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FSI French Drills: What Am I Missing? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Footnoted Newbie United States Joined 4857 days ago 35 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 9 of 24 22 August 2011 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Are you not supposed to look at the text during the drills? Or cover up the answers, I suppose? Also are you supposed to answer orally or in writing or both? Edited by Footnoted on 22 August 2011 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5174 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 10 of 24 22 August 2011 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't look at the drills when I do them, and I do them all orally.
Give it some time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6526 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 11 of 24 22 August 2011 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd keep the text nearby, but try not to look at it unless you need to: focus on the
audio. Writing out answers to the drills isn't necessary, and really isn't what the method is about. It's more about building automatic reflexes through oral exercises. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 12 of 24 22 August 2011 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
The philosophy behind FSI stems from the "Army Method" and doesn't appeal to me. Basically, they believed that enough parroting will teach you anything. The problem is, you can say whatever they want you to say, but they rarely give you any reason to say it. To be able to use language, you need to be able to summon the appropriate structure for the message you want to convey. FSI starts with the structure, so you're never called upon to connect structure and meaning. So you know how to say things, but not when or why to say them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4889 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 13 of 24 22 August 2011 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Now I understand the issue! Like the other two, I keep the text nearby if I'm totally stuck on a drill, but otherwise I don't have it open. It's far too easy when I can see the text, and I don't think I learn anything.
"Army Style" is an apt term, but I'm actually enjoying the massive data-dump directly into my brain. I figure I can use other programs to learn nuances; FSI is more about getting the basics down hard. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5022 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 24 22 August 2011 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Really? I seriously doubt thesse two go anywhere near as far as fsi. I am doing a version of the Spanish course, and I can tell you that it goes further and pushes you far harder than any other course I have tried. I have read that the French course becomes very challenging, and that there are few people who have completed the course from start to finish. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyyamguder Diglot Newbie Turkey Joined 4855 days ago 8 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: French | Message 15 of 24 02 September 2011 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I do the lexical and learning drills first by looking to the text. Hearing,
repeating and seeing makes it easier to memorize the new words. After first viewing then i shadow the speech without looking at the text. At practice drills there are two types of drills. One with straight sentences which i do the same method as the lexical and learning drills. And the ones with the dialogs. Tutor ask or say something then i try to answer or change some expressions on the sentence based on the drill. I try to answer first looking at the questions only at the first interval then i repeat the voice at the second interval looking at the answers on the text. After that i do them without looking to the text at all. So far i have done 4 units and it was very useful. I suggest that give it time and keep going. You will notice that you are making much progress. Edited by eyyamguder on 02 September 2011 at 4:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6229 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 16 of 24 02 September 2011 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
This method works for some folks (like me) and is useless for others. It depends on your learning style. I tend to be a much better aural learner than a visual one so FSI ( usually) works well for me; probably not so well for folks like Cainntear. The trick is NOT to simply be a parrot. Anticipate what the drills are going to ask and answer them BEFORE they give the answer back to you; then repeat using the best pronunciation you can muster. This gets you thinking in the language and not just parroting. When I think of true "parroting" Assimil comes to mind. People on this forum love Assimil, but for me it just feels like mindless "parroting". At least FSI drills the learner on the language structure. I had great success using the FSI Turkish and Greek courses. Some FSI courses are much better at arranging their courses for interaction than others. French is actually pretty good. The key is to get through Unit 6 or so. Up to this point the material is so basic and mindless, you may feel like a parrot. Go through it quickly, you'll get the gist of it. It gets more challenging afterwards. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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