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Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:26 am
by Ani
After recent discussion of completing courses on PeterMollenburg's log, and a few people expressing interest in the same sort of goals (if not the same languages), it seemed sensible to start a challenge thread to support and encourage each other.

This thread is a place to connect people who have decided to complete a course or several courses and want to develop consistency. Lets all post our progress and encourage each other here. We won't be keeping a registered list of participants so that some people can join us for a short burst of course work, and others for the long haul.

Hopefully we will inspire each other by our work which will lead to more complete mastery of certain elements of the languages we are studying.

To join in, please post in roughly this format:

Language:

Course Material:

Comments: Any comments on why you have selected the given course material and or what you hope to improve by its completion.

Please post link to your log if you have one.

Come back periodically and post an update on progress and your thoughts on the course so far. Let us know if you feel you are improving in the areas you had hoped to improve. If you haven't posted in a while, please add the link to your log again so that anyone who hasn't found you log yet may do so. Lets use this thread to share our progress and encourage each other, but keep longer discussion of the merits of various courses either in the logs or relevant threads on the board.

Happy Studying!

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:41 am
by Ani
Ahh. I already forgot the format I suggested.. oh right:

Language: French

Courses: Assimil NFWE, Assimil Using French, French In Action (complete with audio and drills), FSI Basic, CLE series Grammaire Progressive and Vocabulaire Progressif du Français and some of the other books in the Progressif/ive series. Oh and Mauger's course Cours de Langue et de Civilisation Françaises because.. Just because

Comments: It has been about 2 weeks since the decision to complete all these courses. Over that time I have gone back and forth wondering what my true motivation actually is. Learning French isn't just a hobby for me but it is the language I want to speak for the rest of my life. I want to know it well, inside and out. I will be swishing through the early material in FIA and potentially Mauger's course, although I hear it gets harder rather quickly so that shouldn't be too much trouble. In the other courses, I am quickly approaching the right level for myself currently, and I hope the multi-directional approach helps me learn each point well enough to teach it to my children as we move through our homeschool program. This is an awful lot of material but I am hoping to finish it by the end of next year. Whether that is realistic remains to be seen but at least I have a target in mind.

Log: http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2622

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:37 am
by PeterMollenburg
I'm in!

To be edited...

Edit:
Language: ummm French (if anyone that knows me couldn't guess that one coming)

Course Material:
Assimil
New French with Ease (completed, possible review{s} in future)
French Without Toil (not commenced)
Using French (on lesson 52, first wave)
Business French (not commenced)

French in Action
Currenntly on lesson 16. This is a course I have longed to complete for over a decade! When I complete this I will feel quite content indeed.

CLE (not commenced any yet, soon, likely starting later this month)
Grammaire progressive du francais - all 4 levels (edit: apparently there are 5 levels, the easiest isn't worth me doing)
Vocabulaire progressif du francais - all 4 levels (edit: apparently there are 5 levels, the easiest isn't worth me doing)
Grammaire en dialogues - likely the two latter (more advanced) levels, but maybe even all 4 levels, yet to decide

Mauger's Cours de langue et de civilisation francaises
All four levels. Not yet started any of this, looks awesome!!

Comments:
This is my FINAL big course mission for French. Ater "The Big 5", I will strongly diminish my heavy trend towards using predominantly courses and move as much as possible to native content, but I know courses will still exist as a part of my French routine more than likely.

My log:
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=784&start=370

Edit:
Rough deadline:
December 31st 2017 (like the Super Challenge)

Additionally, I'm aiming for 3hrs a day of dedicated course study. It's an aim and won't always be reached, but I will certainly push to achieve it.

Edit (14.07.16):
Apparently there are 5 levels of Grammaire progressive du français and Vocabulaire progressif du français I will still do 4 levels, not 5. The seemingly even easier level than débutant is called débutant complet. I think it's safe to say this level would be very very unnecessary and very much a waste of time for me to bother with.

