Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby Kraut » Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:11 pm

rdearman wrote:This is very interesting to me. I might try something like it ... Have to think about how to implement it. So your suggesting that you start with some short sentence and build up?

Run!
I run
Spot runs
See spot runs
See spot run and jump
See spot and Sam run and jump
Spot and Sam run and jump over the fence
Spot and Sam run in the field and jump over the fence
Running and jumping over the fence both spot and Sam fell down

Like this?


Quite accidentally I came across this: the Staffelsatz method to acquire rythm and fluency in German. The author is a professional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYsedC2 ... chsprechen
Wie kann ich DEUTSCH fließend sprechen und besser verstehen? STAFFELSATZMETHODE lernen!

You can skip the German explanations and go to directly to
minute 4:40
where she provides an example.
If you want to give desirable difficulty a chance, do it backwards.
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby jeffers » Wed Jun 22, 2022 1:00 pm

Thinking about this thread, I remembered the ear2memory app, which I believe was designed for this very purpose. If I remember correctly, you give it an audio file, you cut the file into short segments (e.g. sentences), and then repeat each sentence again and again until you know it perfectly. Here's a discussion of the app: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=16739.

I did download the app, but I never used it because it seemed more effort than it's worth. Yes, it is possible to be more efficient about some things, but often that is at the expense of enjoyment. We can discuss and come up with the best methods for learning, but at the end of the day the only good method is one which keeps you coming back. Which returns me to the point I made in my post: variety. Variety does both things for us, it trains our ear efficiently and it keeps us interested.
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Jun 22, 2022 6:39 pm

SpanishInput wrote:
This is an example from Anki. Anki lets you create "type in" flashcards, and automatically highlights your mistakes. I believe this highlighting is really necessary, because it can be really hard for learners to notice what they typed wrong. Reddit is full of posts of people wondering what they typed wrong in Duolingo.

anki003.PNG


In the example above, you're bringing the fact that "qué" has a silent U and an accent mark to the student's attention. If you come from English, you might just ignore Spanish accent marks and assume they're just some kind of optional decoration.
Interesting concept. Do you have the name of the specific deck? Would love to take a shot at it. Thanks.
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby luke » Wed Jun 22, 2022 8:24 pm

jeffers wrote:Thinking about this thread, I remembered the ear2memory app, which I believe was designed for this very purpose. I Here's a discussion of the app: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=16739.

I never used it because it seemed more effort than it's worth. Yes, it is possible to be more efficient about some things, but often that is at the expense of enjoyment. We can discuss and come up with the best methods for learning, but at the end of the day the only good method is one which keeps you coming back. Which returns me to the point I made in my post: variety. Variety does both things for us, it trains our ear efficiently and it keeps us interested.

You have me thinking of something else I tried and was enjoyable, but not for everybody. It seems related in that the idea is to take a small chunk and get better at that, then move on to the next chunk. Variety comes in moving from chunk to chunk and if the material is inherently interesting, the interest factor is covered.

What am I talking about and what do you need?
1) Parallel Text (which you can create on your own with help from Google, Yandex, DeepL, or Bing).
2) An mp3.

1) Open the mp3 you want to learn better in Audacity.
2) Play until you get to a section you want to focus. This could be a single sentence. Even the first sentence.
3) Click on the beginning of the segment.
4) Press <shift> Click on the end of the segment. (Steps 3-4 highlight the passage)
5) Press <shift> Play, which will make Audacity loop over the highlighted audio.
6) Read your parallel texts. Look up words that are interesting. Use an alternate translation site if you're not content with the translation you have. Shadow the text. (You decide how much time to devote to each segment and what all you want to focus on).
7) Repeat 2-6 on the next segment (sentence) you want to learn better.
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby SpanishInput » Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:21 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Interesting concept. Do you have the name of the specific deck? Would love to take a shot at it. Thanks.

It was just a proof of concept I created a while ago. The main idea is that by typing what you hear, the student is improving in several areas at the same time: Listening, spelling, vocabulary and... grammar, because with vocabulary and grammar can you figure out what on Earth native speakers are saying at full speed.

luke wrote:the idea is to take a small chunk and get better at that, then move on to the next chunk.

