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How to avoid the intermediate plateau. | ||
Tags: Intermediate | Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5946 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 15 29 August 2014 at 11:15am | IP Logged |
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Once you get past the beginning stages of a language, there appears to be a very long period, where you remain, before you can handle full native materials without heavy use of a dictionary or grammar. This long and frustrating period has been referred to as the ‘intermediate plateau’. The only way it seems to get through this plateau is with patience and grit. It is also the period during which you are most likely to fall prey to wanderlust, a crime of which I’m a serial offender.
So, how do you avoid it ? You don’t need to. It doesn’t exist. The ‘intermediate plateau’ is a perception created by commercial courses finishing long before they’ve even begun to teach you the language. The worst offenders are Teach Yourself and Colloquial, but even Assimil is guilty to a degree. They finish off around the CEFR level A2, while most native materials are pitched around B2 and C1. While the ‘plateau’ doesn’t exist, the mountain still does, and it consists of a lot of levels. The more recent CEFR based courses have now started dividing into B1.1, B1.2, B2.1 and B2.2. There also seems to be a new concept of A0, which covers basic greetings, introductions and short commercial exchanges. As it typical with CEFR material, most of these course use real native materials and extracts, but graded at the appropriate level. Each of the sub B levels introduces a large number of grammatical concepts and new vocabulary, but not enough to overwhelm. The biggest problem is using these materials, as they are nearly all designed for classroom use. However, the teachers books are usually available for free and provide all the answers and additional tips. Even though the material is pitched at the same CEFR level, the level of difficulty can vary quite a bit. Taking French as an example for B2, the easiest course is Version Original 4, then Echo B2, followed by Alter Ego 4 and finally Édito B2. For Spanish B2 it would be Suena 3, Agencia Ele B2.2, and finally Aula International 4. There are also additional resource such as vocabulary and grammar books, but the material can be a bit more inconsistent. Regarding the additional resources, the best I’ve found so far for Spanish are by Anaya ELE, for French by Hachette and CLE International, for Polish by Prolog Publishing, and for Russian some of the Zlatoust publications. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5394 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 2 of 15 29 August 2014 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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The learning experience at that stage resembles more of a plateau than a mountain. As a beginner you say: Wow, today I learned, how to form datives, or the past tense or how to ask questions. Big building blocks. Big cliffs. You can say: Today I know a lot more about my language than yesterday.
As an intermediate you say: Today I learned, how a queer irregular verb forms its past, or some new idioms, or which preposition are governed by a handful of verbs. Minutiai, trifles, details en masse... You walk and walk and walk, but your altitude does not increase noticeably. Only if you look back months, you see, what you have gained. For me, this is a lot less fun than the first steps in the beginning or the rewards, when you are finally ready for the real thing. So both for advanced textbooks and for easy native materials, there is drugdery involved and you need grit. PS. You cannot blame the publishers. They have to earn money in order to live. And the experience shows that there are twenty times more people who say: Let's buy a beginners course for that language, it would be nice to learn it" that those who advance to the plateau level and need adequate material. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 15 29 August 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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I think SRS and input are essential for avoiding the plateau. The problem is not only that you start building with smaller blocks, it's also that the shapes become more and more peculiar, so to say. Basically, when you learn the past tense, or the genitive, you see it everywhere, even if you don't go beyond the comfort of your textbook. But there are many things that you simply won't come across again soon enough without SRS, although native materials can definitely help. In my opinion the frustration of knowing that you've already learned this but not actually remembering it anymore is what makes this stage so toxic.
6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4502 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 15 29 August 2014 at 10:22pm | IP Logged |
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I actually like SRS less at this stage. I would prefer more input and native materials.
Actually this is the stage where I would do lots of reading and grammar work to fine-tune the 50-90% stuff (get all the verb conjugation paradigms right and so on). I would also recommend to keep speaking, but that is mostly to deal with the cultural side of things. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4961 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 5 of 15 29 August 2014 at 11:01pm | IP Logged |
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The way I overcome this plateau, at least in terms of motivation, is to start with native materials right before I reach the intermediate level. That is, when I'm comfortable with the regular grammar and have some basic vocabulary, I start making use of native materials, even in tiny bits, so that I can get the feeling of how the language works.
I do believe it's a plateau. I've been at this plateau in Georgian for over a year and I realize that the lack of appropriate resources account for my longer stay. I still don't absorb much from native materials, they are overwhelming. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 15 30 August 2014 at 9:28am | IP Logged |
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I continue my use of bilingual texts for intensive study way beyond the stage where I might grasp the meaning of a text with a few holes and murky points. Getting the meaning of a text with a few holes and murky points is OK for extensive reading (or listening), and I also do that, but it's the combination of intensive study (mainly of bilingual texts) plus wordlists plus grammar studies which gives me the solid knowledge I need to progress with my extensive activities. The extensive activities give me the training in using that knowledge. The funny thing is that I don't feel any real plateau with this strategy, just a slope which can be more or less steep. I can see that I use the aid less and less until the point comes where I trust myself more that Google translate, and at that point - not before - the bilingual printouts become superfluous.
