The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

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sfuqua
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The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby sfuqua » Thu Feb 01, 2018 4:22 am

I recently set a goal of becoming an outstanding tourist for France and Spain before summer.
I am about there from a mix of different beginner courses without finishing anything. I plan to memorize a phrasebook the last couple of weeks before we go to Europe, and then I hope that I am never a pain for anyone to deal with, even if I can't discuss the whichness of what, or whatever.

I've learned many things from the courses which might make good conversation starters so I can get practice in Europe.

Picture me in Dublin (the family's home base in Europe) approaching a group of attractive young women from France or Spain and using some of what I have learned from these courses.

From Pimsleur: Let's go to my hotel to drink beer.
This should get some good responses. I'm sure that Dublin is full of French and Spanish tourists who want to go to hotel rooms with strange men.

From Michel Thomas: I want that thing now, because I need it now.
Said while looking straight at one of the young ladies. This works better with a Polish accent (that is what his accent is isn't it?)

From Assimil: A famous author was strangled by words from his dictionary.
I'm sure that this would make people want to get to know me.

From DLI:There is a column of tanks on the highway approaching our position.
It would probably help with this if I point and wave my arms.

From FSI: I'd like to ditch my little fat girlfriend and leave with that hot brunette.
Said with a big wink.

While this is almost everything that one would ever need to say in a language, there is probably room for improvement.

The famed polyglot from the Virgin Islands, iguanamon, advocates an approach called the multi-track approach http://www.language-learners.org/2016/02/07/the-multi-track-approach-to-language-learning-guest-post-by-iguanamon/ where one tries several language learning approaches simultaneously. This always seemed logical to me, because of the powerful synergy one gets from hitting the same topics in different ways from different approaches.

I'm going to start off working through some of the old audio-lingual FSI and DLI courses as well as extensive listening and reading. I'll be working on French and Spanish, which will make my progress slower, but will add a higher level of interest.

I'm in no hurry to finish anything, which is good, because this is going to take a long time. I give myself permission also to roam off into another language whenever I want to as long as I keep moving ahead with French and Spanish.
I never intend to depend on just one course or one approach. I never intend to kill myself or set a hard schedule.
I'm going to have fun.

Edited to improve my Assimil quote and add a link and to fix a typo I introduced with the last edit.
Last edited by sfuqua on Thu Feb 01, 2018 4:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:29 am

Just remember...

" Maintenant, je voudrais boire une bière sur un tank de combat avec toi, ma chaude brune alors que ma grosse petite copine est assise dans le fossé. Baldomero? Connais pas! En vitesse à l'hôtel! "

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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby sfuqua » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:34 pm

Let me explain a little bit about these old government language courses.
They are mostly based on the audio-lingual approach, which was all the rage for a while from World War II up to the '70's. This teaching method emphasized oral drills. The FSI and DLI courses were used to train foreign service and military personnel respectively. They covered far more of the language than almost any other courses and aimed for a high level of performance in a short time. Successful students would be expected to reach the equivalent of a C1 in just a few months, starting from zero. Students were highly motivated and were selected for aptitude. These programs were very intensive.

The parts of the FSI courses we have now are only a part of the total program that students would experience at the DLI or at FSI. The parts we have are very extensive, however.

Some of use have approached these materials, by attempting to use them exactly as they were used originally, including mimicking the intensity. I think this is the wrong approach.

There are many ways to do the same thing. One may enjoy the results of rushing through something quickly, but for maximum fun, it may be better to take your time, savor the experience, maybe even stop for a while and restart. Completing the course should be more satisfying after a long buildup. I think it is too easy to think that because the original users of the course finished fast, that finishing fast is the best way to do it.

When I went through about 2/3 of the FSI Basic Spanish course a couple of years ago, I kept beating my head against the wall thinking, "I've got to be perfect, I've got to keep moving forward..." I don't really know why. The materials we have were probably used to practice material that had already been introduced in class, so it is stupid to feel like a failure when you can't do a drill the first time. Of course you can't. Why would you know something that you had never seen before? I'm not sure that the usual approach autodidacts have taken, just repeating the drill until you have figured it out, is the best approach either.

I'm going to start off shadowing and repeating the best I can with the book open. If there is written material, I'll stop the mp3 and read it. Maybe I'll go through the whole course this way.
Next I'll go through the lessons shadowing and repeating and answering with the book closed. Maybe this is a second trip through the course.
Finally I'll go through the lessons answering and repeating with the book closed.

I plan to do about 20-30 minutes a day for these audio-lingual courses, at least on work days. 20 minutes of Spanish and 20 minutes of French still leaves time for extensive reading and watching.
It will take a long time to finish anything moving at this slow rate, but how long it takes is how long it takes.
Edited to complete an incomplete sentence.
Last edited by sfuqua on Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:44 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:26 am

sfuqua wrote:Successful students would be expected to reach the equivalent of a C1 in just a few months, starting from zero. Students were highly motivated and were selected for aptitude. These programs were very intensive.

[...]

