Carpe Coffeam

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Kullman
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Kullman » Tue Nov 22, 2022 8:32 pm

Voyager is nice, but DS9 is probably my favourite.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Sun Nov 27, 2022 4:10 pm

Voyager is one of the few I haven't seen yet, and it's good.

Italian. Right now in unit 7 (why did I believe till opening the thing today that I had already finished unit 7?). I like NPI, the content is good, the stuff is not entirely new in any lesson, even though I am now a bit unsure about grammar. I use a lot of it right intuitively, but I need to master it to minimise mistakes. And yeah, even NPI has some totally unrealistic things.

Such as an exercise on writing a announce that you are searching for an appartement :-D That is simply not how it works, or how it has worked for at least ten years anywhere in Europe. There is so much demand and so little offer, that nobody reads those anymore, it's the owners, who send one announcement and then just pick, they don't need to read tons of those by searchers :-D

I wish I had time for the writing exercises. Nope. Doesn't matter. I can do those later, perhaps as a sort of preparation for C2 :-D (Yes, that one thread by a fellow Italian learner has made me ask myself "why not?").

About German: I am now waiting for the school to handle the paperwork of my transfer to private C1 lessons from their structured course. It sucks, because I have nothing reserved for the next few weeks, I am getting nervous, and don't feel like paying anymore for uncertainty.

I finished their 72th unit, which is the end of their B2. What I have left: to do the writing assignments I was too lazy to do and have them corrected. To do the B2 mock test I got (always a nice exercise). And find out stuff like who buys (and therefore pays for) my next textbook, sort out the study plan, etc.

I also participated in one of the social events, as they are part of what I am paying for, even though I am usually at work, when they are taking place. The idea is nice. A group of people meets, all levels mixed, some free talk, corrected and guided by a present teacher, some pre-made questions to move the conversation. But it is simply not for me. Firstly, I sort of regretted having to pay for the train (expensive in the Switzerland) and waste time I should have given to Italian. But when will I be free on a wednesday evening again? Then I was not comfortable with most of the topics.

I am not at all interested in football. Is it so surprising? It's not about being or woman or anything, I've simply never been a sports person. And nope, I will not get pushed to express I am a fan of any team. Even with an "but what nationality are you" attempt. Fortunately for me in this situation, Czech football sucks, we don't have a team at the event :-D

I didn't like talking about stereotypical housewife roles, even if it was said pro forma that "today, even a man can stay at home" -wink, wink, we are so modern!- It would have been so easy to reformulate the question and achieve the same goal (reviewing chores vocab). It simply isn't enough, if a teacher says "it is an older material", why didn't you bring a newer version of this simple paper? The prompt questions could have been "what chores do you like/dislike" or "what chores do you think will be robotized next" or closer to the housewife theme "what do you think about delegating chores to professionals". Not "what does a housewife do?".

I tried to stick to fun, when we were on a question of stuff we cannot stand, and mentioned delayed trains. The Trains and the Post are the most reliable and conflict-less options, when you want to bond over shared hate towards something pretty much anywhere! But the others quickly got to talking about Covid and the measures, and how irresponsible people were, etc. Combine this already explosive and irritating topic with the limited ability to express nuances, and it's simply annoying. Yeah, I think many people are irresponsible as hell (such as a family of a covid patient, most probably contagioned, just walking around the hospital without masks), but I simply don't think we should all spend the rest of our lives in home prison any time we cough a little bit. I also had to work with covid myself and couldn't stay at home for longer than the worst phase, I didn't have the luxury most office workers get. I am all for people with respiratory infections temporarily wearing masks, just like in Japan or Korea, but I definitely see all the damage of constant use in the society, especially in communication with people hard of hearing, and I've noticed the studies on the damage in development of babies (as they were prived of a very important source of social and emotional clues and guidance), and so on. How on earth is a bunch of A1-B2 people supposed to have any not totally annoying discussion about that?

