The use of FSI, a question of efficiency.

[jsega]

Sorry this post drags on a bit. These are some questions I have of FSI Basic (Spanish in my case) so I just figured I may as well make a post about it and who knows, maybe it will spur some useful debate. It's somewhat inspired by the posts that Smallwhite has recently created regarding giving useful advice to beginners on learning efficiently (paraphrasing here of course). It is not meant as a criticism toward anyone, only the current day merits of using the program for people in a situation similar to mine, which is briefly: relatively comfortable monetarily and with ample opportunity to speak my target language when I want to on pretty much a daily basis due to online tutors, partners, and local Spanish speakers (I think these are the two important things here).

I wonder sometimes about all the praise for FSI. Do products like Pimsleur, Glossika, Supercoco (new app on iOS), etc. not serve a similar purpose when it comes to automacity? And wouldn't a tutor/conversation partner be better than any of it? These other products I mention at least have the benefit of being relatively painless, straightforward, and mostly easy to use early on to help push you into working in the language (as with a tutor or partner). I see them as training wheels basically.

Even if FSI courses are a superior set of training wheels there still seems to be a lot of potential to not really be honing in on your actual problem areas amid the massive amount of content, which seems possibly inefficient, and may outweigh any benefits for time conscious individuals (many of us). What is the argument of going this route with all the tools we have available today (SRS is a big one for many) and the ease in which we can use a tutor online (or conversation partner)?

I'm not sure if that is clear but generally my impression from people and their statements here is that they are repeating/have repeated whole lessons over again when in reality you may only have some specific weaknesses within any lesson (especially false beginners). It seems like you'll end up wasting a lot of time (of course this is subjective anyway, maybe some really love FSI material ) that you may not need to. I don't know maybe I'm way off here (definitely possible).

Not the same type of tool, but as an aside, a program like Languagezen (which I've been using free at 15 mins a pop every 3 hrs) pinpoints what exactly you got incorrect in your sentences and will focus on bringing up practice again on these specific weaknesses (at least that is the idea). You can even see on the website in the review section which grammar points you are weakest on among other things.

When we have tools like this available, it seems to me that FSI may not be a good choice if your goal is to break into working within the language as soon as possible, which I would assume is a goal of many if not most language learners.

Obviously I see clear benefits for languages with a lack of resources but I'm skeptical about its use for more mainstream languages with plenty of resources. Also if a person is lacking resources (money) then I can also see its merit (though even then I suppose it could depend on how lacking).

I've only given myself a brief introduction into FSI, so maybe if the argument is to only use it for automacity at a later date someone can explain how to efficiently do this. From what I read in the pdf the expectation is that you memorize each dialogue before going into the drills. It just really sounds like a potential time sink.

I also wonder about automacity, apart from FSI. It seems to be it would be like muscle memory with everything else. The more you use it the more it becomes reflex. So why go through a lot of effort and boring drills to create this automacity instead of simply using the language more? One answer I obviously can think of is simply, when you can't use it all the time. But is that the only reason? So for me personally, living in the US and learning Spanish, between local spanish speakers and online, I can easily have opportunities to speak everyday. Honest question, is there merit for a self-instructed program like FSI for automacity when this is the case?

I'm interested in reading some arguments on this topic of efficiency, specifically with FSI courses, as efficiency in general for beginners has been a common topic as of late here and I think it has more importance than some give it. Also any general thoughts on the developing of automacity and whether targeted practice is actually necessary.

Thanks

[reineke]

FSI is a robust, old-fashioned audio-lingual course. Pimsleur only has a fraction of the grammar/vocabulary of FSI (and no drills), It's a good introductory course. Glossika has a respectable amount of sentences but no drills as far as I know. I'd rather not do FSI than do easy practice on something called SuperCoco.You can do all four and you'll still have room for improvement. If I had to do one, I'd do FSI. I don't feel courses are necessary, however, so for the time being I jam ust exposing myself to Spanish-language media. Don't overload yourself.

[jsega]

FSI is a robust, old-fashioned audio-lingual course. Pimsleur only has a fraction of the grammar/vocabulary of FSI (and no drills), It's a good introductory course. Glossika has a respectable amount of sentences but no drills as far as I know. I'd rather not do FSI than do easy practice on something called SuperCoco.You can do all four and you'll still have room for improvement.

I'm really questioning the efficiency of all of these programs, just less so on the more beginner friendly ones I suppose.

[Ani]

I don't know what supercoco is, but Pimsleur doesn't even touch the volume of content and grammar of FSI, as Reineke mentioned.

"Just speak more" isn't the same as doing targeted drills for automaticy. You can speak all you want and potentially still stumble on the same constructs, or fall into a functional but low level of speech because you have made certain types of constructs automatic but not more advanced ones.

