FSI Basic German - Response, Conversation, Situation drills

[warumnicht]

Hi,

I've recently completed the full FSI German Programmed Introduction and moved onto FSI Basic German. However, I'm a bit dysphoric. FSI PI was clearly designed for self-study, to great effect. Not so much the Basic. I'm trying to work out a way to use the course as closely as possible to the intended way.

I suppose for the Response drill I can compromise and read the question, then answer it out loud. For the Conversation drill I can memorise the conversation and say it out loud in its entirety. As for the Situation drill, I could also use the script to enact an entire dialogue, on my own.

None of these are ideal, due to lack of oral interactivity. The PI course had the Participation drills on the tapes, and they were very effective. However, nothing similar is included in Basic. Any suggestions/advice?

Edit: I've decided to pay a native German speaker to record the Conversation Drills of each unit, using the same format as in PI's Participation sections (where each dialogue was recorded twice, taking turns and pausing for the response). This already seems to me like a great addition to the available tapes, but any further suggestions are still welcome!

[Jaleel10]

If you find out let me know xD There are plenty of threads on the topic in this forum but none of them are really helpful if you are a beginner. I'm the type of person who needs to be spoon-fed on what I have to do xD

I did however enjoy this thread on the topic because I'll probably be using it mainly as an audio-course : Hard Core FSI

[Lysander]

Depending on how much you are willing to pay someone to record these, you may wish to instead use audible and get an "updated" FSI Basic Course instead from Dr. Brians:

A discussion here:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=6400

Link on audible to the first audiobook:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Mastering-Ge ... 048332&sr=

Link to the page with transcripts:
http://drbrianslanguages.com/german-transcripts.html

[Speakeasy]

Welcome!
Warumnicht, congratulations on having completed the FSI German Programmatic course and welcome to the forum! With respect to your questions (drafted off-line and posted without reading the previous posts, above, beforehand) …

FSI German Programmatic Course
So that you might better appreciate the materials that you have just completed, you might wish to know that the FSI German Programmatic self-instruction course was designed specifically as a preparatory step for U.S. State Department employees who had been selected to attend the very rigorous FSI German Basic course. As you progress through the first six units of latter, you will recognize some of the vocabulary and grammatical features that were introduced in the former.

FSI German Basic Course
The FSI German Basic course was developed for presentation in a classroom setting to a small group of U.S. State Department employees who had been tested and selected for their aptitude at learning a foreign language. Class participants had access to materials beyond those of the basic course manuals and recordings. Students were exposed to six hours per day of classroom instruction and they were expected to study the basic dialogues and sentence-pattern drills an additional three hours per day in their free time. The approach to teaching employed in this course was the “audio-lingual” method which, at the time, enjoyed broad support amongst American academia. Essentially, the method involved the memorisation (over-learning) of a series of situational dialogues and the massive practising of a seemingly-endless series of sentence-pattern drills which would, in theory, provide the participant with an ingrained ability to use the target language’s structure correctly.

FSI German Basic Course – First Few Units
The first two units of the FSI German Basic Course are enough to cause any reasonable, sensitive person to abandon these materials in a self-instruction situation. Keep the faith! As of Unit 3, you will have become inured to the pain and, surprisingly enough, the lessons – and more particularly the sentence-pattern drills – become progressively more engaging. Unit 4 seems as though it will never end, but it does.

FSI German Basic Course – Notes on Grammar
The FSI German Basic course, like many other audio-lingual courses for the period, contains only scanty notes on grammar. In addition, instructors were specifically directed to not provide detailed answers to students’ questions on matters of grammar; rather, they were to reinforce the basic concepts through repeated examples as provided in the sentence-pattern drills. Thus, anyone wishing to use the FSI German Basic course in a self-instruction situation may find that the notes on grammar are incomplete and opaque. For this reason, I always recommend that users keep a “simple” grammar on hand for consultation as required. My personal favourite is “German Verbs & Essentials of Grammar” by Charles J. James, published by McGraw-Hill. I suggest that you “familiarize” yourself with how the information is arranged in this book. Do not try to memorize it, simply skim over it quickly and consult it as you progress through the FSI German Basic course.

FSI German Basic Course – Dialogues
Apparently, participants to the FSI German Basic course were required to memorize the dialogues. I tried this for about the first half of the course and abandoned this type of practice because I felt that, in a self-instruction situation, doing so was an inefficient allocation of my greatest resource; that is, my time. Afterwards, I simply repeated (shadowed) the dialogues about eight times and returned to them occasionally as listening comprehension files. You are free to do whatever you please.

