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TAC 2010 - Team A - zenmonkey DE PT IT... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes  1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 125 31 December 2008 at 6:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is my TAC 2009-2010 log.
It's the end of the year, shopping is completed for the NYE and it's time to look new resolutions! I have a splitting headache and a messy desk, so these things will need to be taken care of. First objective with respect to language learning is the desk. I will clear my desk at home of everything(!) and organize my language learning material to have the active material close at hand and organized, it's hard to find motivation for 15 min here or there when you can't imagine how to find the lesson to work on. So looking at 2008, I can conclude that overall it was both a bust and a success - a bust as my major objectives remain there, before me, taunting and as works in progress - a success as I did put in the time, saw some major advances. Learning is a multi-year process and the encapsulation into tangible units of time just a necessary evil. So let' go. ENGLISH - OBJ: maintenance, no active study. - TASKS: No specific tasks, this takes care of itself. FRENCH - OBJ: Grammar and writing strengthening. - TASKS: Read a grammar lesson a week and write an email or short letter or posts. Review with C. SPANISH - OBJ: maintenance, rebuild vocabulary, rebuild oral fluidity, written fluidity. - TASKS: Read a book a year, write a letter or email a week or speak once a week at least for 30 min. Read a newstory a week. GERMAN - OBJ: Move from Intermediate to Advanced German. For me the level of fluency I want can be summed into a couple simple phrases. I want: - Reading - comfortable reading novels, e-mail and newspapers with a level that I only need to look up 2 to 3 words per page. - Writing - capable of expressing myself clearly and without faults in an eMail or letter or forum post. - Listening and comprehesion - understand most films, radio and conversation in a group, some Bayerisch clarity. - Speaking - clearly understood in everyday interactions, capable to give a presentation in German, hold a meeting, give directions - TASKS: - Reading - An easy reader every other week. DW website once a week. Read, understand, identify new words. - Vocabulary - Underline the words from my reading or Basic Vocab book, and add at least 10 words a day to the Mnemosyne program. - Writing - Need to set real tasks here: a webpost or email a day, or answer a list of questions from excercises in writing at least 3 days a week - Listening - Half an hour of news at least 4 days a week, for comprehension - Speaking - Try to speak at lunchtime and with staff at least 3 days a week, continue weekly one on one lessons at least 3 out of 4 weeks ITALIAN - OBJ: Move from no training to comfortable tourist by Aug 2009. Speaking, listening and reading a newspaper. - TASKS: At least an hour and a half per week. Two week trip end of Aug. Perhaps a language class. Speaking/Listening Basics - 4 lesson a week min of Drive Time Italian with a review of the text. 80% comprehension before moving forward. Pimsleur afterwards? Picked up Living Language, so that might follow. As neonqwerty wrote
CHINESE - OBJ: Move from failed initial training to rudimentary. Speaking and listening basics. Create the environment for further study. - TASKS: Complete Pimsleur I & II - 30 min a day at least 3 days a week. --- Best wishes to all for the New Year and Speedy learning! Time to get going - got a desk to clean! Objectives review on page 7 of log Edited by zenmonkey on 01 March 2010 at 9:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 125 31 December 2008 at 9:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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First off - I forgot to mention before - thanks to all those that post their own logs and comments, motivation here is one of emmulation, hints, reading what others are thinking and doings!
seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke Seiri (sorting) - so, the desk is clean, material is put away, the headache has subsided some, I have coffee. Seiton (setting in order) - learning material at hand or what I need to keep close and organized. GERMAN - MATERIAL @about and around - itouch for ASSIMIL material (seem to have displaced the radio emitter) and podcasts. - Franklin eDictionary @desk - lessons 44-54 on paper in Goethe Inst. binder. - Leid Vom Kindsein (poem) in binder - Flash Cards on Mnemosyne (main computer plus pen drive for portable) - Thema aktuell II for vocab review and cards @bag - Schritte 6 - for face to face @nightstand - various books Seiso - (Shine) put everything back in place. Seiketsu - (Standardise) consistent learning methodology. Shitsuke - (Sustain) what this whole log is about. -- so how about actually doing some German? Edited by zenmonkey on 01 January 2009 at 11:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 125 01 January 2009 at 9:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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CHINESE - MATERIAL
keeping this light @desk ASSIMIL With Ease Vol 1 SPANISH - MATERIAL @desk news article from google for reading. Day 1 Objectives nothing major, just re-kickoff the learning Actual DE - 24 words review in Th2 and cards review - Lesson 44 - (Assimil DE II Track 18) - rocking shadowing with text x3 (30 min) CN - Lesson 4 r.shadow x2(15min) ES - Read an article from google news, no new words.(5 min) IT - None for today Edited by zenmonkey on 01 January 2009 at 6:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 125 02 January 2009 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Day 2