I'm planning on finishing FSI French this year, even as I get closer to the more advanced end of intermediate, because natives just don't correct your speech well enough for "talking to natives" to be a reliable way to make grammar automatic. Great for input, great for speaking practice, sort of the reason for learning a language in the first place right? But if you study a grammar point in a book but can't use it quickly and easily in your own thoughts, how is speaking it out loud to a native gong to fix that for you? Even if you do it once, the frequency just isn't there.

Anyway I certainly don't think FSI is essential at all. I do think it is valuable though, and an excellent piece to the puzzle for some people. I personally need a LOT of audio drills to make things come out well.

[jsega]

I don't know what supercoco is, but Pimsleur doesn't even touch the volume of content and grammar of FSI, as Reineke mentioned.

"Just speak more" isn't the same as doing targeted drills for automaticy. You can speak all you want and potentially still stumble on the same constructs, or fall into a functional but low level of speech because you have made certain types of constructs automatic but not more advanced ones.

I'm planning on finishing FSI French this year, even as I get closer to the more advanced end of intermediate, because natives just don't correct your speech well enough for "talking to natives" to be a reliable way to make grammar automatic. Great for input, great for speaking practice, sort of the reason for learning a language in the first place right? But if you study a grammar point in a book but can't use it quickly and easily in your own thoughts, how is speaking it out loud to a native gong to fix that for you? Even if you do it once, the frequency just isn't there.

Anyway I certainly don't think FSI is essential at all. I do think it is valuable though, and an excellent piece to the puzzle for some people. I personally need a LOT of audio drills to make things come out well.

Per my response to Reineke, I understand FSI is much more advanced, though on further review I think the products are different altogether. I use the training wheels analogy for all of them but I think FSI isn't really designed to be that. The other programs are beginner friendly, and designed to help get your feet wet enough so that you can at least get some confidence to then take the plunge and start speaking with native speakers (hence training wheels). In the spirit of what people like iguanamon suggest, if your goal is working with native materials as soon as possible, I assume this also includes working with native speakers. So clearly these programs have different goals, for one, the actual program FSI was used in, assumed you'd be working with native speakers the whole time in conjunction with the curriculum.

There are some good points raised in your post, though it leads me to a follow-up question, how then do people achieve such fluency without the use of a tool such as FSI? I've seen at least one documented example of someone who never used any audio program type drills (drill courses specifically I'm talking about here, not general listening material) yet passed a C2 exam in roughly 2 years time. He also was not immersed in the language though of course he spoke on skype with a tutor and/or conversation partner everyday. He did heavily use Anki, and from the looks of it, used pretty basic card types.

Now, maybe if he had used FSI he would have had more ''automatic'' speech (probably only in the situations that FSI specifically covers?). But I suppose if he can pass a C2 exam in 2 years time without ever worrying about these types of drills, it leads to the age old question of: when is good enough simply good enough? Or maybe even....is FSI (or any other audio program) the most efficient way to drill automacity in the areas that you need work in (back to my main question).

Source: http://brianjx.altervista.org/#_Toc415769763

"Just speak more" isn't the same as doing targeted drills for automaticy. You can speak all you want and potentially still stumble on the same constructs, or fall into a functional but low level of speech because you have made certain types of constructs automatic but not more advanced ones.''

This is the heart of the ''practicing automacity'' claim. I'd like for you or someone to actually back this up. What proof is there that people don't get relatively ''automatic'' when fluently speaking, and at an advanced level, the more they use it over time? So before FSI or any audio programs, no one ever had good ''automacity'', to an advanced level, in their foreign language usage? There are so many variables here, for instance, maybe someone has been speaking for 5 years+ and still bad at advanced constructions, sure. But have they also been explicitly studying grammar, using a tutor, reading and listening to more advanced literature and authors, etc.? Have they been actively pushing themselves to advance in any way or did they simply allow themselves to stagnate? It's not a fair comparison unless context comes into play. There are native speakers that never actively use advanced vocabulary and grammar constructions because they don't actively educate themselves in order to do so.

I find it hard to believe someone who has been doing these things would be stuck at a basic usage simply because he didn't do targeted drills with an audio program. Not to mention FSI is only designed to go up to C1 (again, talking self-instruction here so you probably won't get you that high since it's not designed to be used that way) so what then do you do after FSI if your goal is to go for C2 and onward? Whatever the answer is, why not just do those things instead of using FSI to begin with (especially when talking about just starting to use FSI at an intermediate level)?

It could be along the same lines as the input conundrum, basically you just need massive amounts of input according to some. Would the same not be the case for output? It seems to me that you'll naturally get better and more automatic with the output that you most frequently use over time.

And if you need to get more automatic in specific areas, for an exam (as in the source I provided), work, etc. would it not be more efficient to use a tutor in order to drill the areas that you actually need rather than just drilling what FSI or any other program gives you?

Thanks for the response!

[reineke]

Both FSI and language tutoring are justifiable. FSI programs were developed to be used in conjunction with intensive personal instruction.

