FSI French - Has anyone actually completed the whole thing?

[crush]

Just wanted to add in that i finished the FSI French course several years back. I thought it was a good course, i like the format of FSI Spanish better and found that an overall better course, but FSI French was much more interesting and relevant than FSI German, at least. The updated FSI French course Speakeasy writes about sounds really great, the only thing is i liked the speed of the audio and the shorter pauses, that's how you know you're ready to move on to the next unit. I listened to the sample audio and it would take a lot of editing in Audacity to make it usable for me. I'd like to see re-recordings of the old FSI courses updated to more modern vocabulary and topics, but without dumbing them down.

[reineke]

Just wanted to add in that i finished the FSI French course several years back. I thought it was a good course, i like the format of FSI Spanish better and found that an overall better course, but FSI French was much more interesting and relevant than FSI German, at least. The updated FSI French course Speakeasy writes about sounds really great, the only thing is i liked the speed of the audio and the shorter pauses, that's how you know you're ready to move on to the next unit. I listened to the sample audio and it would take a lot of editing in Audacity to make it usable for me. I'd like to see re-recordings of the old FSI courses updated to more modern vocabulary and topics, but without dumbing them down.

Would this make a good LLORG project?

[Speakeasy]

... but FSI French was much more interesting and relevant than FSI German ...

Heresy!

[crush]

Would this make a good LLORG project?

Yes!

... but FSI French was much more interesting and relevant than FSI German ...

Heresy!

FSI German was the only FSI course I couldn't finish 100% I only read through the dialogues and grammar notes of the last 12 units.

[wwiding]

@wwidding: The FSI Basic and DLI Basic course materials that were produced in the 1960's and 1970's employed the "audio-lingual" method which had been developed during WWII for the use of the U.S. Armed Forces which were faced with the challenge of churning out a large number of military personnel capable of acting (hopefully) as interpreters. Although the method was based on the theories of behavioral science that were well-received at the time, for anyone who has served in the armed forces, it should come as no surprise that the technique was: drill-drill-drill.

The FSI and DLI course materials were designed to be delivered in a classroom setting by a competent instructor to a small number (eight at the maximum) of students who had been chosen for their perceived/tested aptitude for learning a second language. Materials other than those included in the courses were available to the students and, apparently, there was a fair amount of interaction between/amongst the students and the teacher. The students were required to memorize the initial dialogues in the manner that actors memorize scripts. The sentence-pattern exercises served to support and expand upon the points of grammar and vocabulary displayed in the dialogues. In theory, through the massive repetition of the sentence-pattern exercises (over-learning), the student would develop a natural appreciation for the structure of the language. Students were not meant to think about the materials; rather, they were meant to absorb and regurgitate them. The method was adopted for instruction in American High Schools (and perhaps colleges and universities) in the 1960's through the 1970's, but was later replaced.

So then, since none of us are constrained to learn in the above manner and as we do not have access to an instructor who will support us in our the use of these materials, we are free to use them as we please. The question of "how to use the FSI (audio-lingual) materials" has been discussed/debated in this forum a couple of times and, if I recall correctly, numerous times in the forum that preceded this one, the How-To-Learn-Any-Language (HTLAL) forum. Often, the discussion takes place within a discussion thread that began under a separate heading; so, they're not easy to find. Nevertheless, I did manage to locate the one below:

How to use FSI?
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2542

Although I support the comments in the above discussion thread, I would not take the low level of participation in the discussion as being indicative of the level of interest or knowledge of the subject. The question has been discussed so many times over the past decade or so that many of the very knowledgeable users/supporters of these courses simply no longer participate.

To a large extent, your question and your approach to studying could be applied to other course materials, such as Assimil and, in my view, you're on the right track.

EDITED:
Insertion of @wwidding so as to clarify to whom this post was directed.

I'll report my progress in my very neglected log in about two months so others can get an idea of how DLI benefits me and how it may benefit them. I'm doing two lessons per week so I don't overload myself but I'm hoping to bump it up to three if I progress the way I think I will.

