Is binge-reading of any value?

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reineke
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby reineke » Tue May 16, 2017 4:07 pm

Binge posting...
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby SophiaMerlin_II » Wed May 17, 2017 8:07 am

reineke wrote:Binge posting...

Did you mean me? :lol:
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby reineke » Sun May 21, 2017 8:30 pm

I would like to share this Amazon review with you guys.

Le Fléau (Thrillers) (French Edition)
A superb translation - and a great way to brush up one's French

"The Stand" is my favorite Stephen King novel, and I've read it a couple of times in English, so I'm pretty familiar with the plot ("l'intrigue" en français). Recently, I've been taking some pains to brush up my rusty schoolboy French (I graduated from university in 1971, to give you some idea). Therefore, this past spring, while at Univerité Laval's excellent five-week French Immersion program, and casting around for a first novel to tackle, I was pleased to stumble upon this superb translation by Jean-Pierre Quijano. It's definitely not for beginners, but someone with the equivalent of six semesters of college French should be able to manage without too much trouble. I only had to use the dictionary once in a while, and less so, as I went on. At nearly 1200 pages, one picks up a lot of vocabulary by repetition without even trying, but what I particularly enjoyed was picking up on a more conversational register of French than I had been exposed to up to now[/b]. Stephen King, as his fans know, uses colorful expressions liberally, and it was fun to realize with a bit of a jolt what "un petit peu en cloque" ("a little bit knocked up") or "c'était lui qui lui avait flanqué un polichinelle dans le tiroir" ("it was him who had put a bun in her oven") actually meant. Not that one has the opportunity to use these phrases every day, but I would like to someday speak French at a level that, if I hear such language, I'm not completely mystified. OK. "Le Fléau" ("The Plague") is not Camus, but the French title does sound a bit like the English word "flu" - serendipitous, n'est-ce pas? - and that's basically how I feel about this book. Le Fléau/The Stand is one of the better apocalytic yarns in any language, but it was especially fun for this particular language learner, who painlessly expanded his French vocabulary considerably, while revisiting this well-known classic made fresh by this excellent translation."
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby jeffers » Mon May 22, 2017 8:18 am

s_allard wrote:3. You have to choose your text or book carefully. Literary fiction is full of narratives and descriptions that use a very wide vocabulary. All of this makes for very tough slogging. And for what purpose? Much of this vocabulary is hardly used in everyday speech, and there are other things that should have priority. Maybe some light fiction, the equivalent of the Harry Potter series, would be more easily read. I personally would love to binge-read a book of history in Spanish.


Steven Krashen has written a lot about the value of "self-selected recreational reading" or "reading for pleasure". His emphasis is on the fact that students who make the decision for themselves about what they read make a lot more progress than students who are given set readings. That's not an issue for us self-learners who are choosing everything for ourselves. However, the other thing I noticed in the articles I read were the types of novels he mentions.

Two recommendations have stuck with me: 1. he recommends what might otherwise be "trashy", and example being the Sweet Valley High series. In The Case for Narrow Reading he writes:
Lower your standards. Read only material in the second language that is genuinely fun and interesting, material that is so easy that you probably feel guilty reading it in your primary language. This is your excuse to read comics, magazines, detective stories, romances, etc. There is no shame in reading translations.
Reading at this stage does not have to make you a better person, does not have to give you insight into other cultures, and does not have to improve your knowledge of history or science. But if you do enough narrow reading, you will be much better prepared to read "demanding" texts.


2. He recommends "narrow reading", for example a lot of books by the same author or on the same topic. For his part, he wrote that he has been reading translated Star Trek novels in French and German.

Here are a couple articles:
The Case for Narrow Reading http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/narrow.pdf
Pleasure Reading https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/Stephen_Krashen%20pleasure%20reading.pdf


This isn't "binge reading" but something better: reading things of your choice, reading things you enjoy, and "narrow" reading will all make reading more feasible and more effective.
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby aaleks » Mon May 22, 2017 9:39 am

LeCon wrote:I don't understand why anyone would read something they didn't enjoy.