FSI German Basic Course – Sentence-Pattern Drills
To a large extent, the sentence-pattern drills are the “heart” of the audio-lingual method. Their presence is also probably the main reason why many people dislike the method (putting aside the theoretical arguments against it). I have a large collection of audio-lingual courses from period and, in my opinion, the sentence-pattern drills in them are unrelievedly boring and demotivating. By way of comparison, I found the FSI German Basic Course drills well-crafted and stimulating. But how to work with them? Well, the FSI manual suggests that, in place of memorizing these exercises, the student should work with them to the point of being able to respond to questions or prompts based on structure and vocabulary. But what does this mean for the student in an independent learning situation? There are probably a thousand different answers to this question. My approach was to perform the substitution drills a couple of times and then devote decidedly more time to the variation/translation/vocabulary drills. While some users complain that the pauses in which the student is meant to insert his response are too short, overtime, I performed these drills to the point where I could repeat both the prompt, if there was one, and my response within the same pause. Perhaps that was a tad excessive! Ultimately, the goal is not to be able to repeat these drills by heart. Rather, in my view, the goal is to internalize the basic grammatical structure that they represent, along with at least a portion of the vocabulary, so that these will become “more-or-less” automatic.

FSI German Basic Course – Response Drills / Conversation Practice / Situations
Both here on this forum, and on its predecessor, many would be learners of German have questioned whether or not audio recordings were ever prepared to accompany the above exercise sets. Despite the financial potential of selling copies of such recordings, particularly during the period before the vintage FSI courses became freely available on the Internet, there is no evidence that anyone has ever offered them for sale to the public or posted them on the Internet.

Initially, given that there are simply “too many” excellent resources for studying German, many of which contain audio recordings and transcripts, my approach to the above exercise sets was to simply ignore them. A few years after having completed the FSI German Basic Course, I returned to these exercise sets (in a self-instruction mode) and developed a greater appreciation for the potential usefulness. Nevertheless, in the absence of audio recordings -- a matter which you seem to be on the way to resolving, lucky you! – I would continue to ignore them.

FSI German Basic Course – Vocabulary and Register
This course was developed in the 1960’s for use by U.S. Government employees in their official and ancillary communications, and for this reason, a more formal register was presented in the dialogues and sentence-pattern drills. While the speech register has become less formal throughout Western society, in my opinion, anyone using these materials is not as disadvantaged as some others would say; really, there is nothing wrong with learning how to make a polite request! You can adapt to “street level” German via YouTube, television, film, et cetera. Some of the vocabulary no longer has the purchase that it once did; so what, neither does 19th century classic literature. Should we all cease reading it? Finally, yes, this course does, on occasion, employ the now-forbidden “Fraülein” which some members of a subsequent generation might find offensive. This is hardly a reason to “condemn an entire programme” (willful allusion to Dr. Strangelove).

FSI German Basic Course – “Updated”
I suggest that you read through the following discussion thread. The links to an “updated” version of the FSI German Basic Course (a work in progress) can be found within the thread. You might wish to start with this version of the course and return to the original upon completion.

FSI Basic Courses “Updated” Dr. Brians Languages
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6400

Ciao, for now!

EDITED:
Insertion of a comment on the “Response/Conversation/Situation” exercises

[Speakeasy]

Response/Conversation/Situation exercises – Uploading to Yojik website?

… I've decided to pay a native German speaker to record the Conversation Drills of each unit, using the same format as in PI's Participation sections (where each dialogue was recorded twice, taking turns and pausing for the response). This already seems to me like a great addition to the available tapes, but any further suggestions are still welcome!

In a fine example of “l’esprit de l’escalier” the thought just occurred to me that there is an opportunity, here, to expand the current audio recordings available for the FSI German Basic course. Warumnicht, once you have completed the recording of the Response/Conversation/Situation exercises, would you be interested in sharing them with the greater community of language-learners by offering them to Ericounet (the owner/administer of the Yojik website) for inclusion in those already available for this course?

Yojik Website
https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/

[warumnicht]

Hi speakeasy,

Many thanks for your excellent reply! I was actually hoping you'd notice this thread and respond. I'm familiar with much of your post history, and it proved very valuable on the solitary journey of foreign language self-instruction.

