Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Assimil without Toil

  Tags: Assimil
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
21 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 
roncy
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5726 days ago
105 posts - 112 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Latin

 
 Message 17 of 21
06 October 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged 
3EB wrote:

It's a shame that the quality of language courses has generally been in decline over the last hundred years. The technology has of course improved, but little else it seems.

Sweeping statement from someone who says he needs help deciding which language to choose and what material to use. Because he is a novice and therefore doesn't know.
The quality has not declined at all, it has just adjusted to the present instead of being stuck in the past. It was only accessible to the select few and totally out of touch with reality. As well as totally unpedagocical. Most text-books were real crap. People complain about text-books nowadays. They should be made to learn from what people had to put up with in school and what was on offer outside. A lot of hard work with little returns. No wonder most of our parents never learnt any languages but stayed monolingual. In Europe!.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6248 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 18 of 21
06 October 2008 at 3:25pm | IP Logged 
roncy wrote:
3EB wrote:

It's a shame that the quality of language courses has generally been in decline over the last hundred years. The technology has of course improved, but little else it seems.

Sweeping statement from someone who says he needs help deciding which language to choose and what material to use. Because he is a novice and therefore doesn't know.
The quality has not declined at all, it has just adjusted to the present instead of being stuck in the past. It was only accessible to the select few and totally out of touch with reality. As well as totally unpedagocical. Most text-books were real crap. People complain about text-books nowadays. They should be made to learn from what people had to put up with in school and what was on offer outside. A lot of hard work with little returns. No wonder most of our parents never learnt any languages but stayed monolingual. In Europe!.


Seconded, with caveats.

The language learning material from a century ago (or a few centuries ago) tends to be pretty horrid - at least, what I've seen of it was. I browsed some antique books, several of which were on language, a few months ago and.... well, if they were my only resource, I think I'd remain thoroughly monolingual.

That said, particular courses do follow some trends. The number of courses which are declining as content is replaced by blank space and large, bright cartoons and fill-in-the-blank exercises seems to be rather high.

There's good material which is several decades old; there's good material which is contemporary. There's also bad material from both eras. I've looked at hundreds or thousands of resources, but most have been contemporary, so I can't really generalize about whether the older resources were actually better as a rule, or whether only the good ones stand out with age, while the lousy tends to be quietly forgotten.

1 person has voted this message useful



ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4520 days ago
480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 21 of 21
13 January 2013 at 10:35pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:


Seconded, with caveats.

The language learning material from a century ago (or a few centuries ago) tends to be pretty horrid - at least, what I've seen of it was. I browsed some antique books, several of which were on language, a few months ago and.... well, if they were my only resource, I think I'd remain thoroughly monolingual.

That said, particular courses do follow some trends. The number of courses which are declining as content is replaced by blank space and large, bright cartoons and fill-in-the-blank exercises seems to be rather high.

There's good material which is several decades old; there's good material which is contemporary. There's also bad material from both eras. I've looked at hundreds or thousands of resources, but most have been contemporary, so I can't really generalize about whether the older resources were actually better as a rule, or whether only the good ones stand out with age, while the lousy tends to be quietly forgotten.


So, Volte, what would you say the best contemporary courses for Spanish are?


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 21 messages over 3 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.2188 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.