Study on Language Improvement with Native Materials

[rdearman]

17th-27th --- nothing, I'm on holiday.
28th June - 17th July --- I'm going to write up the instructions for the subs2srs, write the questionnaire, create the tracking spreadsheet, any other admin work - like creating a google drive, mailing list, etc.
29th-30st July --- send out list of tests to participants and collect the initial data. (a weekend)
31st of July --- Start
31st January 2018 --- Get everyone to do the second test, and collect and collate all the data.
February 2018, --- publish results

I was filling out my 2nd Self-Assessment when I realised that it's only the 13th and I really should wait till end of July to fill it out, or else my test period would become 6.5 months.

What are these self-assessments people keep mentioning and where does one find them?

Resent me your email, or better yet send an email to rick@anki-tv.co.uk

[smallwhite]

... I'm not a pedantic person. I have no need for perfection, and I don't need all the answers. I am the sort of person who could take just a credit card, passport and the clothes I'm wearing, go to an airport and buy the cheapest ticket to the furthest location and have a couple weeks vactaion. I have no need to plan in advance, I'm comfortable with uncertainty in a way that very few people are.

Your next study could be about whether people with this type of personality learn languages faster and better.

[jeff_lindqvist]

As an aside, perhaps a moot point now, getting it going with an A0 or an opaque language is likely harder and presents some challenges.

Czech is an A0 language to me, yet it's the one I planned to learn (thought, admittedly, I might have better chances in the study group because of my limited DVD resources). Will anyone else take part in the test group with an A0 language?

[Systematiker]

As an aside, perhaps a moot point now, getting it going with an A0 or an opaque language is likely harder and presents some challenges.

Czech is an A0 language to me, yet it's the one I planned to learn (thought, admittedly, I might have better chances in the study group because of my limited DVD resources). Will anyone else take part in the test group with an A0 language?

It's my plan to try Czech in the test group with it as an A0 for me. If Rick lets me, I'm trying one in the test group and one in the control group, and I'd rather do Czech in the test group (if he doesn't let me, I'd rather just do the test group).

[rdearman]

Can't remember if I mentioned it, but it was determined being in both groups with two separate languages wouldn't be a problem.

[zenmonkey]

As an aside, perhaps a moot point now, getting it going with an A0 or an opaque language is likely harder and presents some challenges. The target time goal (the stretch goal) for the study participants, as has been noted, is pretty large. And, as a stretch goal, I'd note that in the M&R.

Honestly I think the subs2srs deck will be more help to the people in A0 or opaque than someone trying to improve from B1 (I can't yet prove that however!) because it will make a good portion of the language less opaque , while the reading targets assist in the jump start of the vocabulary. I think (or hope) that the method I outlined for the study group would give a fairly even spread of activities across reading, listening, writing and speaking.

I'm much more inclined to continue today, mostly because the realisation that I can quit has made me less likely too. I'm also hoping the workload for me will tail off a little after it all starts.

BTW if anyone has any sugestions for recording your work I'd be happy to hear them. At the moment I'm looking asking you to record for each resource.

1. Material Category (e.g. film, book, course, ...)
2. Material Name / Description
3. Time spent
4. Compreshension [ Scale 1-9 with 1 being nothing, 9 everything ]
5. Length of material - e.g. wordcount for books, time for audio/video

Obviously sometimes you wouldn't fill in every field, but needs to hold enough information for both study and control groups to use. This is a problem for next week since I need to do the instructions for the subs2srs.

@zenmonkey - If you'd like to have a stab at the data recording spreadsheet template I would appreciate the help.

email sent, and I can try to think about a template for the spreadsheet - obviously something easy to record and easy to collate and extract and analyse. Can be used on both mac/pc. Maybe on google sheet.

My comment about A0 was related to reading - you are right, subs2srs is probably a great help in a (non-opaque) A0 for listening / reading. I just can't see reading 50K words from a book in a week at A0 for several weeks. I guess that might be delayed as a person sees fit.

[rdearman]

Remember they are targets. Not everyone will hit the target. But if you aim for the stars, you might still hit the moon.