Cognitive control

"Cognitive control, as I mentioned in previous posts, refers to the ability to perform a task in real operating conditions. For instance, an L2 learner of French who has had only a few lessons on the Passé Composé may be able to conjugate the verb ‘Aller’ perfectly in the context of a gap-fill exercise; however, when required to use it in spontaneous speech he will produce wrong utterances like ‘J’allé’ or ‘J’ai allé’. Most experienced teachers will be very familiar with this phenomenon – and with this specific mistake.

The reason for the mistake is that the learner has not yet acquired cognitive control over that specific form of the Passé Composé; he has a clear idea of how to form it, has the correct mental representation of the rule (or Declarative knowledge, as Skill theorists call it), but cannot apply it in real time when his brain has to juggle all of the following demands in the very short time available to him to ‘stay’ in the conversation:

Understand what the person he is talking to is saying;
Plan what to reply;
‘Fetch’ from Long-term Memory the French words that match that plan;
Arrange the words into a syntactically correct sentence;
Store that sentence in Working Memory;
Modify word endings when necessary (i.e. verbs must be conjugated, feminine/plural endings added, etc.),
Evaluate its accuracy, which means monitoring the sentence whilst rehearsing it in Working Memory;
Pronounce it correctly.
This is a tall order for a novice foreign language speaker as it requires the ability to orchestrate many skills at the same time. Teachers often take it for granted as they are, after all, very good linguists and may not remember how they themselves struggled with that as learners…

But how do we develop L2 learners’ high levels of executive control (also called ‘Procedural Knowledge’) over a given structure or skill? Surely not simply by getting them to memorize scores of conjugation tables and practice through gap-fill exercises. These activities can be useful as a starting point along the acquisition continuum, but ultimately, the only way to acquire the ability to apply a grammar rule in real operating conditions (i.e. spontaneous speech; essay writing under timed conditions; chatting on the web, etc.) is practice which starts with very easy recognition tasks and culminates several lessons later into more challenging unplanned communicative tasks (e.g. spontaneous conversation).

"This is an example of a sequence of (easy-to-prepare) activities to develop control in speaking for a year 9-10 class, which would take at least three lessons:

Presentation / Modelling of the target rule: Explicit (e.g. typical Power Point presentation explaining the rule) or Inductive (e.g. students are given a text or sentences with examples of the target rule and they must work it out by themselves)
Lots of receptive practice where students see examples of the target grammar structure’s application in the context of a written passage;
Gap-fill exercises and/or audiolingual-style drills (e.g. students are simply required to repeat a set sentences but change a verb or adjectival ending)
Easy (English to French) oral translations (e.g. students are given very basic role-plays in English to put into French orally);
Picture-based tasks (i.e. given a very clear and simple picture, students have to briefly describe it using the target structure);
Structured ‘narrow’ tasks eliciting basic responses containing the target structure (e.g. basic conversations, surveys or ‘Find someone who’ tasks including questions such as ‘Qu’est-ce que tu as fait hier soir au cinema?’);
Challenging GCSE style role-plays with cues eliciting the target structure;
Typical unstructured communicative tasks eliciting spontaneous speech (e.g. GCSE style conversation tasks)
As the above sequence clearly show, the implication is that the acquisition of high levels of executive control over any grammar structure requires a lot of practice through a model that goes from ‘easy’ receptive tasks, to gradually more challenging production tasks which are fairly easy and highly structured to start with and become increasingly demanding on Working Memory capacity. In my experience, learners are way too often required to skip steps and go much too soon from the gap-fill / easy permutation stage to fairly challenging GCSE conversation-like tasks. This is very much the equivalent, in real life, to showing a person how to drive in a motionless car and ask them a few minutes later to drive the same car flat out on a trafficked highway."

https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2 ... -teaching/

[tarvos]

Different programmes are not mutually exclusive. It's always more efficient to train more, unless you exhaust yourself so much you cannot possibly work any more.

I tend to use many different approaches in conjunction, because it will, holistically speaking, cover a bigger part of the spectrum of skills I actually need.

Tutors will use course material to drill you too. They might use another book; they might have their own drills; they may use previous mock exams to drill you. Either way, more practice can never hurt.

[jsega]

Different programmes are not mutually exclusive. It's always more efficient to train more, unless you exhaust yourself so much you cannot possibly work any more.

I tend to use many different approaches in conjunction, because it will, holistically speaking, cover a bigger part of the spectrum of skills I actually need.

Tutors will use course material to drill you too. They might use another book; they might have their own drills; they may use previous mock exams to drill you. Either way, more practice can never hurt.

Good point. I'm just focusing on the topic of efficiency since, if there is one thing I have learned very well so far, it's that there are countless resources that easily become timesinks for a learner such as myself.

[tarvos]

I really don't mind timesinks if the timesink is spent on me learning Spanish instead of wasting 4 hours hitting the refresh button on Facebook.

[jsega]

I really don't mind timesinks if the timesink is spent on me learning Spanish instead of wasting 4 hours hitting the refresh button on Facebook.