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Why don’t you write a perfect course? | ||
Tags: Alexander Arguelles | Textbooks | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7044 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 33 of 78 30 April 2009 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you all again for the detailed ammunition. I am struck by the degree of consensus in the specific evaluations. Among people who know, appreciate, and use language courses there seems to be such a clear notion of what the components of a good course would be that it is almost rather odd that so few of them are produced. I fear that reality of what the common market demands may outweigh all of this, but perhaps this opportunity is our great chance to make a change.
At any rate, particularly in regard to the current editions of widely available American and British product lines, I wonder whether there are any dissenting views? That is, are there those of you who feel perfectly well served by the present generation of Teach Yourself, Colloquial, Living Language, Michel Thomas, and Pimsleur courses? Do any of you feel that these provide sufficient content, that the way the content is presented is just what you need in order to understand and master it, that the quantity of and type of audio are adequate, etc.? Continued thanks in advance, Alexander Arguelles 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5687 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 34 of 78 30 April 2009 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I see little fault in the Michel Thomas' courses. Not that they're perfect or that they'll teach you a language by themselves, but they're good at what they set out to do, and complement very well other types of courses.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7044 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 35 of 78 02 May 2009 at 8:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Juan has stated overtly what many others seemed to imply: namely that of currently commercially available language courses (materials that one can find and look over in a large bookstore selling new books in 2009) published by American and British presses, the Michel Thomas line comes closest to delivering upon its promise. In other words, any serious language learner purchasing most any other course in any other line, although he may be able to learn something from it, is also likely to feel frustrated and shortchanged by it and have a sense that it could and should be easily improved upon. I certainly have my own judgments and evaluations of various product lines, as articulated most openly in my series of video reviews, but now that I have the opportunity to talk frankly with a publishing house about the whole matter, would it be fair for me to speak in the name of the language learning community and say: "we are not happy with the current offerings. We want something more, something better."???
Alexander Arguelles 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5500 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 36 of 78 02 May 2009 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say you speak for the majority of us.
I would love to buy a fresh new copy of a comprehensive, and substantive course with MP3 or CDs at my local bookstore. Instead? I have to hunt in libraries, used bookstores and thrift shops or search online for a course that has the same offering in multiple languages. Buying anything online has its risks. If I'm lucky to get a good course it's often not in acceptable condition, moreover finding a good course in one language doesn't mean you'll fine the same course in another language. Even Michel Thomas falls short. We need a new, consistent, and effective lines of courses in several languages from someone with experience. You certainly speak for me, Professor. - J. Rout EDIT: I forgot to mention how much fun it is in trying to convert cassettes or vinyls into MP3 format! Edited by Rout on 02 May 2009 at 8:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6453 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 37 of 78 02 May 2009 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | ||
I haven't tried the others, but I quite enjoy working with the Teach Yourself series (which I use for Turkish, Persian, and Arabic). What I like about the courses is that they are well balanced and that the exercises are fun. However, I have never seen any older editions of the series, so I'm not in a position to judge whether the quality has deteriorated or not. Unfortunately, I do not have enough experience with American or British language learning materials to make any qualified comment, but I do disagree with the claim that the Assimil courses are worse now than they used to be. There are many courses of the latest generation I consider very useful, to wit the Latin, Ancient Greek, Norwegian, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic courses. Actually, I prefer the most recent Latin and Arabic courses over the previous editions, and some of the older Assimil books are horrible (e.g. Esperanto). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6706 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written) | Message 38 of 78 03 May 2009 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Starting from the beginning, any language program needs to teach vocabulary and grammar, so having a full index of all vocabulary words introduced and sufficient charts clearly detailing all grammatical paradigms is pretty essential for any comprehensive course. As the number of words had been mentioned before, the most desirable would be to get the learner to that solid intermediate to upper-intermediate range (maybe 5000-15,000 words) at which point he/she has enough momentum to continue with daily exposure, reading, etc.
