Episode VI: A New Hope, Cavesa strikes back

[FrannieB]

So it seems like lots many from our future little check-in were very busy this last weekend. Me included.
I am ready to start checking in.
I am officially restarting ANKI today.
I have figured out how to sync computer to phone cards, I have created my first two weeks of cards (98 cards). I am learning 7 words/phrases a day with a review of up to 30 words - I need to make this as easy as possible to be successful.
Now I need to add 49 new words or phrases a week.
I might sit down with my visual dictionary and do another burst of 49 so i have three weeks in the books

let me know the logistics of checking in.

[Xenops]

I'm afraid that I have to bow out--sadly, accountability can either inspire or kill enthusiasm for a project for me, and unfortunately it's often the latter. Bonne chance to the rest of you.

[Cavesa]

6.4. checking in

[Cavesa]

Check ins:
7.4. yes
8.4. yes
9.4. no
10.4. no
11.4. yes

[Cavesa]

This is the new thread for the Anki habit making: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7940

[Ccaesar]

Hello Cavesa
First of all, I am a true fan of the name of your log.
Secondly would you be up for having a 5th member in your anki challenge?

[Cavesa]

Hi, Ccaesar! Thanks!
If Frannie and Ani agree, it will be great! You should however notice that we are getting of the ground rather slowly
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Anki: so far every second day and not enough. That is faaaar less than ideal but faaaaaar more than before. So, it could be called progress.
I still have a small problem with the card creation. Basically, I make cards that are as short as possible but later have to chop them up even more, which is good. But some are impossible to chop. I am trying to follow the advice here for my medical cards: -----removed link-------
and for my language cards, I am mostly doing Memrise (going to move the deck to anki as soon as the learning phase is over) and slooowly developping my own Anki decks.

I have started a few language Anki decks, which look a bit like separate projects for now (various language combinations, resources, and so on). But I think something will cristallise out of it.
.........................

I am a tiny bit addicted (or rather procrastinating from pediatrics) to Duolingo after the Crown change, which is good, it is much better than no German. But there is catch: it works like this just for my German. 1.Duolingo German is exceptionally good, the courses for my other languages are not (but I've read the Dutch course is even longer!) 2.My German really sucks, so the tons of basics drilling are good. But doing this with Italian without a way to test out of individual skills, that is not gonna happen.

........

I am still reading my Spanish thriller Asalto a la virreina. I am gonna pay tons for the late return fee! But I want to finish this finally. I am really better off buying books now. But I really really like it.
.............
I am guilty of watching two series in English now. Well, I plan to watch one of them in German soon, so this is a preparation for it. It is Shield by Marvel. You may have noticed I love superheroes! This should be easy German, having already seen the series. And one of the heroes (at least one, haven't heard others) speaks foreign languages! Russian and Italian so far.

I don't have much time, I need to cut everything like this down. So, these are not gonna get finished for a long time. And they are gonna get put aside with the Super Challenge! I am looking forward to it.

...................
I have one horrible resting project I need to send someone, it should have been finished a long time ago. As soon as it is, it will stop paralysing me (I am really having a hard time completing stuff these days). My medicine studies will go a bit better (they have to) and I should return to one language coursebook.

[Cavesa]

3 more things about Duolingo:

1.one way to make it much more useful: get rid of the hypereasy exercises. I turn off the boxes you put together in the sentence, I type everything. And I turn of the listening exercises, as those are too easy too. Duolingo is a good drill for easy sentence translation. There is no need to spoil that

2.I'd appreciate, if Duolingo stopped serving me sentences like "Zucker ist gut", "Schokolade ist gut", or "Schokolade schmeckt süß"

3.I found an interesting "Duolingo experiment" done by a teacher. https://www.las.ch/wp-content/uploads/2 ... olingo.pdf And written into a much better article, than those Duolingo uses for PR. This actually looks like a research attempt, even though it is an experiment with a small sample and not too clear goals. There are notes about the students not enjoying the tool as much as the teacher had hoped, about some progress, etc. He also commented on various ways of using it, motivating people, catches (like how to judge the progress and efforts the students make). But another thing really got my attention. An observation provoked by the argument that technology like Duolingo decreases the real activity in class (which I rather agree with in general, I think such tools should be used only as a good complement and homework). He observed a normal language class and measured the time students spent actually speaking the language. And I had to smile, remembering all those "but a class is the best way to learn, as you get to speak and practice the language" comments I've heard in my life. Sorry about the weird attempt to copy a table, I hope you'll get it.

TABLE 2:
Student production time in two modern language classes

Class 1(11 students) Time in seconds
Student 2 51
Student 5 66
Student 8 52

Class 2(12 students) Time in seconds
Student 2 23
Student 5 4
Student 8 110

While at first gloss surprising, a class taught in a traditional manner, in which the teacher
initiates an interaction, gets an answer from one student, and then comments on that
student’s answer, the result is less surprising. Let’s look at the math in a highly simplified 4
example.

In a 50 minute class, when the communication pattern is Teacher, Student, Teacher, the
teacher speaks two­thirds of the time, or 33 minutes. There are 50 minus 33 minutes left for
the students, or 17 total student minutes. However, there are multiple students. In the classes
I observed, there were 11 and 12 students. There are than 17 minutes divided by 11 or 12
students for each individual student, or , or 1.4 to 1.55 minutes per student, which is
approximately 90 seconds per student.

[tiia]

In a 50 minute class, when the communication pattern is Teacher, Student, Teacher, the
teacher speaks two­thirds of the time, or 33 minutes. There are 50 minus 33 minutes left for
the students, or 17 total student minutes. However, there are multiple students. In the classes
I observed, there were 11 and 12 students. There are than 17 minutes divided by 11 or 12
students for each individual student, or , or 1.4 to 1.55 minutes per student, which is
approximately 90 seconds per student.

I have not (yet) read the pdf as I just came home, but I'm wondering: What about student-student interaction? In all language classes I had there was (nearly?) always student-student interaction in the target language. (Often with the teacher going around and trying to catch up difficulties etc.) So even if I did not say anything to the whole class, I at least spoke with other students. (In university classes and in school. I'm not that certain about the evening classes.)

[Cavesa]

In a 50 minute class, when the communication pattern is Teacher, Student, Teacher, the
teacher speaks two­thirds of the time, or 33 minutes. There are 50 minus 33 minutes left for
the students, or 17 total student minutes. However, there are multiple students. In the classes
I observed, there were 11 and 12 students. There are than 17 minutes divided by 11 or 12
students for each individual student, or , or 1.4 to 1.55 minutes per student, which is
approximately 90 seconds per student.

I have not (yet) read the pdf as I just came home, but I'm wondering: What about student-student interaction? In all language classes I had there was (nearly?) always student-student interaction in the target language. (Often with the teacher going around and trying to catch up difficulties etc.) So even if I did not say anything to the whole class, I at least spoke with other students. (In university classes and in school. I'm not that certain about the evening classes.)

There is no mention of it in the article, as he was comparing just one type of class to his alternative with Duolingo.

Yes, student-student interaction varies. Truth be told, I'd say there is much more of it in the evening classes than in the school and university ones. And it varies a lot across levels and everything. I don't think this article could have taking this into account at all, as that would require much more research on many more clases.Even though I'd say that the student-student interaction is sometimes the worst part of the class, so the less the better