DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

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dlt529
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Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
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DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Fri Sep 30, 2022 10:44 pm

I found this forum through the challenges people do here, and it was really inspiring. Maybe not inspiring, but just what I needed to reorient my language studies. I'm a Spanish teacher in higher ed, but I've always loved world language learning. As I kid, I went through a few years where I answered the question with "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with a succint "bilingual", which wouldn't have been so werid if I hadn't grown up in the US Midwest in a monolingual environment. I'm hoping a language log will help me stay motivated and keep my accountable.

Spanish
My long-term goal is to take the ACTFL OPI next summer. I've never taken a proficiency test in Spanish before, but I know (feel?) my level is pretty high. I'm comfortably advanced. To prepare, I want to consume 500 hours of (aural) input, 5000 pages of written input, and write 50,000. For the input, I usually listen to podcasts in the morning when I walk my dog, and I'm trying to get more into Spanish TV shows. Reading isn't an issue, I love reading, especially mysteries and thrillers, but I want to try to read some more classics too. For the writing, I post to Journaly to get corrections, but I haven't been very motivated. I might try creative writing--I think my level is decent enough and the writing doesn't have to be good, just in Spanish. I also do Anki every day in Spanish.

Current Progress
Listening: 50.6/500 hours
Reading: 856/5,000 pages
Writing: 1538/50,000 words
Anki streak: 73 days

Portuguese
I've always debated on whether I want to keep up with my Portuguese. I have really strong receptive skills (reading and listening) but weaker productive skills. I'm probably advanced in reading/listening but intermediate in writing/speaking. I want to take the ACTFL OPI next summer as well--I'll likely be looking for another job soon and proficiency in Portuguese would be idea. The short-term goals are the same, as well: 500 hours of listening, 5000 pages of reading, and 50,000 words in writing. For Portuguese, I'm looking into iTalki tutors--I don't know why the idea makes me so nervous--to add a speaking goal as well.

Current Progress
Listening: 38.3/500 hours
Reading: 415/5,000 pages
Writing: 2153/50,000 words
Anki streak: 16 days

French
I've gone back and forth on which language to add next. French is my current interest. Part of my interest in French is also to test input-only approaches. My training is in Applied Linguistics, so I know the potential pitfalls, but people rave about immersion-only approaches, so I want to give it a try. My goal is to put in 100 hours of French input before evaluating what else I'll do. Right now, I watch Alice Ayal videos, I just started workin through an Anki deck of the top 5000 words, and also I occassionally listen to the LinguaTalk Slow French podcast. I know that this isn't a perfect test of the method, because I already speak Spanish and Portuguese, but I really want to see what the hype is about from the other side.

Right now, I'm working on 100 hours of oral French (Videos, I'm also planning on reading with audiobooks). Afterwards, I want to work through a pronunciation course (FSI French Phonology or another textbook), a grammar book, and start reading and iTalki lessons, I think.

Current progress
Input: 21.3/1000 hours
Anki Streak: 3 days
8 x

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:48 pm

Welcome to the Forum. You've set yourself an interesting challenge. Good luck with your studies.
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

dlt529
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
x 126

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:16 am

Today was a Portuguese heavy day. :D

Spanish
I listened to two podcasts this morning while walking the dog, both from El País--one about university scholarships in Spain and another about who cities are built for. It's always interesting to hear Europeans talk about how expensive their university is. A lot of the stories sounded very familiar, many of the things said could easily have been said about the US. The one about who cities are built for just focused on hostile architecture in Spain and Madrid.

37 minutes

Portuguese
I listened to two podcasts in Portuguese as well--an episode of O assunto about the elections tomorrow and an episode of Não Inviabilize. My friends have been saying for weeks that the tensions in Brazil are getting higher and higher, their situation reminds me a lot of the US. I wonder how many more similarites we'll see as the next presidential election draws closer. The episode of Não Inviabilize was funny--about a woman who met a guy who was great in bed but was a conspiracy theorist. I like the format of Não Inviabilize a lot. It's a single host telling a story from somewhere, I think online, and then people leave their thoughts or advice. They're also short, and full of slang, so I usually have to listen twice. This one wasn't too bad.

I also had an iTalki lesson. I've never used iTalki before, but it was a lot of fun. I noticed the teacher did a double take when I started speaking, which I hope was a good thing. I'm going to start trying to do a lesson or two each week to boost my speaking. At the end of the lesson he said I only said two weird things (both words from Spanish), so that was nice. After I post this, I'm going to read more of either O poder do habito or Presa Fácil, or maybe both. I also listened to a lot of Portuguese music, including on my run this morning and while cleaning, but I don't count music.

+37 minutes

French
Today was an off day for french. I think i'm going to give up on Anki for awhile. I also only listened to an episode on French register from LanguaTalk. I shouldn't say it's an off day--it's a day I did french, so that counts.

+17 minutes
2 x

dlt529
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
x 126

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:35 am

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Welcome to the Forum. You've set yourself an interesting challenge. Good luck with your studies.


Thanks so much!
1 x

dlt529
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
x 126

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:03 am

Spanish
I listened to a podcast this morning about special needs students in Spain, an hour of La escóbula de la brújula about memes, and two episodes of Toy Boy. I really like La escóbula de la brújula, but the episodes are so long. Today's was about memes, which was fun, until some guy started rambling about time and technology. That got weird.

