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What Features in the Best Language Course | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6251 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 1 of 7 02 September 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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What features should be the perfect language course have?
I have spent a lot of thoughts on this question. If I could dream completely free from the constraints of existing books and audio courses, here's what I would value:
When I was creating language lessons for GermanPod101, Myngle and other sites, I tried to incorporate these points as much as possible. I couldn't change the format of the lessons though, so a lot of these issues remained. Now I had the chance to design a language course from scratch, design a method from scratch, and I tried to implement all of the above ideas. The result is LearnYu - Automagic Chinese Course . It got a lot of support in the first 24 hours after release, so I must be doing something right. But are my goals pretty much universal or am I just hitting a specific subset of learners who share the same perspective on language courses? Edited by Sprachprofi on 02 September 2014 at 3:36pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 7 03 September 2014 at 1:33am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
If this comes in the form of exercises that let me practice on new elements in isolation before progressing to more complex exercises that focus on the new elements but indirectly go over "older" elements by incorporation, then i agree. However such quality and quantity of exercises are only half useful if...
Ideally I want a full answer key (especially important for languages that have very limited distribution), however if I can find a willing native speaker to help me study, then an answer key isn't required.
I'd settle for an introductory section of audio for the phonemic inventory of the language and then recordings of all dialogues, narratives and at least half of the exercises. No need to have even more audio (I usually fall asleep whenever I hear a recording of someone reciting a list of words in isolation as when someone reads a word list or glossary aloud).
I'd refine this to say that the vocabulary introduced should be relevant. One thing that really gets me is when I see a dialogue or text that has too much vocabulary (especially phrases) whose structure or relevance makes more sense in a future chapter. A good dictionary takes care of the point about vocabulary being illustrated with example sentences. I don't see a burning need for a course's author to provide that many example sentences for vocabulary.
+1
I'd refine this a bit as I did about useful vocabulary. It also frustrates me when something in a unit of a course introduces some grammatical point that isn't properly addressed until a unit down the line. For example, one of the dialogues in "Colloquial Finnish" had a snippet of dialogue that included a grammatical topic that the author noted would be introduced in a later chapter. I wonder why even introduce it then, and would it have been such a burden to have designed the dialogue without that snippet with the "new" grammar?
+1 and goes back to my first set of comments.
I'm not as anal on this point since I understand that my grasp of my language will develop unevenly. I don't really approach learning a language as something akin to checking off a list whereby as a I work through chapters, I can tick off boxes that fit neatly with having understood or even mastered the use of some aspect of the language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6251 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 3 of 7 03 September 2014 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Totally agree :-)
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| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5126 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 4 of 7 06 September 2014 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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My ideal textbook:
* It consists of several volumes that progress systematically and methodically from beginner all the way to the point where the student might approach native materials confidently and profitably. Material is abundant enough so that the progression never becomes overwhelming. * All the information is provided right there on the page, minimizing time-wasting flipping back and forth and consulting of ancillaries. That means facing page translations and full aids to pronunciation (stress marks for Russian or Romanian, vowels for Hebrew or Arabic, readings for Japanese or Chinese). It would look like a big format Assimil. * All texts in the target language are recorded by native speakers. No instruction language on the recordings. Again, like Assimil. * Texts are rich, engaging and extensive, and unlike Assimil, dialogues are featured but not predominantly employed. * Explanations are brief and concise. Other than translations of the target language text, very little instruction language should feature on the book. To the point explanations of grammatical concepts newly introduced are given at the beginning of each lesson rather than as footnotes that interrupt reading, followed by abundant examples and illustrated in a wider context in the chapter readings. * Vocabulary is reiterated and reinforced throughout the course. It would be somewhat of a mixture between Nina Potapova's Learning Russian in four volumes -probably the best language course I have ever used- and the Assimil format. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6690 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 7 07 September 2014 at 12:10am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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In know I've seen threads similar to this one... Yes - I found them:
