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

[jeff_lindqvist]

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.(...)

Demonstration by Arguelles himself:
https://youtu.be/xHYDBYHi2bc?t=10m25s

As simple as that. Repeat what you hear, at the same time. No pauses. No perfection.

I just realized that you and I have talked about this before:
Superchallenge sized extensive shadowing

[reineke]

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.(...)

Demonstration by Arguelles himself:
https://youtu.be/xHYDBYHi2bc?t=10m25s

As simple as that. Repeat what you hear, at the same time. No pauses. No perfection.

I just realized that you and I have talked about this before:
Superchallenge sized extensive shadowing

We've discussed everything before, even the leaves getting in the way of Iversen's mom's satellite dish.

A form of shadowing could be to repeat immediately after the speaker. You're "shadowing" in the sense that you are trying to follow the speaker as closely as possible. I don't care if this qualifies for the official definition.

[geoffw]

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.

I'm all about input, but finding input is much easier than finding meaningful output. The reason I find Glossika especially useful myself is indeed because it trains "fluency" of production, when used to that end. Doing the spaced repetition with first shadowing the material, and when it gets easier, producing it in response to the English (or other non-TL) prompt, gives lots of practice in active language production (and accent practice).

Meaningful interaction with native speakers could indeed work as well, and maybe a lot better, but I study lots of languages while living in an overwhelmingly monolingual environment. I'm very lucky if I get to practice speaking with someone once every week or two, and having a GOOD conversation is a rarity. For years I simply lamented that I didn't know how to find sufficient useful speaking practice, especially for less common languages. Glossika has been a pretty decent substitute for early-stage output training, even if it's still just a substitute.

(Interaction with native materials is INCREDIBLY important in my opinion as well, but both listening and reading are not actually directly addressing the issue of practicing production.)

[emk]

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.

The basic approach is pretty widely used in different forms. The original AJATT "10,000 Sentences" method, for example. Or Pimsleur's audio courses are supposedly designed around SRS-style repetition, including typical SRS intervals. Assimil is a bit less systematic about repetition, but they do seem to repeat core vocabulary at increasing intervals in some of their courses. Plus there are those of us who like making audio SRS cards. All these courses are variations on theme: Provide a mix of representative examples of gradually increasingly difficulty and complexity, with L2 audio, L2 text and L1 text as a crib, and make some effort to repeat the key vocabulary on a schedule.

One of the more common failure modes seems to be variants that produce strong comprehension but very weak speaking skills. This was pretty common back in the AJATT "10,000 Sentences" days, and was addressed by using clozes. Assimil has a separate active wave.

I've been fascinated by this style of courses for years now. I've tried to puzzle out what might be going, and my current best guess is:

Understanding a language is a combination of two things: an earworm, and a lucky moment when you can figure out what it means.

In the years between doing Assimil and my sudden push from A2 to B2, I had a real-life version of this experience. I listened to my wife speak French to the children, month after month, and she said the same things over and over and over again (as one does with 2-year-olds). I knew all the phrases by heart, even when I didn't understand them. And then one day, I'd hear a phrase in a lucky context, and I'd suddenly realize what it meant. After that, I'd never forget it: once it clicked, the knowledge was instant and permanent.

I really do think that brute force, subconscious memorization of the "sound" of speech lays a rich groundwork for everything else.

[reineke]

I won't go into statistical learning but listening to natural repetition and repetitive language behavior (including moms playing with their kids) is profoundly different from brute force memorization of a set of example sentences. Glossika is apparently trying to foster structure assimilation through spaced repetition and variation (recycling?).

[Xmmm]

I won't go into statistical learning but listening to natural repetition and repetitive language behavior (including moms playing with their kids) is profoundly different from brute force memorization of a set of example sentences. Glossika is apparently trying to foster structure assimilation through spaced repetition and variation (recycling?).

Variation, recycling ... yes. You get lots of sentences that vaguely resemble other sentences.

Is your mother home?
Her mother is home, but she is at school.
She is not home, she is at work

Memorizing consciously would be silly as most of the sentences are not very useful in and of themselves.