Well, usually if I start to read a book I'll read it through to the end. It's just a habit, maybe the bad one :)
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby s_allard » Mon May 22, 2017 11:00 am

jeffers wrote:
s_allard wrote:3. You have to choose your text or book carefully. Literary fiction is full of narratives and descriptions that use a very wide vocabulary. All of this makes for very tough slogging. And for what purpose? Much of this vocabulary is hardly used in everyday speech, and there are other things that should have priority. Maybe some light fiction, the equivalent of the Harry Potter series, would be more easily read. I personally would love to binge-read a book of history in Spanish.


Steven Krashen has written a lot about the value of "self-selected recreational reading" or "reading for pleasure". His emphasis is on the fact that students who make the decision for themselves about what they read make a lot more progress than students who are given set readings. That's not an issue for us self-learners who are choosing everything for ourselves. However, the other thing I noticed in the articles I read were the types of novels he mentions.

Two recommendations have stuck with me: 1. he recommends what might otherwise be "trashy", and example being the Sweet Valley High series. In The Case for Narrow Reading he writes:
Lower your standards. Read only material in the second language that is genuinely fun and interesting, material that is so easy that you probably feel guilty reading it in your primary language. This is your excuse to read comics, magazines, detective stories, romances, etc. There is no shame in reading translations.
Reading at this stage does not have to make you a better person, does not have to give you insight into other cultures, and does not have to improve your knowledge of history or science. But if you do enough narrow reading, you will be much better prepared to read "demanding" texts.


2. He recommends "narrow reading", for example a lot of books by the same author or on the same topic. For his part, he wrote that he has been reading translated Star Trek novels in French and German.

Here are a couple articles:
The Case for Narrow Reading http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/narrow.pdf
Pleasure Reading https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/Stephen_Krashen%20pleasure%20reading.pdf


This isn't "binge reading" but something better: reading things of your choice, reading things you enjoy, and "narrow" reading will all make reading more feasible and more effective.

I certainly agree that you should choose reading material that you enjoy. But the issue here is the value of binge-reading per se not whether narrow reading is better than binge-reading. One could binge-read "narrowly". How efficient is that?
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby jeffers » Mon May 22, 2017 12:11 pm

s_allard wrote:I certainly agree that you should choose reading material that you enjoy. But the issue here is the value of binge-reading per se not whether narrow reading is better than binge-reading. One could binge-read "narrowly". How efficient is that?


My point, which was an expansion of your own observation, is that choosing your material is crucial whether it's for binge reading or normal reading. I personally think binge-reading "narrowly" would be effective, although I've never managed to read more than a few hours straight in any of my target languages.

Regarding the question of whether binge reading is effective or efficient, I think it has its place. A couple of years ago I read a French novel well above my level: Les orpailleurs by Thierry Jonquet. By the final third of the book I was staying up late night after night to keep reading it. This is the nearest I have ever gotten to binge reading in a foreign language and I did it only because I was drawn into the story. I don't know if there were any quantifiable language gains from those sessions, but the joy of being able to be immersed into a difficult book in a target language has gone a long way towards sustaining my continued studies.
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby Serpent » Mon May 22, 2017 1:16 pm

LeCon wrote:I don't understand why anyone would read something they didn't enjoy. If we enjoy something, we will fight through it.

I don't see the point, once you've gotten to that level, in 'carefully' selecting reading material according to some abstract idea of comprehensibility. We will fight through what interests us, and we can only make the incomprehensible comprehensible by fighting through it, learning the words and phrases and exposing ourselves to the language.

Putting it off as too hard or too incomprehensible is just wasting time imo. I'm sure the 'efficiency' believers will disagree though :D
Well, not everyone is learning major languages with a lot of materials to choose from. Even in Czech and Romanian I've used some meh content to take advantage of Ilya Frank's method.