[Speakeasy]

... FSI German was the only FSI course I couldn't finish 100% ... I only read through the dialogues and grammar notes of the last 12 units.

Now, this is fascinating! From my perspective, the second half of FSI German is particularly interesting for what-I-perceive-as the creativity shown by the authors in the composition of the sentence-pattern and vocabulary exercises. Why, they're little gems of prose! In contrast, and I am being altogether serious here, I found the exercise sets of FSI French to be uniformly uninteresting, unimaginative and just plain boring. Since this is a matter of taste, I fully recognize your right to express a preference for the latter and I withdraw my (comic) accusation of heresy.

[wwiding]

Just wanted to add in that i finished the FSI French course several years back. I thought it was a good course, i like the format of FSI Spanish better and found that an overall better course, but FSI French was much more interesting and relevant than FSI German, at least. The updated FSI French course Speakeasy writes about sounds really great, the only thing is i liked the speed of the audio and the shorter pauses, that's how you know you're ready to move on to the next unit. I listened to the sample audio and it would take a lot of editing in Audacity to make it usable for me. I'd like to see re-recordings of the old FSI courses updated to more modern vocabulary and topics, but without dumbing them down.

Would this make a good LLORG project?

Could something like www.fiverr.com be used to pay native French speakers to record the lines for us? I'm not sure how to go about working with native French speakers to update the vocabulary but getting natives to speak a few lines should be easy.

[reineke]

It's a good idea. It's more than a few lines though especially if we include the stuff that's only in the pdf.

German and Spanish are possibly worthier of being included in the first round. I would like to have LLORG people also involved but I don't want to volunteer anyone.

[wwiding]

It's a good idea. It's more than a few lines though especially if we include the stuff that's only in the pdf.

German and Spanish are possibly worthier of being included in the first round. I would like to have LLORG people also involved but I don't want to volunteer anyone.

It'd definitely be a good idea to get LLORG people involved first. Spanish and German would probably get more volunteers too.

[crush]

... FSI German was the only FSI course I couldn't finish 100% ... I only read through the dialogues and grammar notes of the last 12 units.

Now, this is fascinating! From my perspective, the second half of FSI German is particularly interesting for what-I-perceive-as the creativity shown by the authors in the composition of the sentence-pattern and vocabulary exercises. Why, they're little gems of prose! In contrast, and I am being altogether serious here, I found the exercise sets of FSI French to be uniformly uninteresting, unimaginative and just plain boring. Since this is a matter of taste, I fully recognize your right to express a preference for the latter and I withdraw my (comic) accusation of heresy.

That is interesting indeed! I agree that the French drills were blander and the course was less interesting overall than the Spanish course (i also feel like the Spanish course left me with a much better speaking ability), but it was interesting enough to keep me going. If i remember correctly, what really killed me about the German course were all the translation exercises. I found them dreadfully boring and had to also continually look at the PDF/print the book out to take with me. All other FSI courses i've done (Spanish, French, and Mandarin) i generally only need to view the book the first time i go through a unit and then it's mostly a 100% audio course for me, which i like as i do the courses while going for walks. With the second half of the German course i had to constantly look at the text, which made my walks difficult. I thought the grammar notes and the grammar discussed were great, and i was really bummed because i've been struggling to push my German to fluency for close to fifteen years now.

It's a good idea. It's more than a few lines though especially if we include the stuff that's only in the pdf.

German and Spanish are possibly worthier of being included in the first round. I would like to have LLORG people also involved but I don't want to volunteer anyone.

I'd be happy to work on a Spanish course, the main difficulty would be updating the text. It's a lot of recording but hiring a group of people to record them (to have different characters in the dialogs) would be quite an expense but doable. Alternatively, we could possibly find volunteers. But with Spanish, there's already Platiquemos. The audio quality isn't the best, but it has been updated. If i were to make an FSI-style course, that's the course i'd base it off of.