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Team Asgard (Scandinavian) - TAC ’14

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DavidStyles
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 Message 209 of 438
13 April 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged 
Since it hasn't attracted much attention as a hyperlink, April's challenge from that thread was:

Quote:
Language study can be a lonely hobby. The April Challenge wants to change that. For this month, the goal is to communicate in your target language(s). As always, it's up to you to define how exactly you want to tackle the challenge. If you're well advanced, you might look for a language tandem or prepare a challenging topic for discussion with someone who speaks your target language. If finding someone to talk to in your target language is difficult where you live, you could try chat sites like Shared Talk. If voice chatting isn't possible, you can resort to text chatting or penpalling on sites like InterPals. Communicating through writing is also a good option for the less advanced learners, just like ordering food at a restaurant in your target language. We could even have a Skype meeting and complete the challenge together. It doesn't matter how much or little you say or write, as long as you've made an effort to put the language you're studying to use. Ideally, you'll do something that suits your level of proficiency and is a little challenging. You have time to post about your experiences with the challenge until April 30.

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Emme
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 Message 210 of 438
13 April 2014 at 8:25pm | IP Logged 
Sorry guys, I’ve been absent from the forum for a couple of weeks.

Thank you DavidStyles for reminding me that it’s high time I posted the April Challenge, and thank you for your suggestions about challenges (more about your proposal later).

As we discussed back in March this month’s challenge will be all about trying our hands at extensive reading with the help of Wikipedia.

So, find a topic you’re interested in—it doesn’t matter whether it has to do with Nordic countries or not—and read it up in Wikipedia and then report back on how it went, adding at least a couple of sentences in your TL.

The length of the article and the tools (Wikipedia in a language you’re fluent in, dictionaries, google translate etc.) you use to understand the article are up to you, and remember that when we read extensively we are not aiming to understand every little detail, but only the gist of what we’re reading: we’re still at the beginning, and we have time to progress.

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Emme
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 Message 211 of 438
14 April 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged 
I’ve been thinking about DavidStyles’ proposal (see post 209 above) about a more active and communicative challenge for one of the upcoming months and I think the team’s “board of veterans” should weigh in with their opinions. And by now, I guess all members still active in the team can be considered “veterans” and have a say.

While it’s important that we try and improve in our TL and I’m well aware that we can’t actually do that unless we move beyond our comfort zone and try something different and more difficult every time (and a chat with a native speaker or a Skype session could certainly fit the bill), I wonder whether such activities are appropriate as a challenges for the team.

I know that the challenges I’ve set so far have not been particularly demanding (I’ve also always tried to offer an easier option for the beginners) and therefore they probably haven’t been proper “challenges” for anyone, but my main aim has always been to have team members stay in touch with the team and remain active and consistent month after month rather than push them away with something too difficult to do or hard to organize.

As you've probably noticed, not too many team members actually take part in the challenges as it is, and I wonder whether requiring they organize a face-to-face or online chat in their TL would just make the number of people doing the challenge plummet even further.

Having said that, no matter what Team Asgard’s challenges are, nobody is prevented from trying out new activities and techniques. After all, as self-learners we are in charge of our own studying and therefore we can take our learning in the direction we prefer. I, for one, would encourage anybody who decides to try to interact more directly with native speakers, either in the spoken or written form.

Not only that, I would also be thrilled if Team Asgard had Skype sessions as other teams have, but I’m too shy and technically inept to participate, let alone organizing them (I hope one day this will change, but I’m not counting on that day being near). Still, I continue to wonder whether these activities belong to the Team Challenges or if they are best suited to be corollary activities of the team.

I wouldn’t want my personal bias to somehow prevent the team from developing in new ways that the majority of the members find exciting. So, what do you all think? Do you prefer low-key, easy-to-do challenges just to touch base with the team every month or do you want something bigger, more interesting, something you can sink your teeth into, even if that means that maybe only a couple of your team mates will share the experience with you each month?

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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 212 of 438
14 April 2014 at 12:36am | IP Logged 
A mix of both - easy-to-do challenges (eg. read an article on Wikipedia, listen to a song, watch an episode on TV) and deeper challenges (e.g. conversation on Skype/IRL, read a book).

Since the beginning of the year, I've been busier than I expected. Perhaps I'll be able to catch up, perhaps I'll just do personal mini-challenges whenever I have a day off.
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Expugnator
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 Message 213 of 438
14 April 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged 
I think we're too further in April to propose an 'active' challenge now. I'm ok with the
wikipedia challenge.

Any of these active challenges are real challenges for me. I've chatted in Norwegian less
than a dozen times, and I've never actually spoken Norwegian since I resumed learning it
from A1 in August 2012. I do think we should organize Skype meetings, but it's not
happening here or in other teams. So, I'm not always sure having a task that depends on
someone else other than the learner itself to be accomplished is doable for me. I prefer
to keep the active work at low-profile rather than risk having to be a nuisance to other
people just because I'm under the pressure of having a challenge to accomplish.
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Expugnator
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Brazil
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 Message 214 of 438
14 April 2014 at 9:43pm | IP Logged 
April Challenge

Jeg har nettopp lest artikkelen fra Wikipedia om byen hvor jeg bor, Belo Horizonte. Det er ikke hjembyen min, men artikkelen om hjembyen min har bare en setning. Jeg har forstått nesten alt, for det handler naturligvis om en tema jeg er ganske vant til.
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Serpent
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 Message 215 of 438
15 April 2014 at 2:25am | IP Logged 
I'd love challenges where you're not forced to write/translate in L2 -_-

Edited by Serpent on 15 April 2014 at 2:34am

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daegga
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 Message 216 of 438
17 April 2014 at 8:45pm | IP Logged 
If anyone wants to do a SuperChallenge in Danish, this might be of interest:
https://www.mofibo.com/
Flatrate reading, unfortunately only for Android and iOS. But the first 14 days are for
free, so if you have enough spare time, you can do the reading part in a fortnight
without costs ;)

Edited by daegga on 17 April 2014 at 8:49pm



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