Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

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german2k01
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Wed Aug 18, 2021 7:39 am

Luke,

Is Volte still posting on this forum? He or she has an email address of her.
I would love to keep in touch with her and clarify some aspects of the method for my own understanding.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Beli Tsar » Wed Aug 18, 2021 9:09 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
The biggest mistake anyone makes when studying a foreign language is that they do it little by little, not jumping into it head first. Language is not mathematics; one doesn’t need to learn it, one needs to get accustomed to it.

Doesn't this quote get to the heart of the value of LR?

I haven't tried the method myself (I'd never be able to get enough time) but it's clear from some of the trials people here have done (including Jeff and Yuurei) that it works at least up to a point. Whether it is a highly time-efficient way of learning or not, it's clearly a method that can take you a very long way in the space of a few days. Doubtless that needs to be followed by other study to consolidate it.

But the advantage it has is that it can be done so intensively; you can jump in headfirst. Most of us simply can't do that with normal study methods - textbooks, Anki, audio courses and so on. Certainly for those of us still newer to languages an hour with a new textbook in a new language is fairly exhausting! Because they are cumulative, you have to think too hard, to master each section too thoroughly, to be able to devote four days without stopping. That's feasible later in learning, but not in the first few days of a new language, certainly not if you are self-taught and not on a language-learning intensive. Your mind simply can't take it. But L-R is designed so that, though difficult, it doesn't demand quite the same level of focus as textbook learning. And you don't have the mental burden of having to master things on the first pass, nor of looking things up in dictionaries, nor of having to work out answers to questions, or of checking answers and figuring out where you went wrong. So you can sustain the effort for a much longer period.

So the (almost unique?) advantage it has is pushing you far further and faster into the language than you can manage. It's not a magic language learning solution, it's not the one solution to fit them all, but it does have that one great advantage that helps you get off to a start that no other normal method can do.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Aug 18, 2021 11:34 am

Beli Tsar wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
The biggest mistake anyone makes when studying a foreign language is that they do it little by little, not jumping into it head first. Language is not mathematics; one doesn’t need to learn it, one needs to get accustomed to it.


Doesn't this quote get to the heart of the value of LR?


It doesn't. I just came to think of the importance of maintaining momentum and intensity (as per the LR guidelines), and that it's rather similar to what the Franklang guy says - albeit with reading as the main focus. I don't know many who have tried LR with a "several hours a day" approach, nor followed up with the second run, the third run etc. on consecutive days, or even at all.

If I can't have Michel Thomas teach me a new language in person, LR is my second best option. But as I said earlier in this topic, I usually don't find the right content, nor have the time to this as intensely as intended. Don't take my anecdotal evidence too seriously. I've only done my light-weight LR spread out over several days. For Spanish, it still gave me a lot more than I could expect, and that was even a language I already knew.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby luke » Wed Aug 18, 2021 11:38 am

german2k01 wrote:Is Volte still posting on this forum? I would love to keep in touch with her and clarify some aspects of the method for my own understanding.

I didn't see her name in my search of the Members list.

Seeing how someone does it effectively is better than guessing and getting it wrong. Part of that is understanding what someone means. I'm in the camp that the originator of LR is legit. People and professionals criticize Krashen and not without at least some reason. Same here.

Wasn't going to post this, but it's what I came up from the translated study plan I found. Again, the reader will have to learn how these words used, what they mean to them, etc. It's an interesting framework. I will resist interpreting it. It's not my invention.

BTW, the "code" tag doesn't produce wysiwyg output.

Code: Select all

Staszek-Phi-Staszek, inclined to frolic, realizes:   The art of life                   It takes SEVENTEEN-17 muscles to smile!
愛 © Phi-Staszek                                                                                      I doubt, therefore I might be.   愛
                                              !TEXTS! THE FORGETTING CURVE!  INCUBATION PERIOD.
                                                                            SCIENCE PLAN
                                                                       Don't skip the stages!
---------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- -----
                                                           THEORETIST (= your learning knowledge)
                                !!!!TO LEARN TO SPEAK NOTHING, SPEAK NOTHING, DO NOT WRITE, DO NOT READ,
                                           you can only listen (and look at the written text at the same time).
I. RECEIPT (from texts to elements).             SPEECH
1. "Listening-reading" EXPOSURE !!             1. phonemic hearing
2. listening                              2. BASE
      1. natural                                        1. nucleus
      2. intensive: reaching the meaning of the second         2. observer
                                                                                                   theorist
                                                                                                   controller
                                                                                3. AUTOMATION transcription, orthoepia
-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------
3. READING: assisted, NATURAL
4. GRAMMAR PANORAMA - recognition

II. PLAYBACK (from elements - sounds, words, phrases, sentences - to texts)
    1. repeat after recording → deferred repeat → recitation (tempo at end)
    2. re-translation (here: translation from L1 into an L2 of the texts heard and followed by the recording)
    3. reading aloud → deferred repetition → recitation
    4. transcription (with and without recording)
    -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------
    5. writing off the tape (= recordings); "on the level" (= very difficult text, at the limit of your abilities and higher)
    6. memory playback; "blot" (= you slide the stripe on the text side); cloze (= text with "holes")