[smallwhite]

... I can try to think about a template for the spreadsheet...

Please address "listening while doing housework etc" and "paying attention on and off when listening" in your spreadsheet. I did not understand rdearman's answer to my question:

... to record their study activities (regardless of group) for 6 months.

6 weeks is hard enough and now 6 months... How will background listening be counted? I go out by myself for 8 hours on a Sunday wearing earphones, in the park I pay 60% attention to the mp3, on the train 90%, in a jewellery shop 5%... and the discount % I choose (à la 6WC) can make a lot of difference when multiplied by 8 hours.

If you're not paying attention it doesn't count.

In a 6WC, if I report a wrong figure then I'm the only person who misses out. But in a professional study, I probably have to be more accurate and consistent so as to be comparable with my peers?

[smallwhite]

BTW if anyone has any sugestions for recording your work I'd be happy to hear them.

Please put all instructions, rules and guidelines in the spreadsheet. (Instead of some info on the spreadsheet and other info in an email and still some other that we'd have to "remember").

I also suggest you ask us to send in our data after the first month, so you can make sure things are going in the right direction, so you can make adjustments where necessary, so you can practise analysing the data thus saving you time and headache post-study.

At the moment I'm looking asking you to record for each resource.

1. Material Category (e.g. film, book, course, ...)
2. Material Name / Description
3. Time spent
4. Compreshension [ Scale 1-9 with 1 being nothing, 9 everything ]
5. Length of material - e.g. wordcount for books, time for audio/video

What fields to have will depend on what you want to get out of this study, and what you hypothesize to be factors to faster/slower progress between the two methods. I was taught to only collect relevant data. So, for example, if the name of the movie is irrelevant to faster/slower progress, you don't record it. Personally I lump all my "watching" into 1 field. On the other hand, I used to lump all "extensive reading" into 1 field, but gradually suspected that reading non-fiction was more helpful than reading fiction, so I have 2 fields there now. You can find more information by looking up "database design", I think.

[smallwhite]

I had thought I'd explained it such that any reasonably intelligent person could understand.

... I'm not a pedantic person. I have no need for perfection, and I don't need all the answers. I am the sort of person who could take just a credit card, passport and the clothes I'm wearing, go to an airport and buy the cheapest ticket to the furthest location and have a couple weeks vactaion. I have no need to plan in advance, I'm comfortable with uncertainty in a way that very few people are.I had thought I'd explained it such that any reasonably intelligent person could understand.

Your comments bothered me greatly. We want to participate because of what you have done for us. But we also have to evaluate if participation is feasible for us and our studies, so we want to know the scope of the study activities - the minimum and the maximum. I want to know the minimum because I dislike TV and will only watch the bare minimum. Others want to know the maximum, as in what's not allowed, because:

What about Grammar books in the TL, aimed at native speakers?

e.g. Bescherelle école

You could, although the point of the study is to compare people who use grammar books and traditional methods against people who don't, so I would probably be forced to throw your data out.

because no one wants their data thrown out after 6 months of logging, and no one wants to ruin your study. Those members who have always done more or less what you require, or are happy to do whatever you require, will not need to know the min and max boundaries. But some of us operate near the boundaries, and we want to know how to keep ourselves inside.

I'm sure most of us can just take a credit card, passport etc, if we are going on a vacation by ourselves. But what we are doing now is going on a business trip, missioned by you, together with dozens or hundreds of other colleagues whom we have to collaborate with. Personally I'd be very thankful for participants putting in so much thought into ensuring the validity of their data.

I'm also sure most of us can interpretate "Study on Language Improvement with Native Materials" ourselves and thus imagine for ourselves how each of the 2 groups should study. Just like you, we do not need detailed instructions. The problem is, as has been pointed out, you have come up with a methodology that is different from what a lot of us would have come up with; a lot of us do not agree with your methodology. While we can imagine what to do under our own methodologies, we cannot easily imagine what to do under your methodology which some of us see as poor or even wrong. Things can be wrong in all sorts of ways, and we can't imagine which way your way is. So I need to see boundaries laid out by you on your personal interpretation of "Study on Language Improvement with Native Materials".