|
 |
And Assimil? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7022 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 153 of 191 14 July 2007 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Where should I begin?
Wrong. I worked for a couple of months on the passive phase going through half of the book listening and reading over and over until I felt I understood the dialogues pretty well. It was then that I realized that I still didn't know many of the words in isolation.
Ha. No argument there.
And you don't think verb inflection falls into that category? I just finished telling you that one does not seem to be exposed to a satisfactory instances of inflected verbs. Sure the rules are contained in grammar summaries. But that alone is less than ideal for instilling "generative ability" in my opion.
FSI is not at all the same. Rather you hear so many different verbs inflected in almost every way so many times that you just naturally gain AUTOMATICITY. With Assimil--or at least up to the point I got before I got sick of each dialogue being somewhat meaningless--that is not the case. Perhaps if you shadowed at a couple of hundred times you could, but then there still seems to be a paucity of relevant instances, as I just mentioned. You've set up something of a false dilemma. Yes, FSI French doesn't include literary tenses. So what? That was never its purpose. All of the tenses, moods, and aspects relevant to everyday conversation are covered. And covered well!
This seems to count as a speaking aspect of the course in only a weak sense. Note that the only speaking you can really do is translating what you have already heard, shadowed, or attempted to repeat what you have memorized as you put it. This is more like reciting to me. There is nothing "new" about what one might speak with an Assimil course. This is in contrast to much of Pimsleur and FSI where you the learner on the spot must work to come up with a string which you have often not entirely heard before. If only this difference were better understood. Moreover, there is nothing interactive about the audio portion. There is simply no spot on it where it is your turn to speak or do anything really. If the speaking part where you translate the earlier lessons works really well for you, then great. I didn't really enjoy it.
Once again, you really consider that an integral speaking aspect to an Assimil? While what you are doing is speaking in the most technical sense, it feels much mroe like reciting to me. There's no prompting. There's no work. There's no production of novel sentences. Besides, if that counts we could say that any course (even one with no tapes) has a speaking part to it: just repeat what you memorized.
Again, this is so adically different from what a course that actually makes you retrieve something or form an answer does. There is interesting research showing why being prompted to recall is better than just repeating. And no, looking at the book and translating is not the same thing. The idea of an oral drill is that you wait in anticipation for the cue. (See Pimsleur's "Anticipation Response") You then have X amount of time to get it right. Furthermore, much of what you say is NOT what you just heard: how many times do you hear a Pimsleur course say "Try and say..."? The "speaking portion" of Assimil is trnaslating what you have already heard/read many times. It certainly would be amazing if all of the research in applied linguistics were in vain and it turned out the most effective thing was just listening and repeating/reading aloud/etc. Edited by Seth on 14 July 2007 at 6:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| reltuk Groupie United States Joined 6614 days ago 75 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 154 of 191 14 July 2007 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Seth, I'm not entirely sure that a dialog on this point between us is useful. It's clear that you spent a couple months with an Assimil course and that you think that you understand the method. While you have never been through the active phase of a course, or finished one, you are hardened in your opinions regarding its deficiencies. If you want the last word, feel free to respond; be sure to voice your opinion that this isn't going anywhere, so I'll know to drop it.
The grammar summaries are not meant to provide generative ability. Repetition and generation of the dialogs is meant to. My claim was that there are sufficient instances to provide this. You clearly disagree, but with you having never been all the way through a course and having formed your position despite numerous witnesses asserting the contrary, I don't see any way to convince you of the fact.
You'll receive no argument from me regarding the effectiveness of FSI-style drills for the installation of response instincts. You will be better at instinctively generating the drilled grammatical constructions at the end of an FSI course than at the end of an Assimil course. But you will finish the Assimil course much sooner and with less time commitment, and be on to native language exposure, so I'm not sure that it's comparable.
I understand the difference; I'm just not convinced of its massive advantage for the language learner, although I admit that completely novel generation does have some utility for the language learner. Most people repeat the tapes for FSI and Pimsleur more than once. After the very first time you've been through a tape, this "advantage" is gone. In general, if you're accurately producing the text of the lessons that you studied 7 weeks ago, it's not because you memorized the lessons; it's because you understand how to say what the lesson says. It's also not at all uncommon, at least for me, to create different, but grammatically correct, sentences during the active phase. Often, however, this indicates a decline in appropriate idiomatic construction.
For the passive phase, it is reciting. For the active phase, I would call it speaking, in that you're prompted in the source language, albeit in writing, and you respond with a production in the target language. You rarely have the lesson memorized, at least in my case. Perhaps I have a worse memory than you though...I just don't remember the exact sentences from lessons I studied almost 2 months ago. I often do remember the gist of the meaning of the conversation though; perhaps I find them less boring than you seem to.
As per above, the active phase takes the form of prompt-in-source-language respond-in-target-language. I do not find myself memorizing the lessons solely as a result of the passive phase, so I don't think the fact that you've encountered them before is all that important. Perhaps it makes all the difference in the world. I personally know a number of people who have achieved relatively proficient communicative ability in foreign languages whose methods were, to varying degrees, rooted in Assimil. There seem to be a number of people on these forums as well. I don't accept the assertion that these people are universally more talented or gifted at learning languages than others. I can accept that the method fits people's differing learning styles to varying degrees, and that sometimes people don't enjoy it at all, but I think it's ignorant to try to claim that the method is defective in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.