As DaraghM suggests, the 'plateau' is really just the gap between the point where the textbooks stop helping you until the point where you can use native materials without help. The logic of this is to use native materials with some kind of aid - which in my case is bilingual printouts, but if you can understand the sentences structures in your materials instant popup dictionaries can of course do the same job. Edited by Iversen on 30 August 2014 at 9:33am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5856 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 7 of 15 30 August 2014 at 10:58am | IP Logged |
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Based on an extensive classroom experience, A2-B1 are the levels where most people give up. The thrill of discovery fades and one does not seem to advance by leaps and bounds anymore. Part of the ones that remain are school kids (not much choice there) and not-so-enthusiastic executives.
I remember there was a thread where we were asked what was the toughest phase: beginner, intermediate or advanced. I answered intermediate. Most people did, too, if I recall correctly. As to the CEFR subdivisions, it depends on the language: - the local Goethe has two semesters for each A (1.1, 1.2, 2.1 and 2.2), three for the Bs (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3) and back to two for the Cs; - for Italian, it's a lot faster: A1, A2, B1, B2, C.1.1, C.1.2, C.2.1 and C.2.2 (the weight falls on the Cs). For languages further away in linguistic terms, it's not as clear, since most are not structured in CEFR terms. Adaptations tend to vary. Going back to the original post, I thing it's a question of imagery. I'd liken it, not so much to a plateau, but rather to an upward slope, which sometimes is imperceptible, sometimes steep, but always long. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4804 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 15 30 August 2014 at 11:06am | IP Logged |
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I think it is a combination of it all. The plateau is the area where learning fifty new words is like a drop in a lake (and you are trying to turn the lake into a sea), where things you learn aren't everywhere to be practiced, where many publishers have "Hic sunt leones" on their map of the market, where you still have trouble with lots of native materials. And the progress is slow.
My way through the plateau is probably a combination of what you already described: 1.learner aimed sources to keep me leaving the comfort zone and learning things I wouldn't found out I needed by myself ;-) -I think it is one of the small faults of our community that we keep recommending each other mostly the big publishers making courses for all the languages, like TY, Assimil and so on. But there are many one language specific sources, usually monolingual. Most people can begin using a monolingual course by the time they are A1, in my opinion. We are often just lazy. But the monolingual publishers are different from the TY like ones. They do not earn money nearly only from touristy learners who give up after three lessons, even though those are still not an unimportant part of their customers. They deal with learners in need to pass an exam in order to get a job and/or live in the coutry, even though their high level courses may not always be perfect at doing that. They focus on one language and therefore want to get money from as many learners of the one language as possible. And they have already begun to realize those serious learners or many teachers are more likely to use Textbook 1 if there is Textbook 2 and Textbook 3 available. The B1.2 B1.2 etc divisions are horrible, in my opinion. For someone in need of small bites of the language, it may work. But it is a nighmare for people who need the bigger picture and dive into it for the details. It is an artificial division to help language schools get paid for more semesters per student. I've seen it not only in languages that chopping things into too small chunks can hurt learning as you necessarily need to get rid of many links in between the chunks. 2.grammar books and vocabulary books to cover all the gaps. -The courses have taught us the basics of most of the usual grammar points by the time we reached the B1. But there are so many details, so many peculiarities. A grammar book like those by CLE can catch those little bugs for us. And the vocabulary books will fill the gaps in vocabulary we are quite likely to need but won't find much in books or movies Getting through the intermediate plateau is about many things. And I think one of the most important aspects is dealing with all those small gaps and mistakes a beginner can be forgiven. As long as you make an occassional mistake in basic past tense construction or cannot say "heating" when you deal with a problem, noone will take you for a competent speaker no matter how many classics you have read with full comprehension. 3.native sources! My favourite part! -yes, you are not ready by the time you finish most basic courses. But you need them. You need to choose something easier for start and chew through the first few hunred pages or first season of a tv series. And it will be a tough start no matter which course lead you so far. By doing this, intensively or extensively depending on your taste, you suddenly jump to a new level. But don't let your sudden improvement let you lie down and stop studying. Especially as it is very easy to fall asleep in your comfort zone. The native sources use is as well extremely important for the motivation. As was said, the intermediate plateau is the land where the wanderlust lures and tempts the learners the most. Having fun in the language is the best way to fight it. 4.SRS, grammar studying etc. -All those things you hoped to leave behind. Don't do it. Whichever has been working for you so far, continue with it. Unless you are really really far and unless you speak and write the language every day, you are likely to catch some old mistakes or yours or to let some cracks in your skills widen. Don't let it happen. 5.Small shortterm goals and victories. -By the 80/20 rule, you are in the worse part now. You've just spent your 20% of the time on the 80% of the language, congratulations. But you want to learn the other 20% of the language and you are gonna need the 80% of the time. Fluency or another cefr exam are too far to be seen as realistic goals. Get smaller ones. Read a more difficult book, write a post on forums, get through the grammar chapter you've been dreading since you started learning the language. And do it soon. This afternoon, during the weeking, until Friday. Not sometime, not next year. 10 persons have voted this message useful |
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