When I went through about 2/3 of the FSI Basic Spanish course a couple of years ago, I kept beating my head against the wall thinking, "I've got to be perfect, I've got to keep moving forward..." I don't really know why. The materials we have were probably used to practice material that had already been introduced in class, so it is stupid to feel like a failure when you can't do a drill the first time. Of course you can't. Why would you know something that you had never seen before. I'm not sure that the usual approach autodidacts have taken, just repeating the drill until you have figured it out, is the best approach either.


What one has to take into account is that the courses were developed for a certain target group, emphasize memorization, repetition (outside the class, see below) to the point of overlearning and so on. "The time required to cover each section in this way will differ widely depending on the size and the ability of the class."

So, originally it was assumed that you had access to a tutor, and studied with this material in class - possibly for several hours a day - to the point where you had fully internalized the material and could respond immediately, with the same ease and at the same speed as a native speaker. I think I read that the suggested time was one week per unit, i.e. 12 units in 12 weeks, and obviously 24 units in 24 weeks (about six months).

With that intensity and preparation (and motivation), you probably would be able to do the drills accurately. So, under those circumstances FSI may indeed have worked - and perhaps only under those circumstances! :) I know I went through FSI German vol 1 and 2 (24 units in total) in just two weeks many years ago. I already knew basic German and just listened/shadowed without having the text in front of me. I don't think I ever repeated any lessons. It was a wild experiment (as usual). Some things worked, some didn't. I couldn't cram 24 weeks of German in 2 weeks, even if that's what (I thought) I was doing. I would have needed those 24 weeks (and more study hours per day, during those 24 weeks).

The FSI material may still be very useful whatever our methods are, but that can be said about many courses out there.
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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby aravinda » Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:07 am

sfuqua wrote:I recently set a goal of becoming an outstanding tourist for France and Spain before summer.
I am about there from a mix of different beginner courses without finishing anything. I plan to memorize a phrasebook the last couple of weeks before we go to Europe, and then I hope that I am never a pain for anyone to deal with, even if I can't discuss the whichness of what, or whatever.

I've learned many things from the courses which might make good conversation starters so I can get practice in Europe.

Picture me in Dublin (the family's home base in Europe) approaching a group of attractive young women from France or Spain and using some of what I have learned from these courses...
I saw this phrasebook cover while searching for another book and immediately thought of your forthcoming tour. :lol:
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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby sfuqua » Tue Feb 06, 2018 4:03 am

I fouled up the last part of this post, and I did a better version a couple of posts down.
Audio-Lingual Courses:

The Defense Language Institute and the Foreign Service Institute created many courses for military and civilian personnel over the years. I would assume that they maintain their high standards today, but that their instruction is mostly computer based. There were changes in fashion in instruction, but in many ways the old audio-lingual courses, designed for use with magnetic tape, were the most impressive.
It's what we have any
After an exploration of the archives we have of these courses, I decided to do four courses:
1. FSI French Phonology. This course has audio-lingual roots, but it also utilizes "programmed learning", where the learner works on their own with the tape recorder and the book. This is similar to what we do, but the users at FSI have an instructor to check their work. This course was designed to guide a learner through some of the trickier parts of French phonology, and also prepare the learner for FSI French Basic, which starts out at full speed. I find this course a little weird, and it is not my favorite course, but I'm working through it, because I'm still a little shaky on French pronunciation. I'm almost through with French Phonology; the course is very short.
2. FSI French Basic. A classic audio-lingual course. The emphasis is on drill, not on entertainment. I really wanted to try the DLI French basic course, but that course seems to lack answers for some of the drills, so it would really be better to use to review rather than learn in the first place. I would just do both basic courses, except that I would like to get through one course up through advanced grammar, even if I need to go back. I may still add DLI basic in. I really like they way it covers many points. In a way, it would make a better introduction to French than that whacky French phonology course (sorry if I'm insulting anybody's favorite course).
3. FSI programmatic Spanish. This is another of the FSI hybrid audio-lingual/programmed instruction courses. It appears to be a course that got cancelled halfway through development, but what we have is still interesting. Some people love it, but many people who have used it say that the second half of the course is not nearly as good as the first part. Just as I may swap out French Phonology for DLI French Basic, I may replace FSI Programmatic Spanish with DLI Spanish Modular. The DLI course is still audio-lingual, but it is from the Programmatic generation of courses. The first part of the DLI course is based on the FSI programmatic course. The course suffers from a lack of answers for some drills, which is a shame. There is an earlier DLI Spanish Basic course, but the recordings appear to be incomplete and difficult to use.

Hmmn... After reading the above, I think I'm going to try the DLI courses for a few days to see if I like them. There is no reason to do anything I don't think is working well. If I don't like the other courses, why would I do them. I can always come back to them later.

4.Finally there is the glorious FSI Spanish Basic course. In many ways this is the best example of the big government audio-lingual courses. Of course it is far from perfect. It starts off too fast for a complete beginner. Some people don't like the accents of the Spanish speakers in the course. I've already been through the first 3/4 of this course before, and I only stopped it, because I was killing myself trying to meet an arbitrary deadline.

