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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6362 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 105 of 191 12 July 2007 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Stephen Krasher has numerous articles on his website about the method. The fellows at Antimoon also have their testimony, and several articles detailing the methods they propose for effective learning under the CI approach.
http://www.antimoon.com/ http://www.sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=6 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7149 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 106 of 191 12 July 2007 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think I need to clarify a couple of points I have made.
1. When I completed the Assimil German Without Toil I had a basic grasp of the language. We travelled to Germany and I was able to travel around, eat and converse with Germans. I got a job with a German firm. I used German all day to speak with my colleagues. My German wasn't perfect. There were some frequent words that I hadn't learnt with Assimil. I was able to ask what they meant and I was using the words immediately. 2. My sentence construction wasn't perfect. I would speak an eloquent sentence straight out of my Assimil course and follow it with a hopelessly mangled sentence. When I had to work late my colleagues were amused that my German would deteriorate as the time got later. Although my German wasn't perfect after learning with Assimil, I had a good knowledge of the language, I knew enough to be able to ask what I didn't understand, and to be able to read books without difficulty. Before getting the technical work I spent evenings at the local library taking notes from technical books on the relevant subjects to acquire the technical vocabulary I needed. I also had to learn a philosophical and religious vocabulary that wasn't included in the course to be able to discuss and debate the subjects. So far as practising to speak the language, I used to have discussions with myself in the target language and gave myself plenty of practice. I did this with the four languages I was learning before travelling to Europe, that is, French, German, Russian and Italian. I would practise with anyone who spoke the language at any opportunity. So, to summarize, my knowledge wasn't complete or perfect. I had no intention of memorising sentences or vocabulary but I found there were early sentences and even whole lessons I could recite by heart from so much revision. I never did feel that I was working at learning the languages. Assimil language courses definitely suit my learning style. I am also interested in giving the listening reading method a try. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 107 of 191 13 July 2007 at 12:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Comprehensible input is merely input that you can comprehend. Are you talking about the natural approach maybe? FSI and Assimil both use comprehensible input, as do all language programs. Perhaps Assimil follows the Natural Method more closely than FSI, but it's still quite different. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6362 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 108 of 191 13 July 2007 at 12:21am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes. I referred to it in my post to relate how speaking opportunities as described in Lillie's post were not necessary to learn a language.
Not quite. That method seems to simply be another variation of CI, but I'm referring to CI in general.
Yes - I said this in my post. However, they differ considerably in their execution of the technique. Which, perhaps, is why they are suited to different "types" of learners.
I'm not talking about the natural method, but rather about the way Assimil's focus through CI differs from FSI's approach. Though one focuses on drills to build speaking abilities while the other focuses more on implicitly absorbing the language, both seem well-equipped to teach a person to speak the target language. Edited by FSI on 13 July 2007 at 12:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 109 of 191 13 July 2007 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's Krashen's famous approach - the one in which he claims comprehensible input is the only factor in second language acquisition. Comprehensible input (I assume that's what you're calling CI) isn't a method. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6362 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 110 of 191 13 July 2007 at 1:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I see what you mean now. In that case, I mean technique, rather than method. And through this technique, one does not need to use drills to learn to speak a language. This is what I'm saying. Edit: I don't just mean technique. I mean method, and technique. See my post on the following page. Edited by FSI on 13 July 2007 at 2:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6946 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 111 of 191 13 July 2007 at 1:40am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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One hallmark of the Assimil approach is letting the user acquire a lot of grammar intuitively, with only a minimum of explanations provided.
It may be of interest that this particular aspect is not unique to Assimil, but is found a number of older textbooks, which don't, however, come with recordings. For German, such textbooks are: Berlitz Self-Teacher: German German Step-by-Step Cortina German German: How to Speak and Write It, and there is a textbook that is more grammar-rich, but still has its readings in a side-by-side bilingual format: German Made Simple. An identical set exists for French. I've read through several of these courses for German, and found that they really do sneak a lot of grammar in. I found that Berlitz Self-Teacher is especially gently graded and may be used to dilute the Assimil pace, save the recordings. Rosenberg can be similarly used, although the pace picks up considerably in the second half of the book. Berlitz Self-Teacher, curiously enough, was even produced for Russian and Hebrew, but I've never seen those. The punchline is that this approach has quite a bit of mileage on it. Edited by frenkeld on 13 July 2007 at 2:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6362 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 112 of 191 13 July 2007 at 1:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Precisely. And though it may not work as well for some people as it does for others, this does not mean the approach is inneffective, or deficient, in comparison to the approach of programs such as FSI, Pimsleur, or Learn in Your Car, which are more drill-based than assimilation-based.
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