Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken)?

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Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken)?

Postby neumanc » Fri May 19, 2017 11:43 am

Recently, I bought Glossika for enhancing my current studies of Dutch. The concept of Glossika is that fluency comes more or less by itself once you have repeated the Glossika Mass Sentences often enough. The Glossika Learning Guide says:
We’ve found that the same [as with any athletic endeavour] holds true with language: you need to do lots of reps. […] You’ll start to feel the effects of fluency coming on when you hit 30,000 reps. You’ll be confidently using the language at around 60,000 reps. And we recommend to keep pushing until you’ve done 90,000 reps.

To begin with, let me express my appreciation of the convenience of the Glossika program. It is wonderful to have 3,000 sentences with audio, transcription, pronunciation, and translation, and in different kinds of formats (i.e. A-files, B-files, and C-files). Following the forums, I have the impression that many language learners have had tremendous success with Glossika. So I don’t want to question the effectiveness of the Glossika method.

However, I would like your opinion if there is anything special about the sentences selected by Glossika or the format L1->L2, which lets you recall the sentences from memory. In other words: Are other methods of listening to and speaking many sentences equally effective? For example, the accomplished polyglot Joseph Colon (otherwise known as Deka Glossai) says in his recent book Polyglot Life: Learn Any Language Quickly and Efficiently:
How well you understand a language grows proportionately with how many sentences you have understood; while how well you speak a language correlates directly with how many sentences you have pronounced and spoken. Again, it is impossible to give one number for every individual, and it is nearly impossible to keep track of how many sentences you have consumed or spoken, but 100,000 sentences would be a reasonably goal for basic fluency and 1,000,000 sentences for advanced fluency. Native speakers have heard, read, and spoken many times this number.

Since Joseph Colon (Deka Glossai) recommends Assimil (which also contains between 2,000 to 3,000 sentences), the question arises if repeating the sentences in an Assimil book over and over would be equally beneficial as Glossika? Or is shadowing (as recommended by Professor Arguelles) even more effective because it can be done in less time? Both methods should lead to memorization in the (very) long run, which however does not seem to be the main goal of shadowing. Likewise, the Glossika Learning Guide says:
You’ll get better results spending your time on reps rather than on memorization.

But if memorization is not the goal of Glossika, what else is it that is special about the Glossika method? I for myself think that it must be memorization; otherwise the Glossika Spaced Repetition files would not make any sense. Furthermore, the format L1->L2 is also prone to let you memorize the sentences since it requires recalling the sentences from memory which is a much faster way to memorization than just repetition.

Other methods that come to mind in this regard are Pimsleur and especially FSI (i.e. the audio lingual method). Pimsleur basically leads to memorization of basic phrases that you have to shuffle around in different combinations; and FSI explicitly asks you to memorize the basic sentences which are then to be manipulated in very extensive audio lingual drills in order to automate the production of certain sentence patterns. There are many language learners who swear by Pimsleur and especially by FSI. So are these methods ultimately only effective because they let you listen to and pronounce many sentences? Or is there more to it?

In other words: Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken), so that fluency can be achieved by overlearning to speak a set of sentences? Or is there more to it like memorization and/or learning how to manipulate sentences (i.e. applying and not just assimilating grammar rules)?
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby reineke » Fri May 19, 2017 12:55 pm

I personally dislike the word and the idea behind these "reps" . Sentences heard and spoken - that's called listening and speaking. It works great in a conversation.

More on Glossika. It's not supposed to work as rote memorization.

Mike Campbell:

"I’ve found that stimulating the hippocampus after each sleep cycle for a total of five times with the same practice routine, in other words practicing the same material over a period of five days actually reinforces these memories into long-term memories. Not only that, but if you’re repeating the data several times over an hour and then doing that again and again five days in a row, and then using that data (for example phrases or vocabulary) and embedding it into new phrases that again will be repeated over a period of five days, you’ve essentially trained the brain into using new language structure quite effortlessly"

http://www.mezzoguild.com/glossika-review/

Flashcard reviews (often referred to as "reps") :

"How I Passed the Demanding, 5-Part, 5 1/2 Hour, Oral, Paper and Pen, Highest Level (C2), Italian Language Exam Without Going to Italy – Here’s a Hint: the 326,538 Flashcard Reviews Helped a Lot."

http://brianjx.altervista.org/
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby zenmonkey » Fri May 19, 2017 3:21 pm

reineke wrote:I personally dislike the word and the idea behind these "reps" . Sentences heard and spoken - that's called listening and speaking. It works great in a conversation.

More on Glossika. It's not supposed to work as rote memorization.

Mike Campbell:

"I’ve found that stimulating the hippocampus after each sleep cycle for a total of five times with the same practice routine, in other words practicing the same material over a period of five days actually reinforces these memories into long-term memories. Not only that, but if you’re repeating the data several times over an hour and then doing that again and again five days in a row, and then using that data (for example phrases or vocabulary) and embedding it into new phrases that again will be repeated over a period of five days, you’ve essentially trained the brain into using new language structure quite effortlessly"


How does he stimulate the hippocampus? AC or DC?
Or is this abuse of pseudo-medical terminology to attempt to justify a methodology.