III. BROADCAST
    1.   BREAKING THE TEXT (pictures !!) by the elements for the text, including recitation:
        word forms, sentences, patterns and sentence forms
    2. TRANSFER OF THE VOCABULARY AND CONVENTIONAL PHRASES
    3. summarizing and storytelling in your own words
    4. conversation in artificial conditions
    5. utility writing
    6. SPEECH AND THEMATIC WRITING

IV. COMMUNICATION
    1. face-to-face conversation with foreigners (+ rules of pragmatics)
    2. correspondence
    3. CREATIVE WRITING
==================================================================

V. TRANSLATION
    1. didactic: literal; interlinear; retranslation; ready literary works in columns
   -------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------
   profession, art
    2. live: consecutive; simultaneous 1 → 2; 1 ← 2
    3. written: functional; literary; poetic 1 ↔2

preceding organizer = what needs to be done before proceeding with the task incubation period - efficiency increases, although you do not feel it
し か し, こ の う ち 最大 の も の は 愛 で す。 (However, the biggest thing today is love.)
© Phi-Staszek
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german2k01
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Wed Aug 18, 2021 1:26 pm

Luke,

I have one more question. After doing L-R a book the way the original author prescribes. Can anyone read the same book fluently without using any translation crutch in their native language/known language? What is the comprehension rate? Did their understanding of the book improve? Sometimes when you use a bilingual text you get this illusion that you are understanding the language and acquiring it but when you look at the same text in its original form- your comprehension rate drops significantly. Thus, you are not sure whether you are learning the language or not.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby luke » Wed Aug 18, 2021 5:41 pm

german2k01 wrote:L-R a book the way the original author prescribes.

I can't say I fully understand the original author's prescription.

My current take aways are:
  • You have to desire the language for some personal reason.
  • You have to love or be fascinated by the book.
  • Great narrators and great books may not be easy to find.
  • Parallel or interlinear (preferably) texts are part of the system.
  • Get to natural listening before you start speaking.
  • Pronunciation has to be taught/learned. Phonology, etc.
  • Some things that one can do with a book besides L-R (Target/Native) include, shadowing, reciting, re-reading, making notes, making summaries, transcribing, translating. (the author mentions doing these things and more with your "materials").
  • If you're not engaged, you need to change some part of what you're doing.

Changing the audio speed has been helpful for keeping me focused at times. If the "problem" is that you read ahead of the narrator, speed up the audio so you can stay in sync. (this has limits, but I've found some narrators can be set to 125 or 140% or more without the audio loosing much quality). The author doesn't mention this as far as I know, but this is an "innovation" I've found helpful.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Wed Aug 18, 2021 6:18 pm

Listening three times to your target language(L2) while following along in L1 (native) is the essence of the method. Without it, it is not L-R.
Also, the order in which you do all the steps from 1-4 should be the same.
I was interested to know what would happen after completing all these 4 steps you go on and purchase a physical copy of the book and try to read it without having access to any extra help like (dictionary lookups, native translation, etc)
The author said she understood "The Trial" in German 100% after three tries. Did she achieve an "unassisted" reading of the book?
or Did she achieve a 100% comprehension level only following along three times in L1(native) and while listening to German(L2)?

Before getting into the L-R method she also consults grammar books and creates cheat sheets/tables. That's what I gathered from her old postings.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 18, 2021 6:59 pm

german2k01 wrote:Sometimes when you use a bilingual text you get this illusion that you are understanding the language and acquiring it but when you look at the same text in its original form- your comprehension rate drops significantly. Thus, you are not sure whether you are learning the language or not.

This also occurs when watching things with subtitles. You start to feel like you're only glancing at the subtitles now and again, if ever. That you can understand. Take the subs away and the the darkness quickly returns. That you forget about your crutch until it is taken away, which lays reality bare.

I'm frustrated by not being able to sort through possible variables, which are impossible to isolate and account for. So imagine my week of watching a film/series with assistance from a dubbed version + dual-subtitles. Done over an intense period, whereupon I then assess what happened. Let's say for the sake of argument that I improved my comprehension to some degree. I could just say: great! It works! and be pleased with my results. What I actually wonder is whether all of it really contributed? Whether I improved because of this particular combination. And the question is fair I think because no-one wants to do more work than they need to.

What bothers me is similar to when people overcompensate to achieve the result desired then reason back that that solution was the solution, or the most efficacious solution. Like when a person feverishly puts 40 pieces of tape onto something to hold it still, when just 4 properly placed pieces will achieve exactly the same result. Sledgehammer to crack a nut etc.

It's not that I even want to dismiss L-R out of hand because every reasonably-stated possibility is worth testing. I really want to know what the reasons are for certain steps, why they were chosen. Like: listening to target audio whilst reading non-target text? What is the hypothesis behind that? Or reading/listening simultaneously at all, rather say reading first then listening or vice-versa. I can't shake the feeling of a shotgun approach. You throw 100 custard pies into a crowd and you'll get some hits. It's not-legitimate to say: look, I hit 12 people, what a success!