Objectives DE Active Shadow through lesson 44 ES work on cards with Daughter CN Lesson 4 IT organise material Actual DE - listened to Schlaflos in München #508 got it all except for one (the) key word group (geige vorspielen-violin audition) - listened to part of #507 - word list review - Lesson 44 - (Assimil DE II Track 18) - rocking shadowing with text need to explain this, this is like active shadowing (the rapid walking type), but I needed something that was possible at my desk, so here is a bit of a similar method: Rock Shadowing is just back and forth rocking at my desk (usually holding arms tightly close to body, sitting on chair edge) while shadowing with the rapid rythm of the text (one can imagine hebraic studies, if that helps). Frequency and method is: -- hear text (~x2 just to see what I can catch without the visuals) -- read and rock shadow German (~x2) identify sticky areas -- read and rock shadow in source language (here, for me, that is French) (x times until text is well understood - usually x2) -- read and rock shadow German (x times until nothing new is seen or discovered - no more "hey, what was that word" moments) -- ready to active shadow away from the page... Walk the dog and did 10x Active Shadowing - noticed that it improved significantly towards the end, need to remember to walk straight and not bent over. Will review sitting for the text. CN - MEA CULPA ES - Completed cards with daughter IT - MEA CULPA Edited by zenmonkey on 03 January 2009 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 125 03 January 2009 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ok, getting back to what should have been part of the first post; borrowed from the TAC thread:
French - Fluent (spoken and read, principle language with my children) written requires some effort, grammar is just ok, almost no formal language schooling - although I did teach PhD students in French. Spainsh - Fluent (mother tongue, spoken and read, principle language with my parent) written requires some effort. Formal schooling in Spanish ended at age 10 or so. English - Fluent (second language, but now primary language, no accent -- well, CA) German - Intermediate (Basic understanding, say B1) Italian - Beginner with reasonable understanding due to other languages, < 100 hours of self-learn Chinese - Beginner, < 100 hours of of self-learn other languages in which I have some goals or ideas will not be part of this TAC, perhaps add one later in the year.
I'll outline this as I go along. Very different for each based on objectives and level.
Completely agree, if I'm not having fun or getting somewhere, I'll stop and just go biking. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 125 03 January 2009 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Day 3
Objectives DE Active Shadow through lesson 44 - finalize, reorganize sound recordings ES none today CH Active Shadow Lesson 4 IT organise material Actual DE Reorganized material with Audacity, took mp3s and removed silent pauses as well as excercises to create reduced length recordings that I can loop. Created a playlist with only one entry in itunes so that I can loop it forever in the ipod (I hate having to play every minute with the ipod while I'm walking). This works well. Listened to lesson 44 over 50 times. - word list review - Lesson 44 - (Assimil DE II Track 18) - x50 - Lesson 44 completed, added work sentences to flashcard list. Work sentences are all sentences that have words I do not know. 7 sentences added for Lesson 44. CN - Reviewed lessons 1-3, prepared reduced mp3 files for lessons 1 to 6 for shadowing (In Audacity, open each mp3 file, cut off excercise parts, truncate silence (max duration 1 sec, -30db)) and moved to ipod - Lesson 4 x2 ES - none, as planned IT ITALIAN - MATERIAL keeping this light also for the time being @desk -- Living Languages Italian Coursebook - The Basics (continued from last year) and the Lerner's Dictionary it comes with. --Assimil - Le Nouvel Italien Sans Peine, will use this as complementary material. --Cards for vocabulary @iPod --LL lessons --Assimil Edited by zenmonkey on 03 January 2009 at 4:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 125 03 January 2009 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Nota Bene
Method - Reviewing sentence from Assimil (either writing them or flash cards) is very much necessary for me as an effective supplement to shadowing. Shadowing alone does not get those key words to active usage; it's quite good for passive understanding but not for English-->German translation (what Assimil calls second pass). For this, I need to actively (LOL) study the words. So it is essential that I write my sentence with missing words into cards. I discovered this after today's effort, after 50x reviews with Shadowing I was still struggling to remember some of the words, 4 hours later. My shadowing is not as effective as adding also a card method. Edited by zenmonkey on 03 January 2009 at 5:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6363 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 125 04 January 2009 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Day 4
Objectives DE Shadow lesson 45, review cards for 44 ES Article for the week, phone conversation CH Active Shadow Lesson 4 IT restart Actual Went sledging so got a lot less done today. DE - sentence review from Lesson 44 - Shadow Lesson 45 x20 - pretty good understanding, better than previous pass CN - Lesson 4 x2 ES - news article, one new word IT Back in the saddle LL Lesson 7 x2 - understand +95% of the words, still struggling with making this active, I think I might just run through it, grab a grammar and then do Assimil as speaking-work. I like this idea from this thread
Probably will help if I switch the order and try to get the vocab, grammar first and then only listen. Reverse of what I'm doing with Assimil. Edited by zenmonkey on 04 January 2009 at 3:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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