He could just say, "Repeat 5 times a day for 5 days. That works for me. Do mixing drills."

And the reason I take objection to this is that more and more research questions the role of the hippocampus on long term memory activation. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 091629.htm
http://www.sciencealert.com/long-term-m ... to-storage

Pre-frontal cortex for the win! :lol:
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri May 19, 2017 3:45 pm

In one of the earlier videos (perhaps before his previous account disappeared from Youtube?) Glossika spoke a lot about the tongue being a muscle, and the more you used it, the easier you'd be able to speak. Back then, he was reading sentences from phrase books... 10 000 sentences, 25 000 sentences etc. Oral exercise is what I think it boils down to.

Shadowing isn't too different - "repeat what you hear, as simultaneously as possible" (which anyone can do with any content they like). But one of Arguelles' reasons is perhaps that the Assimil (and Linguaphone) material itself is also interesting - at least a coherent "story" in a minute or two. By the way, don't forget that one of the Arguelles steps is to read the dialogue at the same time in several ways. He also studies the texts in detail, so there's a big chance that grammar and vocabulary will actually stick. However, the first step is blind-shadowing without ever having seen the text.

Both makes you use your tongue, and that a lot. And if you're going to repeat something, so much the better if the content is also interesting and/or useful.

Of course sentences will stick whatever method you're using, but I'd say that either of these two are something different than memorizing. (I associate that with flipping cards, learning verb conjugations, building memory palaces for word lists etc.)
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby reineke » Fri May 19, 2017 3:57 pm

I had to reread "Brain Networks of Explicit and Implicit Learning" for my slogan.

"... brain networks of different connectivity underlie the two types of learning: while both processes involve activation in a set of cortical and subcortical structures, explicit learners engage a network that uses the insula as a key mediator whereas implicit learners evoke a direct frontal-striatal network."

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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby neumanc » Mon May 22, 2017 10:12 pm

Thank you all very much for your helpful contributions!

As I understand the above quote from Mike Campbell, the Glossika method is designed to help you memorize, but without the toil of rote-memorization (so to speak memorization "with ease"). Having tried the Glossika method, I can simply not avoid ending up memorizing the sentences, even without trying. This is good. And I would also say that this might also be due to "muscle memory" (or better procedural memory) while moving the tongue.

However, I for myself cannot say that I found shadowing as effective as Glossika, and I have tried it a lot, exactly as recommended (even outside in the park, shouting out loud and walking swiftly). The problem is, while shadowing, I am more concentrated on keeping up with the audio and on avoiding any knots in my tongue than on the meaning of the text, let alone committing it to memory. For me, it has the same effects as singing along (e.g. in church): I am able to chime in, but left alone, I do not remember too much. And this does not surprise me, as repeating the same stuff over and over is generally considered to be a bad memorization technique. In order to remember, you have to practice remembering. In this respect, I think that repeating Assimil (or Linguaphone) dialogues should be more effective than shadowing, as it forces you to recall the sentencs from memory, albeit the short-term phonological loop. That Assimil books often have interesting or funny content (which, alas, cannot be said about Linguaphone) certainly also helps memorization.

All in all, I think that it's not (only) the number of sentences heard and spoken that counts in developing fluency. For speaking fluently, it is necessary to draw upon memory, otherwise you are speechless. Having shadowed Assimil does not help remembering (enough), at least in my experience. Or maybe if I did shadow often enough (say 200 times)? Would that help?

What I think about is if there is a feasable way to "Glossikalize" Assimil. What I already do is a massive active wave, where I repeat the lesson as often as needed to be able to recall most of the sentences from memory upon reading the L1-translation. The drawback is the so-called "position effect", i.e. I can remember the sentences more or less only in the proper sequence. If it only were feasable to mix the audio with spoken cues and have it chopped upped and mixed around for spaced repetition the same was as in the GSR files. That would be great. Has anybody ever tried this with success and not too much work?

Nevertheless, this would not solve the problem that many Assimil courses do not have enough "relevant" content that can be put to immediate use during daily activities. Please do not jump all over me, as I am an Assimil fan myself. I have collected various generations of Assimil for all languages that I might ever study. The fact that Mike Campbell used various phrase books points in the same direction. They do contain (very) useful sentences, although I have yet to find one with enough good audio. Reading them to myself, as Mike Campbell did, does not seem to be too weird, because it is just another form of keeping a vocabulary notebook, only in auditory form. By the way, one could do this also with Assimil, recording yourself reading the book in L1-L2 fashion. But this would not take advantage of the quality audio which Assimil provides.

