If I stop the tape, like Michel Thomas, I think I could get pretty good accuracy after only a couple of times through the material. Doing the drills and dialogs at full speed is another matter.
Some of the other FSI material, I think one of the Headstart books, suggests working through the drills first with the book open, then with the book closed, but hitting pause where needed to complete the drills, and finally at full speed. They emphasize that the drill can only be considered mastered when it can be done at full speed with good accuracy. I don't know if FSI ever suggested this sequence with the Basic Spanish course. It also seems logical to me that mastering one drill/dialog at a time would be easier than mastering material a unit at a time. So, let's see, a possible sequence might be: 1) do each drill in the book without the audio. 2) do each drill with the book open. 3) do each drill with the book closed, hitting pause as needed. 4) do each drill with the book closed and with no pause button. 5) do each unit with the book closed and with no pause button. Of course, one of the things that makes any self study course work is that it is something that you can live with. Time spent figuring out what to do next or preparing material is not time spent learning the language. Working with material that is too easy or too hard will kill motivation. When I look at the sequence above, with all of the decisions that need to be made about when to move forward, I suspect that it would be a pain in the pinfeathers. Another sequence might be: 1) do a unit in the book without the audio. 2) do the unit with the audio a certain number of times. Another simple sequence is: 1) do a unit with the book open on the weekend. 2) repeat the unit without the book each day all week. I'm planning to start this tomorrow, so I have to get a plan by then. I'm inclined toward one of the simpler plans... I've been fooling around with the first two units this week, so I may try to do both of them together. Edited by sfuqua on 23 November 2012 at 8:30pm 4 persons have 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 4 of 91 23 November 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Two supplements that I think are helpful notably helpful for making the old noggin think more clearly are vitamin D, for which a deficiency can be tested for inexpensively. I take 5000 IU per day (a bit more at times), and that puts me smack dab in the middle of the "optimal" range. Back in the olden days when we were children, they would have said 400 IU was plenty and 5000 would never have been discussed. The other supplement, and this is mainly for older (50s plus) people is DHEA. It's an over the counter hormone, so definitely not for younger people. I know the above comments seem like an odd segue in your very personalized log, but I wonder if you would find them as beneficial as I have. The Mayo Clinic assessments above have only C ratings for things like Seasonal Affect Disorder (vitamin D) or Alzheimer's (DHEA), but that's above quackery for sure. 3 persons have 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 5 of 91 23 November 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
I went through most of FSI Basic Spanish using 3 and 5. I also edited a bunch of the drills to make the pauses even shorter, but that's another story.
I think the book is very helpful for the opening dialogue and notes. There are sections of each lesson that have grammatical (or rather linguistic) notes. These are helpful. From what I've read, the basic approach that FSI would have suggested was to get the dialogue down first, then the illustrations, then read the notes, then continue on with the other drills. For me, I started with tapes, so I generally listened to the whole lesson from end to end. When I got Platiquemos, I started chopping the audio up into smaller pieces, and I thought that was ultimately helpful in building automaticity, but is certainly not necessary, and may not even be desireable, unless you're a madman, which I have played on TV before. Good luck with the course Steve. Have fun and enjoy your students and Spanish and family and life! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 91 25 November 2012 at 5:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, Luke :)
I'll look at my supplements; I take some, but I hadn't really thought about supplements for language learning. I'm taking about 1000 IU of D now; I'll look about getting tested. I've never looked at DHEA; I'll give it a look. I've got a couple of goals for this project: 1) to get to a B1 in my productive Spanish. 2) to prove that age is not an absolute barrier. I'm certain that age is not a barrier for polyglots who have kept up language learning their whole life. I did language learning when I was younger. I speak Tagalog off and on all day with my wife and other Filipino, but I hadn't done any attempt to learn a new language for 20 years, up until this year. I sometimes wonder if Tagalog isn't a big problem for my Spanish. When my Spanish falls apart, I find myself starting to speak Tagalog. With all of the cognates in Tagalog, sometimes it even works. Sometimes I take off in Spanish when I'm trying to speak Tagalog. My wife has been studying Pimsleur Spanish lately, so we have some conversations in "Pimsleur Spanish." "Señor, no tengo dinero. Quiero una cerveza." I've got to watch her, or she'll pass me up :) She's one of those awesome language learners, who seem to be able to learn the basics of a language like lightning. steve Edited by sfuqua on 25 November 2012 at 6:24am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 91 25 November 2012 at 6:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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There doesn't seem to be any completely agreed upon way to do Platiquemos. The instructions suggest that the course could be completed by a beginner doing 6 to 8 repetitions. I think I'm going to start off going over each drill/track with the book once, and then repeat it 8 times without the book.
I realize that this will be too many repetitions for some drills, and too little for others, but I want to come up with a rule, so that I don't have to think... I want to be able to say that I did the course thoroughly. I'll start off this way, and adjust as I go along. The lack of review and in this schedule may be a problem; perhaps I need to supplement Platiquemos with something more global. One thing I've been thinking about is including Assimil Spanish with Ease and Using Spanish in the mix. There are 139 total lessons in these books; I could add in shadowing two or three lessons of Assimil after each of the Platiquemos Units. I would hate to loose any of what I've learned from Assimil while I'm waiting for Platiquemos to get into some of the more complicated tenses where I'm very uncertain. Mixing up Spanish dialects would be fun too. I'll see what I think I should do next after I finish the first unit. steve 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 8 of 91 25 November 2012 at 9:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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Assimil is great for review because the lessons are so short and you've alredy been through the course. I think if you give that 2-10 minutes a day, you'll keep that solidly under your belt and perhaps gather some new insights along the way.
From reading your history, I imagine dealing with real people in Spanish will be the thing that really ignites the language for you. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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