I don't like being mixed with beginners, especially if one person tries to speak all the time (which is great for her, I do not hold this against her, she is doing it right, it would just be better in a group of only A2s) while needing two seconds for every word in her sentence. And the rest of the topics was not great either. I was not the strongest at stuff like household vocabulary (I am not particulary interested and just rush through that chapter far too often), but I was the best in grammar and putting together a sentence, and one of the better at pronunciation. Nope, such an environment was not good for my learning.

So, no more school social events (=group conversation classes) for me. It is not worth it. But I already sort of knew that, but I wanted to try it out.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Saim » Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:26 am

Cavesa wrote: How on earth is a bunch of A1-B2 people supposed to have any not totally annoying discussion about that?


Yeah I find political and social debates in language classes to be pretty useless. The discussion tends to quite quickly outgrow most participants' language skills, and ends up dominated by the most opinionated students who the teacher then mostly fails to moderate.

The other day in a group German class we had a "debate" about nuclear energy. The teacher essentially had us repeat pre-prepared statements from a textbook, which was laudable at least insofar as it tried to give some structure to it. I'm not sure what the point of the exercise was, though; although assigning us opinions was probably necessary since it turned out we funnily enough all took essentially the same view on the issue, repeating textbook statements word-for-word probably isn't the best way to give the "debate" structure.

So, no more school social events (=group conversation classes) for me. It is not worth it. But I already sort of knew that, but I wanted to try it out.


It's a shame because in principle it could be a nice way to meet people and socialise, but that ends up getting in the way of actual language development.

I'm not sure where you stand on receiving corrections of your English, let me know if it's not something you're interested in and I'll stop:

"it is an older material" (uncountable)

they were prived deprived of a very important source of social and emotional clues and guidance

it's the owners who send [more idiomatic: "send out", "post" or "put up"] one announcement ad/notice

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Cavesa
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 01, 2022 5:23 pm

Saim wrote:Yeah I find political and social debates in language classes to be pretty useless. The discussion tends to quite quickly outgrow most participants' language skills, and ends up dominated by the most opinionated students who the teacher then mostly fails to moderate.

Yes. And another issue is getting various opinions in the game. There are debate exercises and competitions for highschoolers, where people are assigned "their opinion" and the art is in arguing for it. Yeah, it is a bit controversial (I wouldn't have been capable of participating), but the idea is in some ways very good. But you won't get that in a normal language class, and that's another problem on top of the language skills. I felt like I didn't belong and like I would be regarded really badly, had I voiced my opinion (and did it only in a very limited way as a kind of a joke at the end). I don't care about those people and probably won't see them again, but it was still an unpleasant situation. It could get rather annoying in a stable group, where you see the people every week. In case of some opinions, you could really feel uncomfortable meeting those people again, even if the language skills sufficed to clear stuff up.

The other day in a group German class we had a "debate" about nuclear energy. The teacher essentially had us repeat pre-prepared statements from a textbook, which was laudable at least insofar as it tried to give some structure to it. I'm not sure what the point of the exercise was, though; although assigning us opinions was probably necessary since it turned out we funnily enough all took essentially the same view on the issue, repeating textbook statements word-for-word probably isn't the best way to give the "debate" structure.

Yes, and textbooks represent only some "correct opinions". In some cases, it is good. We can see every day online, that some topics have a very blurred line between plurality of opinions and total fake news, disinformation, and very ugly propaganda and hybrid war. Language textbooks stay well within the safe limits, with a huge margin, for obvious reasons. But in case of some topics, including nuclear energy, it can easily get too one sided or too narrowly presented (as it needs to fit on two or three pages), therefore some learners won't get the tools to express themselves, and the class cannot learn to discuss it based on the resources given.

There is no perfect way to make a textbook, that would represent "everything reasonable" (even the definition of this term is impossible). It should be up to the teacher to handle the class and discussion and other resources. But I seriously doubt most are up to this huge task.

So, no more school social events (=group conversation classes) for me. It is not worth it. But I already sort of knew that, but I wanted to try it out.


It's a shame because in principle it could be a nice way to meet people and socialise, but that ends up getting in the way of actual language development.


