Cavesa wrote:PeterMollenburg wrote:Okay, Cavesa, I'm going to mention something that I wasn't going to. I had run this idea past another very trusted wise person on this forum and the conclusion was you'd probably tell me to do the Grammaire Progressive series, exam focus study and loads of extensive activities. My idea was to give you the opportunity to plan 90 minutes of my daily study out of my 120 minutes. I would reserve the right to use the 30 minutes how I please (Bien-dire was my choice), while you would tell me/design the rest of the study plan. Are you open to this? There would be certain limitations, such as taking my learning style into consideration, drawing on resources I already own, keeping away from SRS and kwizqit or whatever it's called, since I have ample resources as already mentioned. I then decided instead to show you my list of advanced courses and let you choose. But here we are now....
The exam directly or indirectly points to a need for work in these areas: Vocab/idioms, (Dalf) writing techniques/flow/structure, extensive materials and looking back on my past language course use I've barely touched any advanced courses in my time. I completed Assimil Using French, have used a bit of Hugo French Advanced and completed perhaps half of Practise Makes Perfect - The French Subjunctive.
Thus, if I take my learning styles on board, with some of your advice sprinkled it, my 30 minute rotating study sessions (of which there are 5, but I only do four on any given day), currently look like this:
1 Bien-dire (vocab/idioms)
2 Extensive reading
3 Advanced course: Grammaire Progressive (I changed this on your recommendation from Hugo French Advanced)
4 Extensive watching (I changed this from intensive with 'Buffy' on your recommendation)
5 DALF preparation books focusing on writing with tutor with DALF experience input semi-regularly (this I also tweaked based on your recommendations).
Given, these are all areas of need, and I have 2 hours of study time each morning, I think I've designed a pretty decent study routine. If you feel I desperately need more extensive reading and watching, then other activities begin to suffer, but they are all important. Note that I do read quite a bit to my children (yes it's children's reading, but I'm just mentioning it as another activity), I watch TV at times outside of my study time when there's spare time some evenings (I binge-watched 4 hours of a French series last night for example), I listen to podcasts outside of my study time on commutes (today I listened to 45 minutes of podcasts as I had a long drive).
They are extra activities. My 2 hours each morning is where i am designing focused study. I would appreciate your feedback now that I have tweaked it. What would you do differently if anything (considering I've already altered it as you suggested)?
Oh, and no probs with the jokes, I am known to have my own little (MASSIVE) study habits that warrant my reputation for using easier materials.
Yes, I am extremely predictable
And a bit flattered you discussed with someone else what I might tell you
I'll be happy to give any advice I can, thank you for your trust. I just won't have much time till 09/07/2020. After that, I'll actually need some ego boost, so giving advice should work.
However, you should know that despite all my jokes, I admire your learning style and see lots of value in it! You are doing really well. There is one limitation of mine: I suck at planning, especially planning within set amounts of time. You know, the words like "minute", "hour", "month", are very hard to grasp for me in general. So, I find it easier to focus on tasks and stuff to be achieved.
The first phase focused on intensive activities, as you've decided, is a good idea. The Progressives are awesome and you are very burn out resistant, that's one of your greatest strengths. Extensive activities are a long term investment by definition. Starting now and not worrying too much about them is good.
One question: Do you plan to stick to the humanities option or switch to the science one? With your general knowledge level, you can choose freely, no problem. You'll need to do dalf mock assignments for both too, just to get enough material anyways. But a part of your input could be more oriented on your target already.
Cavesa wrote:If you're still interested in my subjective opinion on your huge quoted list:
1. CLE : Voc Prog du FR (avancé)
3. CLE : Gram Prog du FR (avancé)
13. CLE : Gram. en dialogues (avancé)
14. CLE : Vocab Prog du FR (perfect.)
17. CLE : Gram Prog du FR (perfect.)
Yes, yes, yes, great things. Perhaps also Communication Prog might be worth your attention, but I haven't tried it personally, just noticed there is even a brand new Perf. level
2. Prac. Makes Perf. : Subjunctive
7. Pract. makes Per. Adv French Gram.
16. Mot à Mot New Advanced FR Vocab
These are things I haven't worked with personally, but know about and have leafed through. I think they could be good, but not as much as the previous group.
20. Production écrite : niv. C1 / C2
21. abc Dalf C1/C2
22. Réussir le Dalf : niveaux C1 et C2
23. Dalf C1 : Tests complets corrigés
24. Dalf C2 : Tests complets corrigés
All good choices. For writing, there is also Rédiger un résumé, un compte rendu, une synthèse by Hachette (for learners) and similar titles for natives. And preparatory books are great.
4. Tell Me More (Business/advanced)
6. Ultimate FR Rev. & Practise
5. Assimil Business French
8. FSI French Basic (Vol 2 only)
9. Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises 3 (Mauger)
10. Ultimate FR Verb Rev. & Pract.
11. Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises 4 (Mauger)
12. DLI French Basic Course
15. Linguaphone Français Deuxième étape
18. Peace Corps - Le français basé sur la compétence : Avancé
19. Peace Corps - Le français basé sur la compétence : Supérieure
These are things I either don't know but could be good (Peace Corps? Ultimate review?), or stuff that might fall into the "too easy" category (FSI,Assimil Business), or might not be good (I have looked at Tell Me More in past and wasn't convinced enough to buy it). Not saying there are not useful bits in these, but I suspect they might a less efficient time use than the above stuff.