Besides, the pleasure can come not only from the content, but also from being able to decipher it. If we can understand it, most of us enjoy even textbook stuff the very first time we come across it (sometimes I'm jealous of those who still do). Of course it gets boring when you see it repeatedly.

I assume the quote I bolded refers to a high level? If so, I agree mostly. (but if available, a gentle introduction can be immensely helpful for academic, formal, archaic or heavily dialectal content) As a beginner sometimes it can be good to use whatever means can get you to B1 or so efficiently, although it's vital to keep your eyes on your goal and do whatever you need to stay motivated. (which for some people includes allowing themselves to do textbook study ;))
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby rdearman » Mon May 22, 2017 1:47 pm

reineke wrote:I would like to share this Amazon review with you guys.

Le Fléau (Thrillers) (French Edition)
A superb translation - and a great way to brush up one's French

"The Stand" is my favorite Stephen King novel, and I've read it a couple of times in English, so I'm pretty familiar with the plot ("l'intrigue" en français). Recently, I've been taking some pains to brush up my rusty schoolboy French (I graduated from university in 1971, to give you some idea). Therefore, this past spring, while at Univerité Laval's excellent five-week French Immersion program, and casting around for a first novel to tackle, I was pleased to stumble upon this superb translation by Jean-Pierre Quijano. It's definitely not for beginners, but someone with the equivalent of six semesters of college French should be able to manage without too much trouble. I only had to use the dictionary once in a while, and less so, as I went on. At nearly 1200 pages, one picks up a lot of vocabulary by repetition without even trying, but what I particularly enjoyed was picking up on a more conversational register of French than I had been exposed to up to now[/b]. Stephen King, as his fans know, uses colorful expressions liberally, and it was fun to realize with a bit of a jolt what "un petit peu en cloque" ("a little bit knocked up") or "c'était lui qui lui avait flanqué un polichinelle dans le tiroir" ("it was him who had put a bun in her oven") actually meant. Not that one has the opportunity to use these phrases every day, but I would like to someday speak French at a level that, if I hear such language, I'm not completely mystified. OK. "Le Fléau" ("The Plague") is not Camus, but the French title does sound a bit like the English word "flu" - serendipitous, n'est-ce pas? - and that's basically how I feel about this book. Le Fléau/The Stand is one of the better apocalytic yarns in any language, but it was especially fun for this particular language learner, who painlessly expanded his French vocabulary considerably, while revisiting this well-known classic made fresh by this excellent translation."


I read this. It is a very good translation and it got me most of the way through my first Super Challenge.
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Re: Is binge-reading of any value?

Postby reineke » Mon May 22, 2017 3:27 pm

jeffers wrote:
s_allard wrote:I certainly agree that you should choose reading material that you enjoy. But the issue here is the value of binge-reading per se not whether narrow reading is better than binge-reading. One could binge-read "narrowly". How efficient is that?


My point, which was an expansion of your own observation, is that choosing your material is crucial whether it's for binge reading or normal reading. I personally think binge-reading "narrowly" would be effective, although I've never managed to read more than a few hours straight in any of my target languages.

Regarding the question of whether binge reading is effective or efficient, I think it has its place. A couple of years ago I read a French novel well above my level... I don't know if there were any quantifiable language gains from those sessions, but the joy of being able to be immersed into a difficult book in a target language has gone a long way towards sustaining my continued studies.


The issue here is whether "binge-reading" is of any value. After a three-hour reading experiment, the OP has reiterated his skepticism about this activity. I was surprised. My surprise was not so much due to the OP's skepticism about activities that don't involve intensive study or tutor involvement but by the very fact that, during all these years of discussing and criticizing extensive activities, he never before thought to "give it a whirl".

I think that the majority of successful language learners eventually reach a point where they can knock off a book in a sitting or two. They can get there in a variety of ways (including through extensive, pleasurable activities).

Is binge-reading really efficient?
We have a thread for that!

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5812#p72724

Selecting extensive reading materials..
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2875&hilit=Extensive+reading+Materials
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