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Assimil with Prompts | ||
Tags: Learning Technique/Method | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5967 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 9 of 15 01 February 2011 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Not sure if with "immersion zealots" you want to offend me and Andrew. As there is nothing of zealot and nothing of immersion in what we both are more or less agreeing upon. You got your Assimil book you can consult ad nauseam when necessary. In any case IMHO if you need translation exercise to fix your "internal voice" or appreciate idioms or prepositions you probably have not done enough of the 1st phase. That's the time you learn to appreciate the text including any such nuances. Well, not maybe on the 1st go or the 2nd. I usually go through the course many times. But I guess we each stick with what we have found out how it's better to learn. So Chris have found a supporter and even if I have strong doubts about efficiency of this enterprise, it's up to Chris to decide how to work. In fact I would even agree that the text with source language included could be beneficial at some point. Say version with target language-pause-source language to confirm your guess and version with source-language-pause-target language for "second wave" as Chris propose (if you insist on translation job in second wave:-). Target language bit usually makes a poor cue (but IMHO still better than language switching back and forth). If you got all three: target language-pause-source language, target language with pauses and repetitions, source language-pause-target language, you could variate depending where you are in the learning curve and your specific needs. I believe I'd listen at least once to each version with English text; probably not one the first listening, probably not on the last, but would listen:-) But it's really a big work to prepare all three. And if you do just one thing with the recording then IMO it's the schema I described. For me recording all the text in English and then editing the recordings to add them, seems to be a time better spent learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5967 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 10 of 15 01 February 2011 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Probably this really depends on how particular people remember things. If you got a good memory for sounds you cannot listen too many times to the same recording because you remember sound of it before you can distinguish all meaning. I would never be able to recite old basque song or even recite an Assimil lesson I've listened to 20 or 30 times. However for me repeated listening (and repeating), until I understand all meaning and can reasonably repeat it, allows link meaning directly to the sound of the word, it also records somewhere links between words and expressions (and sometimes whole sentences, true). When I read or hear a word afterwards frequently I remember the sentence of the recording where it has been used, so I retrieve a ready template to modify and use according to the situation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5193 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 15 01 February 2011 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Very simply - you just have to take responsibility for understanding what you are saying. I don't think that is an unreasonable or difficult thing to do. If you think you don't understand, review the translation, consult dictionaries etc. Also, the problem of not understanding what you are saying doesn't necessarily go away just because you are using an English prompt - you might know what the sentence means as a whole but have no idea what the individual words mean. EDIT: I forgot to say, using L2 prompts would obviously work best if there is some kind of logical flow to the text (which I think Assimil has?) - it wouldn't work so well with isolated sentences. But L2 prompts also have the big advantage that they don't break up the language artificially as an L1 prompt would do. Your L2 prompt might be one word which reminds you of a whole sentence or a whole sentence which reminds you of one word. Edited by Andrew C on 01 February 2011 at 3:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 12 of 15 01 February 2011 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The brain naturally prefers efficiency, and it is very, very difficult to get the brain to "understand" something when it sees no reason to. Forcing the brain to understand is hard work when it knows it doesn't need to. This is why I favour active production as practice -- the immediate goal of production requires engagement with meaning, so naturally provides the brain with a reason to learn.
True. However, that is only a problem if you repeat each item enough to memorise it. The point of the Assimil active wave is, as I said, to get you to produce the target language yourself, not to simply recall from memory. If the OP wants to do the active wave as described by Assimil, then he will have to understand to produce the sentences. However, the amount of recording and editing he'll have to do means he'd be just as well spending that time doing the active wave at home and doing something else in the car....
That last sentence worries me -- it seems to imply that you see memorisation of sentences as a necessary and/or desirable thing. For a single word to reminds you of a sentence means you need to over-rehearse that sentence, much like a singer rehearses lyrics, and it's memorisation leaves you in danger of disengagement from meaning, regardless of the language you're using or the techniques you're employing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5193 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 13 of 15 01 February 2011 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Anyway, I'm not 100% against L1 prompts, it's just that I really don't like listening to English when I'm trying to learn Spanish.
I see no difference between an L2 and L1 prompt as far as production goes - i.e. your brain still has to do the same work. For example I see no difference between thinking "ok here he asks about the price of the hamburger"(=the L2 prompt) and "how much is the hamburger?" (= the L1 prompt). I just prefer the first one.
I was really just giving an example - I don't mean you should learn whole sentences, just sometimes one word could make you recall a whole sentence. I don't see any harm in remembering whole sentences, but it shouldn't be a goal. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| chrisphillips71 Groupie United States Joined 5239 days ago 64 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 15 02 February 2011 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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First of all, thanks for all of the input. Reading the responses, I realize that most of
you are far more talented language learners than myself. I don't think that there is any way that I can listen to Assimil 5 or 100 times and then reliably produce the sentences. I actually need to practice producing the sentences, listening is not enough. Maybe it would be better for me to sit, book in hand, and read the English while translating into Spanish. Unfortunately, I just do not have time to do that consistently (i.e. ever day). My commute is the best time to practice. Thus, I need the English prompts added to the audio. Admittedly, the time spent adding the prompts is largely wasted time that could be better spent learning. However, I hope to come up with an efficient system of adding the prompts on the weekends when I have more time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5967 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 15 of 15 02 February 2011 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
maybe I was not particularly clear, but its not about listening only. Or it rather is - listening with understanding is the new speaking. My creed is: You always (maybe except few first times) should listen AND repeat. My idea is - once you can repeat with understanding and in about the same tempo as the recording, you are ready to go to the "second wave", but then there is nothing really left for it - you can do it. Maybe you should do it, as a repetition or a selftest, but 90% of the work should go to listening, understanding what you hear and repeating. Okok, I will cut this preaching :-) What I have always hated about school and all kinds of courses is that they make you produce language before you can listen and understand it. So they can "train" the grammar rules, etc. As soon as you can read it with difficulties - go on and speak and write. Not only you acquire poor pronunciation this way, it's damned hard. Have you ever seen anybody who after 10 years of foreign language study in school has been able to communicate efficiently, understand real foreigners speaking normal way? I mean not taking immersion courses abroad, etc - just after using traditional school methods. I believe Cainntear will not be happy at all with my post. From what I understand Cainntear suggests and Chris wants as well is to train the hard way by producing language that you are not able to understand when you listen to. Though I believe there might be people that can succeed in this way. I've done it with English... at school. I could never get anything right at all until I started read a lot in English (again - input is the main driver); but even then I still could not speak and understand properly. And I guess I will never manage to get my pronunciation right now - most of my exposure to English is to the international variety :-/ I know Chris you will go your own way :-) Sorry for all this guys, have fun :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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