I don't know what kind of format you are thinking of, but I hope it would return at least partly to the 1940/50/60s Teach Yourself format which slowly progressed through all the major grammatical aspects (I'm thinking especially of the Geoffrey Lewis "Teach Yourself Turkish", or similarly the Haywood & Nahmad New Arabic Grammer). A format like that (which is basically a modernized version of the old Latin/Greek textbooks one can find on Textkit) mixed with Assimil/Berlitz Step by Step bilingual texts (instead of the block translation exercises) would be an incredible resource. Best of Luck! Joshua B. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| phouk Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5826 days ago 28 posts - 48 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Russian | Message 39 of 78 04 May 2009 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I am very happy with the material that I have now, but that material is not all
currently commercially available, let alone in one convenient package. Among the dozens of courses and books that I have accumulated in my journey to learn Russian so far, the main material that I wish I had had available from the very beginning is: - MT as introduction and grammar overview - 2nd generation Assimil from 1971 with audio (I consider this my "volume I") - 1st generation Assimil from 1951 with audio (I consider the chapters not contained in the other edition my "volume II"). - The information about learning methodologies and tactics taken from this forum. Most language courses currently commercially available seem to be designed to appeal to the vast majority of inexperienced and possibly not (yet) fully committed learners, who are shopping for the easiest-looking course with the largest print, the most pictures, the shortest texts, the least number of pages, the least amount of intimidating grammatical terms and the boldest claims about being dead-simple. The minority of serious language learners who are looking for enough substance to acually learn the language to a meaningful level are left to cobble together their material from a dozen dummies-style courses that just stop at the beginner to early intermediate level, from out of print editions, academic internet resources etc. In addition, they are mostly left alone in how to use that material to form a consistent strategy, and have to find out through trial and error or forums like this one. This is hardly efficient, and this minority of serious language learners is the market niche that is currently totally under-served. What is missing, IMHO, is a series of language courses that is substantial enough to form the backbone of a serious learners learning strategy from a beginner level to a level where they can comfortably and efficiently continue their learning with native materials alone. This would entail introducing a sufficiently large amount of vocabulary (e.g. between 3000 and 5000 words), a sufficient coverage of and exposure to grammatical phenomena, and accordingly, a sufficent amount of textual and auditory material. The progression of the textual material should be such that after the initial "constructed dialogues" phase there should be a significant amount of material taken straight from native sources, like literature and news - where the latter have the disadvantage of very quickly looking outdated. The amount of audio material should be equally substantial; it start out slow and very clearly pronounced, but the majority of the audio should be spoken at native speeds, without unnatural pauses or speaking patterns. While the MT stuff may be hard to replicate and integrate with the rest, my perfect "backbone" course would look something like this at the moment: - Format similar to 1st/2nd generation Assimil, but just more of it (maybe 150-200 chapters, or two volumes); the initial progression should be more gradual than in the first generation, but all the material in the second half of the course should be taken from native sources. - Target-language only audio like Assimil, but without the pauses and without the unnatural, exaggerated speaking like in the first generation. Most of it should be at natural speed and speaking patterns, ideally some of it taken directly from native sources. - Added information and guidance about how exactly to use that material (e.g. shadowing, the use of word lists/SRS software, scriptoriums, sensible study plans, how to continue after the end of the course, ...) - I LOVE the idea that came up earlier in this thread of working up to a specific longer text with the course (ideally, not a reader but a selected native text in the original, like a novel). Ideally, this would be included with the course, and include the audio as well. The last item could also work to make the distinction between this and other courses very clear: Buy other courses, and you will be able to know a few words and tourist phrases; buy this course, and at the end you will read a novel by e.g. Chekhov in the original. (BTW, sorry for my over-long post - I guess I can type too quickly for my own good... ;)) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Nick Bradley Newbie United States Joined 5472 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 40 of 78 04 May 2009 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all - I'm new here, but I thought I'd try to throw my two cents in..