+207 minutes

Portuguese
I listened to Não Inviabilize but I also watched about an hour of election coverage. All my friends were talking about it, and it was fun to follow along. I also want to keep reading Presa Fácil, I finally got to the first twist.

+100 minutes

French
I had no motivation for French today, I'll watch an Alice Ayel video to keep momentum before bed.
3 x

dlt529
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
x 126

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:07 am

Spanish
Managed two episodes of El Café de la Mañana this morning morning, one about a housing crisis in Mexico, the other about Texas trying to declaring the Mexican drug cartels are terrorists. I also watched an episode of Deseo Oscuro. I read a few stories in Muy Interesante, a magazine I got a digital copy of, but I'll add the pages when I finish
+72 minutes

Portuguese
Listened to an episode of O assunto about strategic voting in Brazil and two episodes of Não Inviabilize, one about a dad trying to dodge child support and a scary legend about a sealed room and a ghost. Last night I already read a few chapters in Presa Fácil.
+55 minutes

French
Two Alice Ayel videos, one about a bike messenger and another about a family's sunday dinner.
+23 minutes

I've been in a very Portuguese heavy mood, the tutor helped a lot I think. I felt all the Portuguese I did this weekend when I was teaching Spanish, it was not flowing. I need to work on balancing Spanish and Portuguese better... I want to improve my Portuguese for sure, but maintaining my Spanish has to be the priority.
3 x

dlt529
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
x 126

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Wed Oct 05, 2022 12:09 am

Spanish
Another two podcasts this morning, one episode of Hoy en El País about changes to international voting one one episode of El Café de la mañana, about the hack on the Mexican Army. Another episode of Oscuro Deseo as well over dinner--that show is soooo bad it hurts but its easy to watch. :D
+70 minutes

Portuguese
An epsiode of Café da manhã on the drive home, about the projects for the runoff election in Brazil, and then two episodes of Não Inviabilize, one about a woman who figured out her husband was cheating on her with her best friend because of a ringworm infection, the other about a ghost coming to help cook rice. I also wrote out an essay on Digital Nomands and imperialism, which I'm going to post to Journaly for corrections.

+48 minutes
+727 words

French
I needed a break from Alice Ayel. She's wonderful but I read a book on the method she used and got really mad about it. Instead, I listened to an episode of InnerFrench on robots on LingQ. I don't really use LingQ "right", but I like being able to follow along with the transcript and look up words.
+29 minutes

I'm coming up on 24 hours of French, close to 1/4 of the goal I set for myself, and I need to figure out a plan for the rest of it. I have Murder on the Orient Express in French with an audiobook I want to read, too, but I think that might be too hard. Fiction is always harder than nonfiction. Maybe I'll keep doing InnerFrench for the next 24 hours, sprinkled with Alice Ayel when I want something lighter.
4 x

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4822

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:08 pm

dlt529 wrote:French
I needed a break from Alice Ayel. She's wonderful but I read a book on the method she used and got really mad about it.

Do tell. What made you mad that it made you stop? I should add that I am familiar with Ayel and her videos though I don´t watch them much.
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

dlt529
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:16 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (Adv), Portuguese (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org//vi ... 15&t=18534
x 126

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby dlt529 » Wed Oct 05, 2022 10:43 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
dlt529 wrote:French
I needed a break from Alice Ayel. She's wonderful but I read a book on the method she used and got really mad about it.

Do tell. What made you mad that it made you stop? I should add that I am familiar with Ayel and her videos though I don´t watch them much.


Well, I should have known as soon as I saw it was based in Krashen's ideas. I am trying to do an input first approach to French, so I was going to run into it evernually. The problem with the Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling people is that they really miscite the research. The module I read, specifically, claimed that research showed that immersion only lead to high accuracy in production, which isn't true. The recognition that it wasn't lead to the formulation of the output hypothesis, one of the major underpinings of the interactionist approach. But they just keep citing the same research and never read anything that contradicts their position, which is just poor research.

The other frustration I had was the reliance on only frequent words. Basically, if it isn't frequent, don't teach it. Which really misrepresents the idea of frequency. I've read most of the stuff on vocabulary frequency and coverage, and I understand the pull of teaching the top 5k words to get the most coverage, but the infrequent words aren't useless--I'd argue they're more useful than frequent ones because they carry more meaning. They gave the example of nice vs stingy--obviously we should focus on nice beacuse its more frequent, but stingy carries a lot of meaning when you need it. Focusing only on highly frequent words also limits your abiltiy to make meaning to highly frequent messages, which is... kind of boring.

Finally, the author focuses so narrowly on language teaching that they discount other outcomes. This book was specifically about using the method in schools, and they strong advocated against authentic materials, and instead for watered-down, neutral stories with no cultural elements.

It just doesn't vibe with my personal philosophy for language teaching. I think the technique itself has uses (I will give Alice credit, I do understand a lot of spoken French after like 20 hours with her and I do recognize the highly frequent structures she uses), but it isn't enough for a complete curriculum.
3 x

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4822

Re: DJ's [insert original title here] log (SP/PT/FR)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:44 pm

Okay, thanks for clarifying. The controversy around Krashen and his theories interests me not, but I'm not a language teacher.
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson


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