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Making our own Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| blindsheep Triglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6186 days ago 503 posts - 507 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 65 of 130 29 May 2008 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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It occurred to me that perhaps taking words from a frequency list for English would be a good way to get a base stock of words of graded words to integrate into the dialogues. While the equivalents of these words won't necessarily have same frequency rating as in in other languages as in English, many probably will be similar.
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| Feculent Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5987 days ago 136 posts - 144 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 66 of 130 29 May 2008 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that one way of potentially making this idea a lot easier to do, is to instead of trying to create many different language courses with one base, try and do the opposite, i.e. a universal English course with many bases
This would be a lot easier to design as we could just gradually introduce English grammar. We could design the set of dialogs and record them, aiming to use higher frequency vocabulary first, gradually introducing grammar. We would then ask advanced English speakers with a different native language to write up translations, along with grammar points, not necessarily having them do the whole course just requesting the translation of one lesson, forming it as an open collobarative effort so that any possible contributers could work as much as they wanted to in providing help. This would be much more feasible, would likely create a higher quality course and would probably inspire other groups of native speaker of other languages to create their own course for their language. We could even suggest it on the main page of the website providing the course and also in the final lesson =P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| phauna Newbie Japan Joined 5891 days ago 15 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French | Message 67 of 130 29 May 2008 at 7:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Grammar is not even close to being a shared attribute of most languages. However function is quite universal. Grammar should be taught around function, thus removing the problem of using grammar points which may conflict in other languages.
So you make your dialogue around a function point, such as 'ability'. Now the unifying script can be based loosely on the differing grammars of various languages and how they deal with this function. In English it would be a conversation like this, although better: A - My mother can play the piano, you know. B - Really? I've never been able to play, my parents couldn't afford to send me to lessons. A - Well my mother taught us, so I can play a little. Also, I took viola in school. etc. So we are using 'can, able to, could, in English to describe 'ability', but of course other languages have different grammars to deal with this. Some functions include: talking about the future, about the past, about the present, about habitual actions, etc. suggesting something, accepting a suggestion, declining a suggestion ordering in a restaurant, buying a ticket, calling someone on the phone, etc. This is how Assimil seems to do it. The grammar is explained as an aside, but the particular structures seem to be chosen to cover various functions / situations. I think this would be a smart way to go, easily translatable into authentic language, and it would still allow a unifying structure. If we want to go in depth in to grammar, we could create grammar wikis that delve deeply, or just use the ones already available. The most important start is the functional curricula for the chapters, then we can haggle about inclusions and exclusions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| phauna Newbie Japan Joined 5891 days ago 15 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French | Message 68 of 130 29 May 2008 at 8:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Here is a list of functions / situations:
- talking about the future - talking about the past - talking about the present - talking about habitual actions - suggesting something, accepting a suggestion, declining a suggestion - ordering in a restaurant - buying a ticket for a train, bus, movie, etc. - calling someone on the phone, etc. - introducing yourself, inquiring about others - relaying information from another speaker - talking about ability - talking about permission, restriction, rules - commanding others to do and not to do something - asking for directions, giving directions - describing objects, shape, colour, number, position - comparing things - talking about likes and dislikes, talking about favourites - talking about hypothetical situations, speculating - talking about time, relative and specific - talking about amounts, numbers - talking about possessions - stating an opinion - talking about two actions happening simultaneously, one after the other, one before the other - describing frequency of an action - being made to do something - asking questions You might notice that most textbooks lately look more like this and less like a list of grammar points. Feel free to add to this list, of course some of these functions can be merged into one chapter, and others probably must be spread amongst more than one lesson. And some are not necessary at all, perhaps in a basic course as proposed, for instance, being made to do something and relaying information from another speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| awake Senior Member United States Joined 6462 days ago 406 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 69 of 130 29 May 2008 at 8:50am | IP Logged | ||
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One thing that we should do is try to have multiple person dialogues. Perhaps we could record conversations
over Skype or whatever. I also think it is important to have both male and female voices. and people should try to speak with fairly neutral accents. Probably (if someone knows how to do so) we could establish a wiki to facilitate this collaboration. I think phauna's list is also a good place to start. I suggest we start making more dialogues. If we start with a few dialogues we can fine tune them as a group. Here are a few non-witty sample dialogues along those lines. Maybe we can start playing with them. these are some initial suggestions. Obviously they could be revised and improved. I'll take the first topic on phauna's list and write 3 dialogues. I'd be happy to take suggestions on how to improve them. I'd encourage other people to take other items on the list and make dialogues. We could rapidly have 50-60 good dialogues to choose from, and then start organizing them. One possibility is to try to make the dialogues have some consistent story, but I think that would be too difficult to manage (and make interesting). Probably, the style of the current assimil programs (unrelated dialogues) is the easiest way to go. Anyway, here's my opening salvo of dialogues about future situations. future situations 1 Nick: Paula, what do you want to do tomorrow? Paula: I would like to go to the zoo. N: Really? why do you want to go there? P: A new exhibit will open. I want to see it. N: What kind of exhibit? P: It's a butterfly garden. they will have dozens of species of butterflys on display. N: I hate insects. We should go to the soccer game instead. P: You hate all insects? Even butterflies? I like them. They're so beautiful. N: I don't like things crawling on me. But If we go to the zoo we could see the pandas. They're cute! P: Let's go to the zoo tomorrow morning, then we can see the game tomorrow afternoon. N: That's a good plan! Let's do it. future situations 2 John: You are going to college next autumn? Mary: Yes, I'll be going to Stanford. I am very excited about it. J: Do you know what you want to study? M: I will major in biology, but I want to go to medical school after I graduate. J: Wow! I bet you will be a great doctor. M: Really? You are so sweet to say that. J: What kind of doctor do you want to be? M: I'm not sure, but I think I will study to be a heart surgeon, like my father. J: Your father is a doctor? I never knew that! M Yes, but he's retired now. He spends most of his time on the beach. J: He probably likes to watch the girls there. M: You're right, but don't tell my mom she'll get jealous! Future situation 3 John: When will the game start? Paul: Not for another 3 hours. J: It doesn't start until seven o'clock? Why is it going to be so late? P: They are playing in california. It will only be three in the afternoon there when it starts. P: Who do you think will win? J: New York will win, they have the better team P: I think you're crazy! They can't possibly win. J: You think think that Denver will win? I will bet you 20 dollars that they don't. P: Make it Fifty dollars! J: It's a bet! What do you think? any suggestions? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6601 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 70 of 130 29 May 2008 at 9:03am | IP Logged | ||
I like this suggestion and the list. In fact, this is very close to what I had suggested when I talked about the grammar script. Some of these things are directly transferrable to grammar - like the future, present and past tenses. "Being made to do something" is the Passive Voice, "comparing things" is Quantitative Adjectives, "commanding others to do and not to do something" is the Imperative Mood, "- talking about hypothetical situations, speculating" is the Conditional mood etc. This is pretty much what I had in mind. Edited by Russianbear on 29 May 2008 at 9:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6729 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 71 of 130 29 May 2008 at 11:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Awake, I find your dialogs difficult. For example the first one: it includes many different grammar structures: in few sentences you have Future Simple, Imperativ, Conditional, different modal verbs etc. I think we should start with writing some simple dialogs and then progress to more difficult ones, as it's not that easy to organize ready dialogs logically (I mean the new structures and vocabulary, not the plot). I would also prefer something witty as it makes the learning process more pleasant.
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| BGreco Senior Member Joined 6219 days ago 211 posts - 222 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish | Message 72 of 130 29 May 2008 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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- Edited by BGreco on 29 May 2008 at 1:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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