It's my impression that people studying adult language acquisition have found that listening carefully and repeating aloud are two of the most important things a language learner does, especially in the early phases. There are other important things they can do as well, such as physically responding to what they hear and, eventually, generating the language themselves (with appropriate feedback mechanisms checking the accuracy of their constructions). It's likely that I'm not as well read in the academic literature of the space as you though. -- reltuk 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6890 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 155 of 191 15 July 2007 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Was this not the “Army Method” developed in WWII and later refined in FSI and Pimsleur? I second everything reltuk says above, with the exception that I still consider FSI an idiot’s method. Let me explain, back during my Army days we used to create “idiot books” for field exercise. The idea was to create drills and procedures that even an idiot could follow – if an idiot could do it then it would cut the risk of error when you were under stress or sleep deprivation. It is based on the "Keep It Simple" principle. I developed a lot of respect for the practice after years of experience with it. John Edited by Farley on 15 July 2007 at 12:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7022 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 156 of 191 15 July 2007 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I do not think it is going much further either. I feel like I presented my case, both anecdotally and from a bit of research point of view, and I'd rather not keep splitting hairs over the details that remain. So instead of picking everything apart again, I'll just add a few remarks in general.
As I said before, I tried to give Assimil an honest chance. But not only did I feel like I wasn't translating the first few lessons of the first half of the book back effectively (when I tried to get past lesson 50 or so), but I realized that I was having a very hard time progressing through the passive phase in the first place. For me, it was very difficult to learn the vocabulary of the dialogue without resorting to just picking out words and using rote memorization. That was frusturating. Perhaps everything just suddenly clicks after listening to the first dialogues for the 20th time. I admittedly lost patience when the cost-benefit ratio just seemed absurd. Now I don't believe I ever called Assimil "defective." In fact, I agreed that it is much better than several other programs out there. Rather, so far it has worked less than perfectly for me. And I believe I can site what it lacks in comparison to courses that I do really enjoy. Maybe those are just my own preferences. Personally, I find the conclusion that we have different learning styles a little scientifically unsatisfactory. But maybe that really is the way things are. I like a program that shows you how pieces fit together into bigger pieces, and those pieces into bigger pieces, and so on. It seems many here prefer the opposite approach. However, people are clearly learning a lot from both approaches. Either we really do have different styles, or these programs have something in common which has so far not been fully appreceated. Let me say again that I am not trying to convince anyone to give up Assimil. In the course of this debate I have tried to emphasize the most salient things which courses I like have and which it seems to me Assimil lacks. I have also tried to address the things that some say FSI fails at. I disagree, for instance, that the value of a Pimsleur or FSI tape is lost after the first lesson. Many of the introductions to the FSI courses mention that the most effective way to use them is through "overlearning." I find that the more I repeat a tape the more it is hardwired and the more I able to abstract from it and form other modified constructions and so--similar to what others claim they are able to do with Assimil. I am certainly no expert in the field. But I have seen some stuff which suggests that there are more effective ways to learn than simply through listening and repeating alone. It is, however, a difficult thing to really dissect, since it is difficult to objectively experiment on the global acquisition of a new language. But once again, I'll never argue with results. If others learn through Assimil, then its pointless to try and bring up research. Finally, I think the language of choice is relveant here, though no one else has mentioned anything about that yet. I have enough familiarity with Western European languages that I could pick up an Assimil course in one and immediately see the structure. That is, I could get what was happening much more easily. Perhaps in that case the course would feel mush more effective. With Hungarian, for example, it was almost like hitting a brick wall after awhile. Chung, I believe, had a similar experience. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6157 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 157 of 191 15 July 2007 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
It's true that even FSI has moved on from the FSI method as it was practiced in the '60s. They themselves acknowledge the need for stimulating as well as informative materials, and are continuously refining their techniques to teach new students. Rote drilling for the sake of rote drilling is like performing surgery without anesthesia under the belief that things must hurt to heal. If there are other, easier methods that garner the same or better results, why not try them?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7022 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 158 of 191 15 July 2007 at 12:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I'm all for whatever works. So far I have really enjoyed the "old school" FSI approach.
Assimil's method dates back several decades as well, doesn't it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6741 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 159 of 191 15 July 2007 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Seth, how did you learn Russian? P.S. My recollection is that Assimil dates back to 1929. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7022 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 160 of 191 15 July 2007 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Pimsleur I-III
Modern Russian I and II (dialogue break downs, followed by drills approach) Everything from "Golosa," including material at gw.edu A collection of many other "small programs"--Living Language, Colloquial, misc., etc. Time spent in Moscow, including some brief but intense lessons at Moscow State. Now married to a Russian (though we admittedly speak English a lot since she was an interpreter.) Of course I'm still learning everyday. I hope one thing has not been overlooked. I really treasure listening and reading methods. I have enjoyed Russian literature on tape as way to absorb more. I just don't like the approach so much when one is brand new to a language. I speak pretty decent French, which I am not working on at the moment, although my vocabulary is very lacking. I did study it in school, but I feel that most of what I learned has been through the first three volumes of FSI. I'd be interested in seeing how the Assimil courses for it go. Edited by Seth on 15 July 2007 at 1:17am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