On a related note: I wonder whether textbooks for lycéens wouldn't be a great resource. Unfortunately, they are often rather expensive and hard to find and explore (because it is a part of the market, where you're supposed to just be told what to buy, not to take your pick). But not now. Due to Covid, tons of textbooks are online for free till the end of August. As DALF is in some ways similar to Bac, perhaps those might be nice vocab sources and also guidance on what you should know to talk about. It's just an idea I've always wanted to explore further.
I believe, btw, that I'll continue down the humanity path....
The courses... Well, I don't mind purchasing the CLE Communication Progressive Avancé and Perfectionnment books, but I won't bother with textbooks for lycéens at this stage. I have enough content here with the advanced course books I have and the DALF books, and I'm just not sure where to look and start with such materials. Even if I did, I don't think it would be a great use of my time nor money to go scouring the internet for such things (not that you were suggesting that I do, I think I agree with your thoughts in fact, that they would be useful) at this point in time.
You'll be proud to hear that I just purchased
Norsk, nordmenn og Norge levels 1 and 2. "What!?" I hear you say? Yes, I have a short list of decent Norwegian resources to add to my collection gradually for when i'm planning a full scale assault on the language, all the more reason to push my French harder, since my shortlist remains of languages I'm going to go on such 'full scale assult missions' (Norwegian, Dutch, Spanish, German). I have had a sense lately, that returing to other languages after pushing French in recent years substantially further has helped me progress more effectively. I can certainly get a sense of how beneficial it is to push to an advanced level in one language - the experience of the path well trodden is invaluable. Thus, the more I can advance my French further still, the more it'll pay off later for other languages when I finally have the trusty C2 in hand.
These are my latest French course lists, tweaked after you provided your input and opinion (thank you kindly, Cavesa) on my resources, which I quoted above. The advanced course list just below (not the DALF one further down) goes in order of priority so that, were I to not make it to the courses in the latter stages of the list due to perhaps sitting an exam before making it through them all, then the essential courses, in theory should've been knocked out of the way first. It's highly unlikely, in fact, as we well know that I'm going to make it through the entire list, especially with the other learning activities that require my focus as well, thus all the more reason to have it in order of priority.
You'll be very relieved, and perhaps disappointed for a moment too (Cavesa and others), or maybe you won't give a flying turd (i'm not that important), that I couldn't resist adding in Voc Prog du Fr (débutant and intermédiaire) as well as Gram Prog du FR (intermédiaire) just because my course completion OCD couldn't deal with the fact that i'd be skipping a book or two coming in at the advanced level. I manage to get over it when I considered how I'd be slowing my progress and time to return to other languages if I kept up such OCD activities. No beginners, no intermediate content allowed!
ADVANCED COURSE LIST1. CLE : Gram Prog du Français (avancé)
2. CLE : Voc Prog du Français (avancé)
3. CLE : Gram. en dialogues (avancé)
4. CLE : Comm. Prog du FR (avancé)
5. CLE : Gram Prog du FR (perfect.)
6. CLE : Comm. Prog du FR (perf.)
7. CLE : Vocab Prog du FR (perfect.)
8. Ultimate FR Verb Rev. & Pract.
9. Prac. Makes Perf. : Subjunctive
10. Assimil Business French
11. Ultimate FR Rev. & Practise
12. Linguaphone Français Deuxième étape
13. Pract. makes Per. Adv French Gram.
14. Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises 3 (Mauger)
15. Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises 4 (Mauger)
16. FSI French Basic (Vol 2 only)
17. Mot à Mot New Advanced FR Vocab
18. DLI French Basic Course
19. Peace Corps - Le français basé sur la compétence : Avancé
20. Peace Corps - Le français basé sur la compétence : Supérieure
DALF PREPARATION (WRITING FOCUS) LIST1. Production écrite : niv. B1 / B2
2. Production écrite : niv. C1 / C2
3. Réussir le Dalf : niveaux C1 et C2
4. abc Dalf C1/C2
5. Dalf C1 : Tests complets corrigés
6. Le Dalf 100% réussite
7. Dalf C2 : Tests complets corrigés
Yes, you read correctly, there's a B1/B2 course listed above for the DALF content. The reason is simply that there is content relevant for the C1 and C2 level referred to in the
Production écrite : niveaux C1 / C2 book that is absent from that book but it directs you back to the B1/B2 book to find the content (not the whole book). Thus I'll be using that book just for that purpose - it was regarding the layout and structure of a certain essay/writing style, but I can't remember which one. Basically I think it's a way to sell another book but not including it again in the C1/C2 book when it's still relevant.
Thanks, Cavesa, for pointing out your admiration and respect for my diligent hard work and plans. At times I don't stick to my plans so well, but there are certainly times that I do, when i go on semi-focused missions and I get pretty pleased with my progres and own work ethic. However, as we know, I have my flaws, and it's time I ironed them out, by drawing on the experience and wisdom of other language learners such as yourself and iguanamon. There are many others around these parts who have tried to show me the way over the years and I've been reluctant to listen. I had to do it my way. Now it's time for change, within reason, that sees me employ my habits and some of my methods coupled with the wisdom and insights of others.
Peace out.
Jerry McFrerry
Written in the Fall of 1897, three nights shy of the appearance of the 'Great Bat', now known as McBat-Face-Fish or 'McEff (colloquially pronounced 'M-keff').