Hi, Luke. There are similar techniques and several software tools that seem to emerge from this basic idea of taking things one chunk at a time.
For example, that's the basic idea behind WorkAudioBook, an mp3 player for language learners which is so good, I'd install Windows on a Mac just to be able to use it. I'm using it to train my ears with audio recordings.
Ear2memory seems like a good implementation of this idea, but it's Android only.
The general term for these tools is probably "Media players for language learners". Language Reactor would also fall in this category.

BTW, the "Scriptorium" technique by Prof. Arguelles also follows a similar idea, but without the audio component. But it would be very easy to add an audio component if you use any MPLL (Media Player for Language Learning) with it. As I understand it, "Scriptorium" is basically reading a sentence aloud, holding it in your working memory to the best of your ability while repeating it aloud, and then, without looking at the original, writing the sentence down on paper, while paying careful attention to form, including small details such as function words. You then compare the version you wrote down to the original, and correct your mistakes, which will mostly be in function words. This is the exact opposite of the "reading comprehension" and "listening comprehension" exercises learners are often requested to do, because in those exercises it's very easy to only pay attention to content words and filter out function words.
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby CDR » Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:17 am

SpanishInput wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Interesting concept. Do you have the name of the specific deck? Would love to take a shot at it. Thanks.

It was just a proof of concept I created a while ago. The main idea is that by typing what you hear, the student is improving in several areas at the same time: Listening, spelling, vocabulary and... grammar, because with vocabulary and grammar can you figure out what on Earth native speakers are saying at full speed.


I used this feature in Anki for my Portuguese decks, first for individual words and later for sentences. I used the sentences/audio from the old Glossika book/mp3 combos, and also from a pronunciation course.

I can remember being in the break room at my old job irritated with myself because I couldn't remember how to spell "o exército" after the 20th time of hearing it that day.

I still had to look it up now :')

You mentioning accents though, heh, I can remember missing the accents as well, or knowing there is an accent somewhere in a word and trying my best to figure out so I wouldn't have to see the card again :lol: .
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby s_allard » Sun Jun 26, 2022 6:34 pm

I’m wondering what is meant by ear training. We know that spoken language is composed of various phonetic components or characteristics such phonemes and allophones, speaking tempo or speed, pitch, syllabic stress and melodic contour. And all that is put together in words and phrases to make meaning.

So what are we training the ear to do ? It seems to me that we are actually talking about oral comprehension. This of course involves breaking that stream of sounds into words and phrases that make up units of meaning. This requires grammar and vocabulary.

The number one problem of listening in the TL is simply not recognizing what is being said. In the best case, you may be able to write the words correctly and look them up in a dictionary. In the worst case, you simply don’t know what is being said and you are stuck. You listen over and over again, maybe you slow the speed down, all with the same negative results. Subtitles help a lot in all this but the automatic titles of youtube are notoriously inaccurate. And subtitles are usually not real transcriptions.

Informal conversational language can be hard to understand because of things like contractions, missing words, clipped words, non-standard grammar, pauses and interruptions, dialectal and slang elements.

Informal telephone conversations are probably the most difficult to understand because of the added technical limitations and the overlapping conversations or crosstalk.

The only solution is to have a native speaker decode everything for you. And all of a sudden things become clear.

An interesting observation in all this is that incomprehensible speech seems very fast until you find out what has actually been said. And when you understand everything, you find that the speech does not seem that fast after all.

I don’t see how repeated listening to meaningless phrases at native speed can be effective. On the other hand, I see great value in working with accurate transcriptions of a wide variety of spoken language. And here one can go beyond just oral comprehension and work on actual speaking by imitating and shadowing the recordings at various speeds.

I also believe that it can be useful to practice speaking at a relatively slow speed to lock in the grammatical elements in the phrase and then speed up to the desired speed with the typical modifications that native speakers make.
Last edited by s_allard on Sat Jul 16, 2022 8:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Crazy idea: Using the Koch-Farnsworth method for ear training from day one

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Jul 16, 2022 4:51 pm

jeffers wrote:1. I listen to a wide variety of types of audio: films, podcasts, documentaries, audiobooks. Some things are more difficult in terms of content, some more difficult in terms of vocabulary, some more difficult in terms of speed, others more difficult in terms of clarity. I strongly believe that variety from the beginning is essential.
Agree with all you say, but especially this, and I would double-bold if possible and underscore the bolded part.
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