Super Challenge: questions and discussion

[Bex]

Ok I understand the 'why' of it all and thanks for the explanations but does it have to be like that?

Would it not be easier if it was just left to peoples discretion or are people really that competitive?

I would prefer a really simple rule such as: Any native content with a minimum duration of 10 minutes.

The reason I'm asking is I actually avoided listening to native audio, like the radio, during the last SC because it didn't count. And I think that is not in the spirit of the SC.

Surely it's spirit should be....listen & read to as much native content as possible? I would be pleased if the Super Challenge encouraged anyone (in anyway) to do more with the language that they are learning, I wouldn't care if it bent the rules.

Anyway... I've asked, I understand why and I've laid out my views on it. I'm sure it doesn't bother anyone else as much as it does me and I feel better for asking

[Serpent]

See that's why I was reluctant to start the new threads I might not personally like everything about the rules but they're what they are.

The problem with exceptions to the "Film" challenge is that it began to get broader and broader, e.g. "I was on a guided tour of a museum for 2 hours" (which some agreed with but Cristina said was a step too far) to what I think was ridiculous: "I was in Paris for 10 hours listening in on conversations around me" (I don't think anyone actually took that one seriously).

I don't think anyone seriously wanted to count listening to conversations. The guided tour was brought up when someone said they were doing immersion in Dutch and asked what kinds of activities count. I said that museum and travel bus audioguides should count because you can listen to the same content as an audiobook and it will count. I also said live lectures should count because you can watch a recording of the same lecture and it will count. You can look up on the old forum what followed

Honestly I think it could be a good idea to start a separate subchallenge only for languages with a limited amount of content, including Dutch, Catalan, Finnish, Belarusian, Latin etc (definitely not FIGS, Korean/Japanese/Mandarin, Russian, English). But I don't know how easy it would be to set up.

Also, I get that the bot is convenient. I'm fine with reporting things as 1 minute items for personal reference. (Previously some have used this to track what they do in L1)

[jeffers]

I believe that Cristina's reason to not allow radio is that radio has no beginning and end (no narrative): you turn on the radio for an indeterminate period and turn it off. If memory serves (and it was a while ago) she didn't like the idea that some people would be posting "listened to the radio for 6 hours". A lot of language learners believe it's worthwhile to have the radio on in the background (I'm not disagreeing), and it would be possible for someone to look at this, say, "Cool, a listening challenge" and then count all the time spent listening in the background. If there was one thing Cristina was clear about, it was that any listening must have your full attention. There was even some discussion about whether listening while driving/doing housework/taking walks, etc, should count, but I think eventually she said it is fine as long as the person themselves believes they were paying attention.

Rather than a "listening" challenge, think of this as a "narrative" challenge. I think another way of looking at the problem with radio is that it's a medium. Simply listening to the radio has no narrative, no beginning, middle, end. I personally would not be fussed if someone posted that they listened to a radio programme, e.g. "I listened to 2 hours of Dans les nuages". (I made that name up, by the way). The narrative concept probably also explains why she didn't allow shorter video clips.

I talk a lot, but I don't make the rules. My part was to argue cases (a lot) and to make the infographic to help clarify what Cristina's rulings were.

Now that I've written all that, I realize I'm not sure where Bex's question is coming from:

I don't understand how 'learner's audio' is allowed but not 'radio'. Surely radio is more in the spirit of the original SC than learners audio?

The infographic actually says nothing about radio. On the other hand, the infographic disallows "learner's audio", but not in that terminology, it says "instructional audio", meaning audio such as frenchpod101, or something like that. She was fine with pure native audio podcasts aimed at learners, such as L'avis de Marie. It didn't exist at the time, but I believe she would have been perfectly happy with Inner French.

[Bex]

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I talk a lot, but I don't make the rules. My part was to argue cases (a lot) and to make the infographic to help clarify what Cristina's rulings were.

Now that I've written all that, I realize I'm not sure where Bex's question is coming from:

I don't understand how 'learner's audio' is allowed but not 'radio'. Surely radio is more in the spirit of the original SC than learners audio?

The infographic actually says nothing about radio. On the other hand, the infographic disallows "learner's audio", but not in that terminology, it says "instructional audio", meaning audio such as frenchpod101, or something like that. She was fine with pure native audio podcasts aimed at learners, such as L'avis de Marie. It didn't exist at the time, but I believe she would have been perfectly happy with Inner French.

Sorry Jeffers, My bad

I meant TV news Vs Audio News...my brain just automatically turned Audio News into The radio!
And Video for Learners Vs Instructional audio/Video Shorts (YouTube).

Jeffers, I know you don't make the rules and I understand your frustration at having to argue cases a lot, so your clarification is really appreciated. I do understand the thinking behind the original challenge... How much better could I be if I read 100 books and watched 100 films?

But really my point was....why make the distinction now? It's not really Christina's challenge anymore... why not just encourage mass consumption of native material. If it's native, who cares where it comes from? If people cheat, that's their loss.

"Cheating" and counting background listening where you're not really listening can just as easily be done with an audiobook? It's easy to cheat at anything if you want to.

Still they are the current SC rules and I am happy to play by them. I just thought it might be worth discussing updating them to let the SC evolve into more of a learners super challenge rather than just staying as "Christina's Super challenge".

I was just sharing my thoughts, but either way I'm happy

[iguanamon]

A long time ago, on a forum that once was home for many of us, Cristina came up with the Super Challenge in order to spur self-learners into consuming native material and to stop over-reliance on learner-intended material. There was a perennial question at the time- "What do I do after Assimil?" "How do I learn with native materials?" The turth of learning a language to a high level is that structure can be a self-learner's best friend up to a point and then the law of diminishing returns kicks in when learner-intended material begins to have less impact.

