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Drawbacks of Major Language Materials | ||
Tags: Textbooks | Language Program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 25 of 38 19 October 2012 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Personally, I never bother with the exercises anyway, so I don't consider this an important factor of the language books I read. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5106 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 26 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have said this (or similar) before:
If a language package was compiled to suit personality, type of employment and maybe a few other things it would be far easier to retain, be more useful and take that person to a higher level. Example - Somebody has completed a few basic generic courses in a language. They have a fair grasp on the grammar and know how to order a coffee and some cinema tickets etc etc. Now imagine if - that person could tick 10 boxes next to a description of their own impression of how they live their lives - and a language course could be compiled, tailored to that. In my case, I'd learn how to argue over the phone to my internet service provider about gash service, moan to people about the increasing number of crap programmes shown on TV, be able to effectively insult and leave jaws agape anybody who pissed me off and... I'd learn to do it with the style and elan of a local in that language. I reckon I will only ever find myself in about 5 or 10 percent of situations depicted in an average language course book. I understand they are simply teaching the fabric of the language but - if it could be customised even more - to be more relevent to ME then surely that would be an improvement? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 27 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
It certainly wouldn't be impossible to conceive 20 situations and let students pick 10 or 15 and sell them that book as a pdf, or else sell lessons per piece, so one could leave out all that doesn't interest them. Of course, this can only happen at a higher level because too much control is needed at the beginners level and you could just skip the lesson on the past tense. You'd literally have to write several books... I could do that, and sell it online, but no proper book editor would ever do that. Edited by Arekkusu on 19 October 2012 at 8:26pm 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 5225 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 28 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think that's true. I'm not your average Joe in almost any sense you can think of and I've been in maybe 95% of the situations depicted in my language course books, so I think they're pretty good at that. The problem with those is that they were certainly not the kind of situations anybody would find even remotely interesting, which is what I think you're aiming at. I'd certainly be more motivated when confronted with situations relevant to me, or interesting to me than language course 'nonsense situations'...
This might be but I don't think it is feasible. We may even have the software, but we'd have a real problem gathering, processing and compiling materials not for a regular language course but for one that covers (and as such is more likely to be attractive to) each of us non-average weirdos. If this could be done it would be a matter of selecting the 'offbeat' instead of the 'regular' material where allowed and appropriate. But say a hundred fold as much materials than a regular course? Like producing one of those wasn't hard enough. A good idea indeed, but miserably doomed to fail in any time and age ;( 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 29 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Nothing would prevent you from taking your basic material to cover, and create dialogues targetting specific groups -- French for LGBT, French for sports lovers, French for epicurians, etc. 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 5225 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 30 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, nothing except the extra amounts of time and effort necessary just for the 'side' materials. I don't think it would be any more complex, just overwhelmingly more work to do, so a product all the less likely to be finished...
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5106 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 31 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nothing would prevent you from taking your basic material to cover, and create dialogues targetting specific groups -- French for LGBT, French for sports lovers, French for epicurians, etc.(Sorry I don't know how to quote here)
That's exactly the idea I had. But maybe mix & match. Maybe if vocabulary or situations could be linked to certain results of say a personality test or stereotype etc? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 32 of 38 19 October 2012 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
More work for something that sells more is quite alright. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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