What should a language book include? (Nov 2013) What's important, when you buy a course? (Oct 2013) I basically agree with you (Sprachprofi), Chung and Juan. The format of a textbook+audio is limited (it can't talk back to you), but may still take you very far if it's "good enough". I like the idea of an online course/program which is interactive and "knows" what kind of texts and exercises I need. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4225 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 7 07 September 2014 at 5:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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The other day there was a post about the language learning program for Mormon missionaries. First they
have to receive an official notice from the church leaders where they would be sent to and which language they would have to learn. In some odd cases LDS missionaries were sent to England to serve the Mandarin-speaking community. And they were given an intensive 6-wk course. The point of language education is to prepare students for real-world communication with natives. If you are going to be stuck in a class for the next 5 years, it is likely that you are not going to get anywhere than an LDS missionary who had a 6-wk language course. When it comes to languages, there are different ways of saying the same things so that you're not using the same phrase for greeting somebody every time. Once our family had some guests over. They started introducing themselves in Mandarin not in the usual manner: "你好” which is the same as "Bonjour" or "Buenos días" but instead: "我从四川来的" referring to a person's hometown / place of origin in China. It is like someone from the US introducing himself as a New Yorker or a Bostonian instead of: "Please to meet you". When you are shopping in French, the salesperson may say to you: "Quoi d’autre?" "Ça sera tout?" or "Que désirez-vous autre chose?" similar to the English: "Anything else?" "Will that be all?" or "Do you want something else?" In the beginning you need to know how to count, days of the week, months, tell time, basic greetings. After that I'd prefer language programs that are situational like at the train station, making an appointment, shopping at a grocery store, etc. There are language courses structured to go through parts of a car, the human body, parts of an animal, etc. like flashcards. These get rather boring like going through the dictionary from A-Z. In any language you don't expect to know every word / phrase. Now it is easy to lookup words once you installed a dictionary on your portable device. There are words that are rare you wouldn't be using them in day-to-day conversations. The other day I was watching a Chinese program: "普法栏目剧“. It is a TV series about the law. The people in the show are actors who turned a story (including drug trafficking, murder, etc.) into a dramatized version. A word came up in the program: "開七" referring to the first 7 days after a person died. How frequent would someone use this word/phrase in a conversation? Not very much. Personally I'd be using several language learning programs at a time to get a larger range of words & phrases. In between I'd spend time watching a short video, TV program or listen to a discussion on radio outside of the study program. In the first 6 months you may be learning strictly by the book but once you start picking up local TV programs, you move to the next level. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4840 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 7 08 September 2014 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Some features I rarely see in language course materials, but would like:
-Much more text (always with audio, of course). Some learners thrive with lots of input at the appropriate level. It's hard to do this with a course that has a 1-minute dialogue and then grammar notes and drills before moving on to the next 1-minute dialogue. You end up with B2 level grammar after only 30 minutes of listening material, which means you have to go find lots of supplemental input, which won't be tailored to your level. -Both dialogues and written texts. 'Useful situation dialogues' such as asking for directions or ordering at a restaurant are OK if used sparingly, but should not be the only dialogues. Snippets of casual conversation is much more valuable. Asking for currency exchange is useful for tourists; discussing reasons for preferring different kinds of pets (for example) is better for actually learning the language. -All grammar notes and exercises should be skippable. Nothing should be introduced in these sections that the student is assumed to know later on. Grammar notes and drills are useful, but I don't want to be forced to read all of them or be confused later on. -Do not introduce one or two grammar features at a time, explain how they work, use them a lot in one dialogue, then rarely use them later on. Newly introduced basic structures should recur often in the next few lessons. -For electronic materials, mouse-over dictionary lookup. Such a course would be primarily input-based, with notes and drills for support, to be used as needed by the student. It would be massive, but everything would be skippable-- if you find lesson 50 too easy you should just be able to skip to lesson 70 for slightly more advanced dialogues and relevant explanations for the tricky bits. Like a graded reader and a teach-yourself course combined into one. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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