Maybe I'm approaching this all wrong. When I get to doing this (I've been looking around and I think I've found some suitable candidates for text/audio) I'm going to need to feel that I'm not running inadvisedly into a cul-de-sac.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Dragon27 » Wed Aug 18, 2021 8:05 pm

Le Baron wrote:I really want to know what the reasons are for certain steps, why they were chosen. Like: listening to target audio whilst reading non-target text? What is the hypothesis behind that?

Understanding the meaning through reading and trying to attach it to what you're hearing.
If you’re a fast enough reader you can read much faster than people speak, so you’re able to know IN ADVANCE the meaning of what you’re going to listen to, and to be in a position to guess at least some meaning (with a good translation almost everything) of what you’re listening to.

You should read BEFORE you hear to have time to attach the meaning to what is being said.


Le Baron wrote:Or reading/listening simultaneously at all, rather say reading first then listening or vice-versa.

You can read first and then listen (and in the method as stated you're supposed to read slightly ahead of the audio). If reading and listening at the same time is too difficult, reading and listening alternatively (with pauses) is a good strategy. If you're able to do it without pauses you get more exposure to language per minute.

If you’re not capable of doing it without stopping the tape (audio file, tempora mutantur, there are no tapes any longer), you might decide to read a page (or a paragraph) and listen to the passage once or twice and go on.

At the beginning the written texts are there only to help you with listening comprehension. You have to analyse what you HEAR. You must match the meaning of what you've jut read with what you're hearing. In other words, you must UNDERSTAND what you're listening to, though you don't memorize anything. L-R is not mechanical. It's a highly conscious process. At first, you don't have to understand every single word, but the more you understand for a fleeting moment, the better. You don't read two pages ahead. So at first, you'd probably have to stop the recording or rather loop a fragment and listen to it a few times. If you understand a lot, you don't have to pause, if you don't understand... pause or ... do something else instead.


the quotes are from the main site

FWIW the process of LR described by the author adapted for a much more different language (Japanese):
This is what I do.

1. First – listening comprehension.

1a. I read a sentence in English.

1b. I click the mp3/wav file in L2 (language I'm learning, say Japanese). The mp3 file is looped, I don't stop listening.


I need to hear/understand:

how many words there are in the sentence I'm listening to,

what is the grammar of the sentence,

what sounds, pitch, intonation.

For this I use the Japanese sentence in kanji and in spaced hiragana, and a mouse-over pop-up dictionary if necessary. Let me stress once more: I don't stop listening.


When I understand what I'm hearing, I concentrate on kanji for a moment – I don’t stop listening, I listen and look at the sentence written in kanji, I try to identify the components (I didn't use Heisig, I learned all the classical bushu and their Japanese names).


And that's it for the time being – no speaking, no reading without listening, no writing. The parallel written texts are only there to help me with my listening, at this stage, nothing more.


Then the following sentence – the same procedure.


After some 20-30 sentences, I click .m3u (the playlist link) – I again listen to the sentences I've just listened to, in a row without stopping, I always have the parallel text ready to quickly check, in case I forget something.


I don't memorize anything – I concentrate on recognizing the meaning, words, grammar, sounds in the sentences I've just 'learnt.'


Then the following paragraph. Then the following paragraph, and so on. Until the end.


Then I start from the beginning. This time I only listen, but always have the parallel texts ready, just in case, to check, if necessary.


Then... another book – same procedure.

There's also lots of preparation before that (cutting the text and preparing parallel side-by-side translations and the same text in different scripts, cutting the audio for loopable fragments, learning kana/kanji, fundamentals of pronunciation, grammar and syntax, etc.)
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby luke » Wed Aug 18, 2021 8:13 pm

german2k01 wrote:I was interested to know what would happen after completing all these 4 steps you go on and purchase a physical copy of the book and try to read it without having access to any extra help like (dictionary lookups, native translation, etc)

I hope you try your own experiment and write a log about your experience.

To me, L-R is about the process of learning, rather than the destination.

I've had good feelings and actually been surprised when I dipped into the books I've done the most L-R with and found, "hey, I understand this pretty well in the target language without the audio".

Le Baron wrote:I really want to know what the reasons are for certain steps, why they were chosen.

Like: listening to target audio whilst reading non-target text? What is the hypothesis behind that?

Or reading/listening simultaneously at all, rather say reading first then listening or vice-versa.

The target audio while reading non-target text lets you get "comprehensible input". It also lets you enjoy hearing the language you want to learn while enjoying a novel you like to read.

Why simultaneously? Even if the target language uses the alphabet you're familiar with, the sounds are probably different than your native language. L-R doesn't want you to misinterpret or be oblivious to how the language sounds. Listening is the first skill.

There is "reading first". That was done earlier in your life when you realized, "I really like this book and I'd read it again" (maybe you already have read it multiple times, since you like it so much).
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