Yes, it is in the way. And there is a second problem: I didn't like this kind of socialising. I don't really like small talk, I am not that comfortable in large groups of unknown random people. Especially as such groups tend to confirm my inner grumpy cat's opinion: most books are much more interesting than most people. It also applies to other stuff than books.


I'm not sure where you stand on receiving corrections of your English, let me know if it's not something you're interested in and I'll stop:

"it is an older material" (uncountable)

they were prived deprived of a very important source of social and emotional clues and guidance

it's the owners who send [more idiomatic: "send out", "post" or "put up"] one announcement ad/notice



Thank you! I am glad for corrections, but don't want to be a bother for anyone. I should do some revision of the English grammar some time.
It's funny, that the "prived" mistake is French based. That makes it sting less :-D
Thanks!
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Saim » Thu Dec 01, 2022 6:44 pm

Cavesa wrote:There are debate exercises and competitions for highschoolers, where people are assigned "their opinion" and the art is in arguing for it. Yeah, it is a bit controversial (I wouldn't have been capable of participating), but the idea is in some ways very good. But you won't get that in a normal language class, and that's another problem on top of the language skills.


Yes, you're absolutely right that there's quite an art to debating properly so it's a bit much to expect most learners to be able to take much out of the format. The same problem presents itself with roleplaying exercises.

I remember participating in one of those debate competitions early in high school and I quite enjoyed it. The topic was "should junk food be legal?", and my team was arguing the "harder" position, i.e. against. The other team ended up arguing that junk food is actually good for you, which wasn't really the topic of the debate. I was kind of disappointed with the tack the opposing team took and wished I had been on the other side to make a better argument (consumer freedom, personal responsibility, etc.). :lol: Thanks for reviving the random childhood memory, haven't thought about this event in years.

Yes, it is in the way. And there is a second problem: I didn't like this kind of socialising. I don't really like small talk, I am not that comfortable in large groups of unknown random people. Especially as such groups tend to confirm my inner grumpy cat's opinion: most books are much more interesting than most people. It also applies to other stuff than books.


I totally get that. I personally do enjoy small talk but I guess I get more mileage out of doing that when waiting for the tram or in the corridors at the office or whatever with whoever happens to be open to it rather than going to a specifically language-related event or course where I don't get much linguistic benefit out of it. If you don't enjoy small talk it would be even worse, then it makes sense to be even more judicious with what kinds of events you subject yourself to.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:08 pm

Today, I enjoyed a beautiful day without work and took my PLIDA C1. It was in a small and not too nice town, surrounded by beautiful Alpes. My expectations were low, due to all that I had failed to fit in my preparation due to procrastination and also not that much free time (which I should have expected and therefore minimized the procrastination). So, I told myself, that I could retake anything needed, and so what. I am a bit sad about my search for the next job and perhaps not asking in the Italophone canton won't even change that much about it.

TLDR: Content and difficulty as I have expected, results in a month or two, the organisation was unusual.

Now the full version:

The exam was held in a school, which I found without any problem. But there was absolutely no sign Plida was taken there. Not a single paper on a door or a notice board, nothing. I had to find a receptionist or secretary, who confirmed it and told me in which class would it be.

There were three of us. Probably each of us a different level (one was B1, no clue about the other one). I was the only one taking the whole exam, the other two candidates were just retaking a failed part (I might be doing the same thing in a few months, who knows). I love that they don't have a minimum limit for even holding the exam! But yeah, it was very weird, I have never been in such a tiny setting before, and it showed on the less clear organisation. Normally, you get very clear explanation of the times, you get them even written on the board, and the whole room (whether it's three people or twenty) is doing the same exam with the same limits. Not this time. We were told some time of the end, but it wasn't clear, whether it was for the whole exam, or just a break.

I was given the papers for part listening and reading, and the papers for writing, and an ipod with the listening part.