I've experienced only a few of the self-study languages courses others have talked about - Pimsleur, Living Language, and Rosetta Stone (although RS doesn't seem to have been mentioned, it's on the minds of many language students..). These courses have various strengths and weaknesses relative to each other as discussed above.. but they all seem about the same to me. None of them offer a path to fluency by themselves - they only lay the bare foundation for moving on to learn the language *socially*; that is, building the confidence of mastery through actually using the language as real people do. This foundation is necessary... but useless on its own, no? What would be truly revolutionary is creating a path to fluency with a combination of (1) initial self-study, addressing the weaknesses of the product lines above, AND (2) a bridge to a social network of language learners to begin *experiencing* the language as fluent speakers do. "Language exchange" sites try to accomplish this by pairing people up to switch off speaking their two L2s. I haven't had much experience with these, but it does seem a bit forced.. how can two people form a meaningful connection online and actually gain from conversation when there is nothing to talk about? There are no shared experiences other than the desire to learn the other's L1. Plus, how do you know who is serious and who is not? These sites are free.. who signed up to actually learn a language? However, bridging these two methods may solve the problems of both: by purchasing the initial self-study, the student would gain access the social network. This offers some legitimacy to users of the language-exchange site, because the person has to spend some money to get there. The initial self-study program, in turn, does actually provide a path to fluency, by building the foundation of the L2 and offering access to students that have followed the same path. Then, real communication fosters increased confidence and mastery of L2. None of the current products offer this path. An online learning environment like this would have to have a lot of content that users can experience together... the idea would be to simulate a university learning environment, or an environment like the "Intensive Institute for Foreign Language Learning Skills". The more shared experience, the more natural and useful the communication becomes. So the environment would ideally create experiences rather than just act as a medium of communication. That's the whole point of communication, no? To relate experiences? It's no wonder that these products all carry some reputation of being.. well, boring. The only thing that gets me through them is envisioning the future experiences to be had in the target language.. and if this program of study can conquer boredom by creating the path from self-study, to online exchange, and ideally to physical experiences like the proposed "Intensive Institute" or language programs elsewhere.. this would give people a bit of inspiration to pursue a language from start to finish. Why do all of the Swiss folk I meet seem to speak at least five languages? Because it's taught more in schools, they have more exposure, it's culturally encouraged.. but above all because it's *actually interesting* to pursue and learn languages, because they immediately increase their social exposure to people that are physically there. People learn languages to do something, whether having conversations in bars or reading the "Great Books" as they were written... Anyway, a bit long-winded and rambling, but I think that because language is a social phenomenon, to offer a true path to fluency means to offer a path to meaningful experiences with people in L2. The internet seems to make learning languages accessible but somehow out of reach and out of touch. By creating a course with (1) the best initial self-study (with the Professor's superior methodology) that forms the foundation needed to begin more native study (2) a bridge to an online environment with other course members to foster natural communication that leads to fluency.. with a way to form new experiences from the home. So many want to learn languages but can't afford the time/money to leave their house. There's no reason they should have to in the age of the internet. Members could watch movies online together and talk about them after, or visit news sites in L2 and discuss events while browsing together... really anything that forms a meaningful experience. As members become actual friends, they make their own activities and start to reach for even more natural fluency. (3) a bridge to physical experiences.. university programs etc... which are the best for actually learning :-) I think the scope of this topic is really part (1).. but I just thought that, if provided a path that bridges these phases of language learning, many, many more students would have decided it was worth it. I have seen too many people like myself with a real passion for learning languages that have struggled to find a way to continue. Products like Living Language sell because they offer a structure with promises, but fail to create more interest and path to progress past the initial purchase. It would be great to see a program with not only superior methodology in self-study, but with social connections that make the learning meaningful and worthwhile. Thanks for reading this :-) -Nick 1 person has voted this message useful |
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