The answers to those questions are usually short and curt- "Start reading, Start listening"... but to many people accustomed to having structured learning there was no guidance. Enter the super challenge "read X amount of books, listen to x amount of audio" and your language skills will improve. The devil is always in the details- "What's a book?"; "Does X count?"; "Does Y count?"; "I don't see why Z shouldn't count?". It's this kind of discussion that drives the people who come up with challenges batty. It's a never ending conundrum of not being able to satisfy all of the people all of the time.

I think this springs from the challenge aspect. It's been pretty much proven here over the years that reading and listening a lot in TL will do wonders for a self-learner's language skills... that's the point. The rules have been worked out over many discussions in the past. They have evolved to be flexible. If people want to count X, Y and Z and X, Y and Z fall outside the rules... they are only cheating themselves. If they have the radio on in the background every day and don't really pay attention to it, and let's say they want to count that towards the SC just to say they completed the challenge, they will end up looking ridiculous when their level isn't what it should be if they had followed the rules and did the work. So yeah, you can "complete" the challenge this way, but those who evade the spirit of the SC will only end up hurting themselves.

Sure, everybody wants to have fun when learning. Yet going from low intermediate to advanced can be very frustrating because training listening isn't easy. Having to stop and look up words is annoying. Understanding what is listened to in real time can be difficult when vocabulary is limited and exposure to the language in the real world outside of a learner-intended context is new. Vocabulary can be built. Reading and listening, figuring out words from context and looking up words to get meaning or confirm guesses is how we do this. It's not easy. That's why not everyone who expresses a desire to learn a language gets to advanced levels and why used language courses are so plentiful, cheap and in such great shape. A learner challenges themselves with material that is above their level. They reach that level by struggling and continuing to listen and read even when it isn't smooth flowing. It takes time, practice and experience to get good at any skill.

So read the books. Listen to the hours. It will help those who accept the challenge to get better. "Does this count?" only enables the resistance we all have in our minds towards accepting a new way of thinking and expressing thoughts in a new way which is the fundamental basis of learning another language. It is always easier to take the path of least resistance. A language is not a cipher code where we plug and chug. A second language is accustoming a learner to something new and different. To really learn a language we must accept this. When we do, we can make it ours- not perfectly, not indistinguishable from a native-speaker but we can begin to make it our own by understanding it in its written and spoken form. Producing it means doing some different work... but having understanding under one's belt can sure make production easier.

Myself, I don't need the SC to force me to get into native materials. It's an integral part of how I learn. That being said, I can't fault anyone who does need the challenge aspect to provide that spur. Some people just seem to need the motivation the SC brings in order to delve deeply into the real thing. If that's the case, I'm all for it. I can see where the company of others here on the forum pursuing the same challenge means they are not alone and can commiserate with, support, and inspire each other along the way.

Doing an SC won't be easy, especially if a learner feels they need structure and guidance. As self-learners we must provide or search for our own structure and our own guidance. The SC has a bare minimum of guidance. It does have some rudimentary structure- "this is how a book is defined"; "read the books"; "this is how listening is defined"; "listen"; "do this a lot... until you reach the end". The SC embodies the concepts of persistance and consistency- which always lead to success in self-learning a language. Whether or not the learner goes all the way to the arbitrary end is almost irrelevant. As long as they get pretty far along with reading and listening, they will improve their command of the language and this is more than what they will learn from courses alone. So, if a learner takes the plunge, if they accept the rules and the spirit of the challenge... this can only help them to become better with the language, provided that they are ready and prepared. If anybody needs advice on content for languages with which I am qualified to give advice, please let me know. Good luck to all who take part and enjoy the journey!

[IronMike]

Will the bot start soon?

[Bex]

The SC embodies the concepts of persistance and consistency- which always lead to success in self-learning a language. Whether or not the learner goes all the way to the arbitrary end is almost irrelevant. As long as they get pretty far along with reading and listening, they will improve their command of the language and this is more than what they will learn from courses alone.

This was really my point, and not why is x allowed and not y.

I believe the Super Challenge should be exactly as iguanamon has described it but it isn't and I think that is what has caused my frustration.

The reading rules are excellent....read whatever you like. X number of words = a page.

But the listening rules have evolved into what I would describe as a mess. They should, in my humble opinion, be...listen to whatever you like in your target language and do it a lot. 90 minutes = 1 film. Excluding anything just seems odd to me.

Then you would have a Super Challenge that is exactly as iguanamon describes...

Enter the super challenge "read X amount of books, listen to x amount of audio" and your language skills will improve.

Anyway I'm going to stop now because it's not my SC... I'm obviously annoying people and that was not my intention. So rant over and sorry.

[Mista]

I have to agree with Bex, and the most annoying thing for me is that it's acually quite difficult to keep track of what's allowed and what's not. I thought for a long time that I had a good understanding of the general principle, and that caused me to log audio news, which turned out not to be allowed, and on the other hand I did not log theatre, which turned out to be allowed. I'd be a lot happier with the rules if they were possible to formulate in one simple principle, so that people didn't have to waste time trying to keep track of whether their resources are allowed or not.

[themethod]

I have two questions:

1. I know it doesn't count twice if you listen/watch something and read the transcript at the same time, but what if I do it separately? Ex. Watch a show with/without subtitles, then read the transcript.

2. How do I get that cool progress bar thing in my signature?

[rdearman]

I have two questions:

1. I know it doesn't count twice if you listen/watch something and read the transcript at the same time, but what if I do it separately? Ex. Watch a show with/without subtitles, then read the transcript.

2. How do I get that cool progress bar thing in my signature?

1. Yes it would count if you did it at different times. Same as you can re-read the same book.
2. It is #5 in the FAQ. https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =25&t=1792