The first one was the listening comprehension. 50 minutes, this thing wasn't changed. It was set in stone, or rather in electronics, with a good recording, pauses, instructions. Very well done. I liked the audios, they were rather fun. The exam was of an expected difficulty. I am pretty sure I passed, but of course I could have made a mistake or two in the multiple choice questions (I think we all know it is sometimes not that obvious). Too bad the teacher keeping an eye on us was playing music from a computer for a few moments. I love classical music, but not during a listening exam. I had to put the ipod volume to maximum, which wasn't pleasant, to be sure to hear. It was several moments, always like half a minute or a minute, not sure what he wanted. It was annoying.

Then the reading comprehension. Again, the texts were good (but mostly boring, true). I understood completely, except for a few not too important words, I could have translated them or talked about them. But a few of the questions were rather tricky, I might have a few mistakes. I'd say like two or three, out of the fifteen questions. The limit written on the instructions was a 100 minutes. I finished in like 30 or 35. And I was stressed, as I was unsure about the time limits and too afraid to ask (the other two people were writing).

Then the writing. The hardest part, that I am most likely to need to retake. Due to the confusion about the time for each part, I expected this part had to be taken before the break too. So, I started working on it, after my too fast reading comprehension. But suddenly, the teacher was asking, whether I was ready to give away the papers and finish! I was in the middle of the second task! No I wasn't! I dared to ask for like ten more minutes. I got them and finished in fretta. I finished, gave that teacher all the papers.

The content was rather to be expected. Two texts to be written, both 180-220 words. The format is much easier than the DALF, you are basically asked for opinion, explanations, etc, you don't work with any dossier of resources. I had to write about some tradition (in a broad sense) that is disappearing in my culture and need to be preserved, that was the first one. After a moment of reflection, I chose dance classes (the mass classes of the basics of ballroom dance and etiquette), a tradition heavily damaged by the covid. The second one, I could pick out of two. Again, humanities. Everything in this exam was in the realm of the humanities, nothing was on the more science side of the thematic spectrum. I picked a note about a biologist, who though competition was creating some problems in the society, like lack of creativity etc etc etc. So, I wrote about too much competition and pressure all the time on the young doctors, while you want us all to be doctors and work.

Could I have written something better? Perhaps. Within this perceived time limit? No chance. Was it total trash? I hope not. Was it good enough? No clue. Can I think right now about a few more changes? Sure, I can think of a better last sentence, but it is of no use now.

So, I gave the papers back to the teacher, as I've already mentioned. And then the main surprise! He simply gave me the papers for the spoken part to have a look already and then we left for an hour of lunch break. No usual anti-cheating measures or preparation time limit. Nothing! And I was really asked to look at it, pick my free to chose topic, and so on. Alright :-D :-D :-D To admit the 100% truth, I looked up a word or two (not more) and checked one conjugation during my lunch break. Given the shortened writing time, this speaking preparation advantage seemed to balance it out in a weird way, even though I'd much prefer a normal standard way to proceed. Which is normal writing time limit, clearly announced, written, and remembered, and just a standard few minute time for the speaking preparation.

I came back after the break. There were now two examiners. A new one present right away, the original one came a few minutes later. I was surprised to be the only candidate there, and she explained the other two had just taken one part and left. She asked, whether I was a student or already working, and was surprised how could a working person make time for a language exam. Hmmm... I have an irregular schedule, but I don't think it is that rare, nor is it that rare to take a day off (some companies even support it for such qualification improving stuff). We started. To add some more comical relief, one of the examiners (the one playing my discussion partner, as there was no other candidate for the normal structure in pairs) messed up my name on the audio recording. I hope it won't annulate my exam. I was too nervous to correct him. He messed it up really badly in one of the two recordings, as he mixed my two surnames together.