So, as of tomorrow, I will be doing FSI Basic Spanish, FSI Basic French, DLI Basic French, and DLI Modular Spanish.

Input
The past few years on the forum has shown that there really isn't anything like reading and listening to a few million words to improve comprehension. Some learners have seen a big improvement in their output as well.

I'm going to start out reading for a while and then then switch to a mixture of reading and listening/watching. I plan to hop around from book to book, movie/TV show to movie/TV show. The main thing is to keep feeding my brain comprehensible, native speaker input.

FSI says that it takes about 600 hours to get a motivated, specially selected student to a C1 equivalent.
Many have found through the Super Challenge that something like 600 hours of input (20000 minute of movies, 10000 pages of reading, 2 Super Challenges) may lead to a C1 level in and L2.
Here's where I am today.

AUDIOLINGUAL: 5 / 600 600 Hours Spanish
AUDIOLINGUAL: 5 / 600 600 Hours French
INPUT: 5 / 600 600 Hours Spanish
INPUT: 5 / 600 600 Hours French

Uh, this is going to take a while...
If I get to add to input and the fsi/dli course together to get to my 600 hours:

AUDIOLINGUAL: 5 / 300 300 Hours Spanish
AUDIOLINGUAL: 5 / 300 300 Hours French
INPUT: 5 / 300 300 Hours Spanish
INPUT: 5 / 300 300 Hours French

It still looks like a long time, but hey; I'm trying to learn a couple of world language at the same time.
Edited to fix my sad little bars, and to admit that they didn't say what I wanted.
Last edited by sfuqua on Tue Feb 06, 2018 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby smallwhite » Tue Feb 06, 2018 4:53 am

sfuqua wrote:Here's where I am today.

I'm sorry I didn't understand your bars and numbers.

* Is 600 hours audiolingual plus 600 hours input the total time you think one needs to reach C1? So 1200 hours in total from A0 to C1?
* What do the "300 Hours" bars measure? (Didn't understand the sentence that described them).
* I think you started Spanish 6 years ago and French 2 years ago. How many hours have you spent on them so far?
* And the same question I asked you before ;) How confident are you in eventually reaching 2400 hours? (Not sure if the total is 2400).

Good luck with this method!
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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby sfuqua » Tue Feb 06, 2018 4:33 pm

Yeah, not very clear. I'm well over 600 hours total on Spanish, probably twice that. I'm probably getting pretty close to C1 in comprehension, but my production is still A2/B1.
I'm over 150 hours on French.
I meant to say that 2400 hours for both, if I start from zero, is a huge number.
Working at an hour and a half a day, that's 1600 days.
It's a ridiculous number.
I'm not going to reach that I'm sure. I may not live long enough.

I'm going to zip through the audio-lingual courses fast, without doing any overlearning, and try to get through a super challenge for both French and Spanish. I'll keep reading and doing audiolingual drills until I get my next brainstorm.

I would guess I need multiple trips through the audio-lingual courses. Maybe after a quick shadow through the courses I'll go back and do them the way I used to do FSI Basic, repeat the same lesson for a week, or go through week-long waves (Lesson 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and so on).

Sorry about that post, I kept getting interrupted before I was finished, and I should have let it cook longer before I served it. :?
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荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby sfuqua » Tue Feb 06, 2018 6:35 pm

Rather than going back and redoing a post that has already been responded to, let me show what I think is more realistic to do over the next couple (three?) years. Doing the courses exactly the way that one is supposed to would take 600 hours each, which doesn't leave time for reading and listening/watching.

10000 minutes: 300 / 20000 FSI/DLI Spanish
10000 minutes: 300 / 20000 FSI/DLI French
5000 pages: 75 / 5000 reading Spanish
5000 pages: 75 / 5000 reading French
9000 minutes: 0 / 9000 listening Spanish
9000 minutes: 0 / 9000 listening French

FSI Spanish has about 56 hours of content and FSI French has 82 (without the Phonology course) 10000 minutes is a little more than 150 hours, so 10000 minutes is only about two repeats of the FSI courses.
The other numbers are based on the current Super Challenge.

I would guess that I might need twice this much practice and input at least to reach C1 in French unless this synergy thing is really powerful.
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荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

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Re: The outstanding tourist multi-tracks

Postby sfuqua » Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:49 am

Ok, we're off.
I tried DLI French basic for a 25 minutes. It was hard to match up the recording with the printed materials in a few places. I looked ahead and there were a few problems in the upcoming lessons too. I tried DLI modular Spanish also and there were similar problems.
This is great material and somebody with more patience than me should figure these out and and make a map for newbies.

And me. :D
I'll try DLI again over the weekend.

I then shifted back to my old pattern of working through French phonology and programmatic Spanish, going through each file two times... French and Spanish Basic are a couple of weeks away.

I spent so much time fooling with courses that I only had a half hour to listen and read. I watched Marseille on Netflix with the English subtitles. I'll finish it and try it with French subtitles next and finally without subtitles.
Last edited by sfuqua on Wed Feb 07, 2018 4:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...


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