For the time being, I will just continue doing Glossika without wondering too much about the hows and whys of its inner workings. I consider it a worthwhile resource, the various translation errors already taken into account. As I see it, the L1-L2 audio format, which enables recalling from memory (i.e. memorization), is heavily underused in language learning materials. Other than Glossika and Pimsleur, I know only Penton Overseas, book2 (50languages.com) and some not so convincing phrasebooks from Jourist and Hueber Audioservice.
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby druckfehler » Wed May 24, 2017 10:50 pm

I have SRS cards made from Assimil Le Persan. I don't know how much work it was to create them - I didn't make them myself. I just want to say it seems to be possible - and probably without immense effort. And I find it extremely effective as well - although for me it works best with sentences from varied sources. So I add audio sentences from my other materials to the Assimil SRS deck.
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby geoffw » Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:24 pm

Glossika is designed to cover and teach all the basic forms of expression starting from simple things like negation, conjunctions, attributive use of adjectives, and moving on to possession, future and past tenses, progressive tenses, conditionals, etc., etc., etc. These are taught subtly through the use of slight variations of the same sentences, such that an attentive learner will intuit the form changes. This is necessarily going to be incomplete, especially since the sentences are fixed across all languages, and eventually formal grammar study is needed to fill the gaps.

Assimil courses do the same thing, but are "custom-built" for each language. So this method works fine with Assimil, too. However, Glossika is designed more for drilling patterns and has more total material, whereas Assimil is more built for introducing material as quickly as possible and also explicitly teaches cultural concepts, grammar rules, and the like, so it will work slightly differently.

Glossika is great and well-designed, but that doesn't mean it's unique. Any sufficiently large and diverse set of sentences that you master will provide great benefits, just not necessarily as quickly and efficiently as these custom-designed sequences of sentences.
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby reineke » Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:05 am

What counts in fluency development is generative power, speed and accuracy. This can be achieved through meaningful interaction with native speakers and native materials. We can look at reading and listening to stories as a form of interaction but the "reps" are a form of memorization. Disjointed sentences provide a poorer form of input than stories.

What's the objective here? "~A2 - B2?"

Some 3000 sentences are sufficient for a basic description of the target language assuming all the sentences were chosen carefully from the target language .This does not appear to be the case. As I understand it, the 3000 sentences were simply translated into the target languages. This does not lead me to belive that the examples would come close to what you can find in a good grammar.

If I am to figure a language based on example sentences and their translations I might as well reach for a grammar and a parallel text. Memorization of language chunks is a fluency boosting exercise. A2 is not a high goal and I like the bubbly voice behind the Br Port course.

Pimsleur contains less than 1000 sentences. It's a warm up course.

I don't believe that "consuming" 100,000 sentences is the way to go about this either. That's around 120 hours of audio. I find this sufficient for a noticeable comprehension jump in a semi-transparent language or a push from A2>B1 under the right circumstances but not more. In my experience, 120 hours of perfectly understood messages is not enough for a significant jump in fluency at higher proficiency levels.
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Re: Glossika--Is the only thing that counts in fluency development the number of “reps” (i.e. sentences heard and spoken

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:32 am

On the topic of Asssimil - shadowing and memorization...

During the second wave you are to attempt to reproduce the L2 content by translating from the L1 content. Beforehand, as Assimil instruct, I first listen to the entire recording for the lesson once and then read through it once as well prior to attempting the sentence by sentence translation.

In translating I look at the L1 phrases a sentence at a time and speak aloud what I believe is the L2 version, or 'answer' if you will. I verify if I was correct or not by playing that portion of the audio (ie that sentence). I continue on, sentence by sentence. I don't return to the start of the first sentence if I am 'answering' incorrectly along the way. I remember my errors and go back and do it again, one sentence at a time. Eventually I can produce the translations without error all the way through the dialogue doing the pausing of each sentence as I go as described.

That for me is training memory in some respects, although it's not the only objective, as there's more to it....

Upon playing the audio for each sentence to check verify own response, I repeat what I hear directly after it plays (that is after each sentence). I believe this is shadowing. Shadowing here, if it is that, is a way to practice intonation and pronunciation, oh and stress. Once I can work through the entire lesson material including the audio exercises by translating it correctly and subsequently shadowing as I go as well, I then attempt to shadow the entire audio content of the lesson without pausing the recording. It is tricky at times on the tongue etc, but that's the idea- to get your tongue speaking as a native can- being able to manipulate a multitude of sounds in quick succession and variation as a native can. The early shadowing run throughs ought to mean I don't butcher the language and should be able to follow along after a few tries with decent pronunciation. I don't avoid it because it's hard work. One must be able to, in my view, speak as fast as a native, sounding like a native AND be able to remember things along the way. This is much more of a well rounded technique than just shadowing or reading Glossika 'reps'. I could of course do something similar with Glossika, but I don't want to. Nothing against Glossika, as I use Glossika as well, in a different manner. One of my points here, is that acquiring a language is not just about memory. It's certainly a component, but developing authentic speech patterns take work too and this ought not be ignored when the going gets tough. If you want to speak well, you must work at that too.

I feel that using the above method (I do something very similar on the first wave too - I don't adhere to the Assimil format strictly. I simply cannot do a lesson a day, my perfectionism won't allow for it), allows for complete all round practice -memory, pronunciation/stress/intonation, muscular ability to speak as natives also. Shadowing to me is absolutely not for memory practice, although it may contain a component or two of that by default, but more about developing the ability to speak like a native - pronunciation, intonation, stress and muscular development.

Anyway I don't know if this makes sense, but... time to go watch something in French now ;)
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