The first task was the examiner's pick out of three options. A fictional interview for some position of work something coordinator (these tasks are always hard to imagine for someone not working in a corporate). I just talked, it was ok. The other one was a monologue, my pick. Out of three options, I picked a short writing of a frustrated parent, who blames social media and the society for their kid answering just grades or "nothing" to the usual question about school. I think I spoke well about this one. The last "out of competition" but kind question was how do I take being evaluated (meant also as criticism) :-) Well, I've been judged and criticised and evaluated all the time for years. :-D

The two examiners said they were excited and I surely passed, but of course I need to wait for the opinion of someone in Sienna, hearing the audios (with the butchered name. At least the exam number should fit). Then they asked, what part did I need to finish now. I told them "none, I did them before the break". They were really suprised. Obviously, I misunderstood the situation (for pretty obvious reasons) and did the three parts in the time for two of them. They asked, whether I wanted to keep working on something. I politely declined. Why? Because I know myself. I have a certain problem, that has already cost me exams and tons of points in the most important exams ever. There is a point, at which I go crazy and overthink things so much I change a lot of correct answers to incorrect ones. I was pretty sure it would happen. Better to let it be.

The results will be sometime in January, even though I paid extra ten franks for faster results (perhaps mid-January is the faster option?).

After that, I'll either retake writing (or perhaps something else, if I messed up. Or if the Sienna examiner doesn't like my speaking, or if the butchered name makes the exam invalid), or I'll consider a C2 exam. I didn't think I'd want one. But there is one new member of the forum, who will take CILS C2 next year, and his courage made me think "why not? why shouldn't I take it?" (you can imagine it in Bilbo's voice).
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 22, 2022 11:34 am

Time flies. I sort of took a break, which is wierd, given how I iniciated an AI6WC. It is my attempt to get back into the rythm, even though I am starting today.

I was not burnt out by my Italian exam, and I simply prefered to play on a computer. The biggest blow to my discipline AND motivation has been the language school.

Why: a month ago, I finished the B2 level. I had been promised that everything would be easily transferred to private C1 classes, with smooth continuation. It took over a month. They were not late to demand a new monthly payment, but they took a month (without any class!!!) to do this changement that had been promised right from the start. Now they've made the recount on the private hours. Well, I had thought that me using their 6months + 2 offered thing (which had motivated me to pay quickly to not lose the offer) would transfer the whole time rest (of those 8 months total) to class equivalent, but no, the 2 months "given" disappear. Which really changes the price/value ratio for me. At the end, I will have 12.5 hours. The teacher is very good and has prepared people for C1 already. But it means each hour will cost 120 franks, which is a horrible price for any teacher and class at all, even the best ones. And I have no way out of this (especially as we are two in this school, my husband and I, which has served very well in some ways, but now keeps me a bit tied). And I will probably have to buy my book this time, as I am out of the normal structure, which is like 40 euros or franks. Yeah, a tiny amount compared to the rest, but still an extra amount and an extra "we don't care" message.

So, the plus is that I like the teacher. The minus: she hasn't contacted me yet to organize stuff. I am motivated, because I cannot afford to fail, given all the money invested. C1 exam in the spring. But my discipline got a heavy blow with the month of nothing and with this treatement. I should write the homeworks I still need to submit but it simply wasn't easy. I have stuff I need to do. But I hate being in such a void, it really sucks the motivation out of me.

Schools simply suck. Even this one, with all the huge qualities I have seen, leaves me rather disappointed in some ways.

So, getting back onto the track with the AI6WC, starting right now. I have an hour and half before I go to work today.

And still no idea bout the PLIDA results. A few weeks left, hopefully not many, to finding out whether I retake writing or not.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Iversen » Thu Dec 22, 2022 11:58 am

Where do they still use franks??
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 22, 2022 12:22 pm

Iversen wrote:Where do they still use franks??


In the Switzerland. Lately, 1 franc has been 1,little bit euro, which has rather changed prices of some stuff and made over the border shopping cheaper. But the school is here, therefore totally Swiss prices.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Kraut » Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:07 pm

Cavesa wrote:
Iversen wrote:Where do they still use franks??


In the Switzerland. Lately, 1 franc has been 1,little bit euro, which has rather changed prices of some stuff and made over the border shopping cheaper. But the school is here, therefore totally Swiss prices.


It's in Switzerland, no article.
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