I'm not actually in any danger of abandoning the program. And although I considered supplementing it with other programs and assessed all the available options, I decided instead to try to make the absolute best of FSI, on its own. Mainly because I find it exceedingly elegant, and variety is unpleasant and distracting to me. The only exceptions are using native materials and supplementing the study of grammar with none other than Hammer's book.

For Basic Dialogues, I write them down in a notebook, adding notes, and I review them many times as I progress through the unit and repeat them in the back of my mind throughout the day too.

I have no issue with Sentence-pattern drills. I respond very well to high-intensity training with minimal embellishments. The issue of internalising the language so that the drills become automatic is clearly stated in the instructions, but I'm glad you elaborated on this very important point.

Hence I'm very decided not to ignore any parts of the course. At this point it seems clear to me that the best way forward is to find a native speaker willing to record the Response and Conversation practice drills. Provided I avoid professional voice actors (which are undesirable anyway, because the recordings should be as authentic and natural as possible), I guess the financial aspects would be manageable? But how does one go about finding a German native willing to record all 24 units? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Needless to say, these recordings would certainly be uploaded online for the benefit of those who may come after us!

Finally, it seems the only way to make use of the Situation exercises, apart from finding a study buddy, is to perform them on my own.

Thanks again for your support

[warumnicht]

I've checked every German voice-over ad on Fiverr.com and I shortlisted this one:

https://www.fiverr.com/raphman/record-a-native-male-german-voiceover-for-you

Before placing the order, I'm trying to figure out if his voice is suitable for our purpose. I will also provide him with additional instructions: speak naturally, at a fast speed, as if the dialogue was taking place between two natives. But a second opinion regarding his accent (or lack thereof – ideally!) would be helpful.

[Speakeasy]

Warumnicht, bravo, excellent initiative! While it might seem, initially at least, appropriate to get a native speaker’s opinion of Raphman’s diction, I would surmise that most native speakers would find him perfectly understandable, as they would any number of their compatriots, but that they would not be attuned to the needs of a student who is just beginning to learn their language and for whom professionally-trained speakers and readers make concentrated efforts to adjust both the clarity and the cadence of their speech. Compare Raphman’s diction to that of any sound file from a graded audio book and you’ll see what I mean. Yes, I can understand him but I suspect that many beginners would find him as difficult to understand as some of the clearly untrained speakers who lent their talents to the FSI German Basic Course … Raphman, sprechen Sie bitte klarer/deutlicher!

As you are going to be financing this project -- and I offer to share the costs -- I would suggest that you continue your search for a more suitable reader. Librivox has numerous volunteer readers whose speech, in my opinion, is more appropriate for an audience of students. You might try listening to some of the files (the texts are virtually all advanced) and, should you find someone more to your liking, you could try to enlist their services for a fee.

LIBRIVOX
https://librivox.org/search?primary_key=3&search_category=language&search_page=1&search_form=get_results


EDITED:
Attached link to Librivox

[warumnicht]

Yes, I can understand him but I suspect that many beginners would find him as difficult to understand as some of the clearly untrained speakers who lent their talents to the FSI German Basic Course

I know very well what you mean, indeed the FSI recordings are infamous for their speed and un-trained speakers. However, my intention was to stay as loyal as possible to the original character of the course. The course works well for me, and I'd rather assume there is a pedagogical reason behind every aspect, even in those cases which may feel like an oversight. I don't think FSI Basic is aimed at beginners anyway (I can't imagine starting it without first completing Programmed Introduction), let alone at people interested in studying the language comfortably.

However, I'm still concerned about finding a speaker comparably natural to those used by FSI. A strong Bavarian accent, for example, would not be suitable.

I'm not sure how to resolve this. I appreciate your offer and your interest in supporting this project to expand the FSI audio tapes. But I think my blind faith in how the FSI course was designed, compels me to avoid trained actors. I've listened to some samples from Librivox, and they sound very clear, granted, but is that really something desirable?

Edit: clarity

[Speakeasy]

The chief argument in favour of using untrained native speakers to record the dialogues and exercises of language courses is that they represent a subset of what the student will actually hear in real life. So then, the question becomes, should the course materials bring the student slowly and progressively from the wading pool through the shallow end of the swimming pool and thence to the deep end and, ultimately, into no-holds-bar water polo or should the course adopt a sink-or-swim approach? We know which approach the majority of the publishers of language courses adopt. Nevertheless, there is considerable merit in your argument, particularly as the materials that you wish recorded are supplemental to the existing recordings. Make it so!

Make It So.JPG