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Vera Birkenbihl method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| draoicht Groupie Ireland Joined 6312 days ago 89 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 32 06 September 2009 at 12:12pm | IP Logged |
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This was posted in another thread on The Birkenbihl method Link
Its a PDF document outlining the steps in the method. The Birkenbihl Method is a mixture of other methods which have been widely discussed in the forums here. These include working with texts with word by word translations (sounds like Assimil), Active Listening (listening-Reading), Shadowing and Chorusing. I know Prof. Arguelles recommends to shadow the Assimil courses and The Birkenbihl Method sounds a lot like how some people here are using Assimil. I'm trying to get back into Assimil and I'm going to use the method and see how I get on (I'm not going to use the Passive Listening step as I don't think it's worthwhile.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6150 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 26 of 32 07 September 2009 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
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I think draoicht has summed up the method concisely. According to the document, her method employs special cassette tapes of three minutes duration which are set to loop on a walkman. When I listen to Assimil passively, I set my MP3 player to repeat track, so I'm using another Birkenbihl technique, without knowing it's origins. I was amazed by how many techniques she covers that match the methods discussed here. Iversen mentions the use of direct word for word translations, and this is also a component of her teaching.
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| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5559 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 27 of 32 07 September 2009 at 5:48pm | IP Logged |
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I had another look at my Birkenbihl courses over the weekend. I never actually did them as I was only acquiring lots of audio input. At the time they seemed a bit whacko(eg the 20 min introduction consists of 5 mins explaining the method and 15 mins of motivational and management speak).
Now that i've discovered this forum, however, much of the method seems quite sensible. To recap. in brief: Decoding: Word for word translation Active Listening: Learn the text in L1, create imagery, reassociate immagery while listening in L2 and reading. Passive listening: Once completely understood, listen on loop, many times, until accent, rythms etc "imprinted" on brain Production: Chorussing/shadowing I think I was peviously a bit confused by the use of passive/active a bit differently from what I expected. In my learning, I usually do some passive listening before active listening, not after I've learned it. I now think the passive bit might be the most interesting aspect. "Decoding" is presented as the major innovation, and it's true that I've often thought that would be useful, but it seems a relatively minor step. The method cocentrates on the first three steps, and actual production seems almost a bit of an afterthought, but the suggestion for speaking sounds much like Prof A's shadowing, although here of course you have already (hopefully) learned the text. I reiterate that the courses are a bit thin. One CD consists of 20 mins text, plus 40 mins repeated at half pace. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lucia Ibanez Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5898 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 28 of 32 08 September 2009 at 2:35pm | IP Logged |
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I use the Birkenbihl Method to give private lessons in English.
It works wonders. At the beginning it was something like this: I "How would you say (Ich möchte tanzen = I want to dance)" She "I want dance" I "Theres something missing" She "I really want dance" But know she has an intuitive grasp of the English grammar and stops when she says "I running" and directly knows that she just did a mistake and correct it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 29 of 32 10 September 2009 at 5:38pm | IP Logged |
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The problem I have with it is that there's no creative step -- it's all working to a fixed script.
To me, language is nothing if not a way to express my feelings and my ideas. Memorising a tape doesn't teach me to express myself that way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 32 28 September 2009 at 1:41pm | IP Logged |
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MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE LANGUAGE PROGRAMS OF Vera F. Birkenbihl
Last week they had her language programs for sale at ALDI supermarket here in Germany for the languages English, French, Spanish and Italian. So I took the chance to buy the intermediate/advanced level for the three Romance languages. Each course comes with 4 audio CDs and a textbook. I prefer lisitening directly to the audios with reading the foreign language dialogues together with the German hyperliteral translations. The recording and speaking quality of the audios is brilliant! The topics of the dialogues are for me not really interesting. Often it's something like "A woman quarrels with a man about female and male attitudes". I would find other topics more informative. Every language has the same topics. To give an example: Lesson 22 in French is a translation of Lesson 22 in Italian or Lesson 22 in Spanish. Despite the stereotype topics I find this language program very useful for doing audio-training or vocabulary expansion. By the way there's no grammar at all involved, so people should look up grammar explanations elsewhere. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 28 September 2009 at 1:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rycerz Newbie Poland Joined 5754 days ago 33 posts - 33 votes Studies: Ukrainian, Polish* Studies: English | Message 31 of 32 02 October 2009 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
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I found several good position about this method. So I'd like to try.
But I don't know from where I can find English text and record for this text. If anybody know where I find this, I will thankful ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6358 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 32 of 32 02 October 2009 at 4:21pm | IP Logged |
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Some time ago, I have purchased Natalie Fairbanks's book on how she applied the Birkenbihl method for classrooms to see how I could use it in my language classes.
Having applied the method in my language classes, I find the first step (decoding) a waste of time (or at least a waste of my time, since it's very time consuming). The need to decode the language may be useful for lbeginner level students, but if they generally understand what they are reading then it's not necessary. Also, chorusing or shadowing seems to work for a while, but it can be quite boring at times. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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