|
 |
Best preparation for Immersion??? | ||
Tags: Immersion | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Daithi21 Newbie Ireland Joined 4184 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: SpanishA1 | Message 1 of 4 16 January 2014 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
This thread by gywner got me thinking about how you would study your language with a looming deadline of immersion. How would you prepare yourself to take best advantage.
I don't think I quite agree with postponing listening practice such as gwyner did in the above but the idea of focusing on reading and writing to very high levels makes a degree of sense to me. In that scenario you would have a vast knowledge of the language already in your head so to speak and all that remains is connecting it all up in comprehensible output which immersion in Middlebury seems ideally suited for. Does anyone think it would be a better technique to prepare for immersion is to have your language skills averaged out across listening, reading, writing and speaking beforehand? I thought it would be an interesting hypothetical as many seem to learn a language without the need to best prepare yourself to take advantage of other opportunities. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5327 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 4 16 January 2014 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Personally? I'd want B1 listening comprehension at least high A2 speaking skills as soon as humanly possible. I personally find the idea of voluntary immersion with anything less than that to be vaguely horrifying. I like to be able to socialize a bit, you know?
Here's what I'd try, assuming full-time study and a couple of months: 1) Before doing anything else, I'd get a cable TV package in the target language (something like VoilaTV), turn it on, and leave it on around the clock. I want pictures and words together, and I don't want them to stop. 2) If the writing system used fewer than about 200 symbols, I'd cram it as fast as I could. Otherwise I'd see if I could get by with a popular phonetic system. 3) I'd order the Dover Essential Grammar for the language, because it's nice to have a concise overview of the grammar available if I'm confused by something. 4) I'd order the appropriate Assimil course with the MP3 CDs, and ask vermillion for his scripts that turn the embedded text tracks into Anki cards. 5) I'd go through Assimil at about 3 lessons per day, manually adding the L1 text to cards produced by vermillion's scripts, and making MCDs cards from the L2 text as I went. Basically, Assiml + scriptorium = Anki! Eventually I'd have to slow down a bit. 6) Part way through Assimil, I'd start assembling the pieces needed for extensive learning: I'd look for a fun movie to use with subs2srs, a stack of cool graphic novels, and translations of some books that I've read at least 5 times in English. And I'd order a bunch of TV series. Once everything arrived, I'd flip through and see what I was ready to tackle. 7) As I got towards the end of Assimil, I'd spend as much time Skyping as possible. And I'd try to spend at least one session per week with a tutor who could help me identify my most annoying errors at any given point. My guess is that this would get me to B1 as fast as possible, and leave me ready for a headlong rush towards B2 while immersed. I'd still be missing about 7,500 words of very useful vocab, but I'd be able to communicate and survive without any problem. (Honestly, I'm rather impressed that gywner made it from B2 to C1 in 7 weeks. I don't know how he's assessing that level, but anybody who could jump from the DELF B2 to the DALF C1 in 7 weeks is so far above my level that it's not funny—and I'm saying this as somebody who made it from a self-assessed A2 to a respectable DELF B2 score in 4 months. But that may just be me: I can explain some fairly complicated things in French, but my skills vary considerably from day-to-day, and my speech is far more automatic when talking about day-to-day life than when I talk about professional/university-level topics. There are plenty of people who seem to have an easier time mastering those educated registers.) 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Daithi21 Newbie Ireland Joined 4184 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: SpanishA1 | Message 3 of 4 16 January 2014 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree 100% with you on the listening. If the goal of an immersion experience is to primarily boost speaking it seems counter productive to waste some of that immersion experience playing 'catch-up' on your listening skills.
This is interesting Ive never come across this before could you explain how that works. Is it audio on the face of the Anki card and the transcript on the back?
If we imagine that your reading/ writing wasnt up to par at this stage you still think getting a base of speaking skill a more productive use of time than getting that extra vocab you may be missing? As I have no real experience to speak of with such matters all of this is a hypothetical thought process for me so am not trying to 'argue the point' but rather flesh out the pros and cons. Personally I would have felt that a basic level of speaking ability would be necessary in order to push on to higher levels but the idea that a full understanding of the mechanics and vocabulary of the language would allow for greater progress never occurred to me. To follow that train of thought I think I would initially engage in L-R up to 150 hours after which i would divide my time between extensive reading of native material in the form of familiar novels with an FSI course to solidify the grammatical aspects. Hopefully the combination of relatively relaxed reading and intensive grammar study would prevent burnout. The issue at this stage is obviously the imbalance between proficient reading and listening with a lack of speaking. I guess the increased ability to read and understand the grammar has a diminishing returns aspect to its usefulness past a certain point and so speaking should become a priority. Perhaps your transition to an A2 speaking ability would happen much quicker in that immersion environment and essentially negate all the time you had spent on Skype which could have been used to further solidify your comprehension of the language? I'm sure there are plenty of people who have built up great comprehension in a language without great speaking ability but I wonder about the speed at which speech came to them once they decided to concentrate their efforts to it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5327 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 4 16 January 2014 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yup. L2 audio on the front, L2 text on the back, and (optionally) L1 text on the back. The effects are pretty cool: after about a month, I'll know the audio on the cards the same way I know top 40 rock songs from back when I was in high school.
Well, a lot depends on what kind of immersion I'm going to get tossed into once the deadline arrives. If I were going to be staying with a host family, I'd like to be able to say things like, "Where is the bathroom?" "Oh, I'm so sorry! Can you explain why you're upset with me?" "Where is the nearest bookstore?", and be able to either understand the responses, or at least ask for clarification if I miss something. All this survival stuff is quite possible around B1. And it doesn't require an especially huge vocabulary: Most people will eventually start talking to you like a native toddler, fairly slowly and clearly with lots of repetition, especially if the alternative is you sitting there sobbing in frustration. So under those circumstances, I'd happily sacrifice B2/newspaper/reading vocabulary in favor of being able to communicate about as well as a two- or three-year-old. The other nice advantage of this approach is that it would allow me to stop using English entirely the moment I arrived, which is a huge plus. Basically, my goal would be to escape the English bubble completely and survive entirely in the target language, and to do so in a semi-comfortable fashion. But obviously, this is an entirely personal decision, and it depends on all kinds of factors: personality, learning style, type of immersion you're preparing for, etc. To take two well-known examples, Khatzumoto would watch anime and do SRS reps until he could understand everything from rap to parlimentary debates, and then he would walk straight into a Japanese job interview, whereas Benny Lewis would be perfectly happy to start speaking after a single afternoon of study. It's really amazing how many ways there are to learn languages successfully. And there's not much point in debating which is best, especially the first time through: Just pick something that sounds plausible, avoid a few common errors (Rosetta Stone, studying nothing but grammar and a few toy texts, killing yourself with perfectionism, etc.), and tweak things as needed. And if you start to fear that you've invented a new way fail horribly, maybe ask in the Advice Center, and we'll either say, "Hang in there!" or maybe "WTF are you doing? You can't learn Chinese by playing provincial news radio 24x7 for 5,000 hours! There's not enough context to give you a hook!" ;-) 4 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