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:40 am
by aokoye
I'm totally in (and I might actually be able to complete at least part of this challenge!)

Language: German

Course Material: Studio C1 (text and workbook), Grund und Aufbauwortschatz Übungsbuchern (workbooks - there are two - one for the first half of the analogous vocabulary book and one for the second half).

Comments: I've already started on the Grundwortschatz workbook and the Studio C1 book. In the C1 book if there's anything I won't do it's all of the writing exercises. Everything else is fine, but am ok with not completing every writing prompt that is given. If anything I'll likely do a good chunk of them after I'm done with the book or perhaps in late August when my Summer classes are finished.
The Grund und Aufbauwortschatz workbooks are part of a three book set of vocab books. I'm already learning the vocab from the main vocabulary book (with sentences for context). I had started the exercises but stopped doing them for whatever reason. A few days ago I realized that I need to start doing them and thus, I'm back to going back to going doing the exercises in the book.

My log is linked on my profile but you can find it here.

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 6:46 am
by rlnv
Ani, this is a really good idea for a personal challenge.

Language: French

Course Material: I have a list of course work books that I want to complete. I'm committing to the following.

CLE Vocabulaire progressif du Francais - débutant, intermédiaire, avancé
CLE Grammaire progressive du Français - débutant, intermédiaire, avancé
CLE Compréhension orale - levels 2 and 3
CLE Les expressions idiomatiques
McGraw Hill Practice Makes Perfect - French Pronouns and Prepositions
McGraw Hill Practice Makes Perfect - Sentence Builder
Barron's Mastering French Vocabulary - A Thematic Approach

Comments: I'm going to do the above workbooks along with my Double Super Challenge in French that is underway. I believe these activites as well as a good amount of writing improvement/practive, along with a good number of tutor hours should get me ready for a B level DELF exam.

Personal Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3083

edit: July 12 - I did not realize that there are 5 levels to the CLE Vocabulaire and Grammaire workbooks. I'm only going to do débutant, intermédiaire, avancé of each series for this challenge.

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:41 am
by PeterMollenburg
...and thanks Ani for actually starting this thread and challenge btw which stemmed from conversations in my log with Elenia (ultimately this challenge was Elenia's suggestion), yourself, me and some other people and my dog (aka Tobero the King of Spain) too... sorry belated thank you Ani :) As much as I illustrated I wasn't keen on starting the thread/challenge myself and didn't really care, part of me was hoping you would start it, as it is suited to me perfectly. Here's to a ridiculous shared mission, may you and I succeed in this insane course mission and if not may we succeed in reaching a the level of French we are aiming for, and may everyone else get through their chosen courses and improve their respective languages they are aiming for as well! Good luck everyone! :D

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:48 pm
by Serpent
Believe it or not, I'm in too :shock: :D
There isn't any deadline, right?

Language: Swedish
Course material:
Pekka och Liisa på resa i Svenskfinland (Pekka and Liisa travelling in the Swedish-speaking regions of Finland - basically just texts with word lists)
Senja opettaa sinulle ruotsia (based on this fb page)
Comments: the first book has about 30 pages and 15 stories. I've read two.
the second book has about 200 pages based on the FB entries and a 30-page crashcourse. I'm going to complete the latter for sure but I might not finish the first part or eventually start treating it more as reference.

Language: Spanish
Course material: Spanish vocabulary - an etymological approach
Learn Spanish vocabulary through etymology and mnemonics
Comments: In the first book I've read most of it up to section 4.4 Time. I'm going to work through the remaining sections, though I might skip some (especially the list of 4500 relatively easy words). Which means the current plan is to go through 10 sections.
Spanish vocabulary: 0 / 10
I got the second one for free to review, so I'm not actually aiming to study it. I'll read some parts but not necessarily the whole thing.

Log: http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1596&start=40 but I don't think I'll post about the courses there.

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:50 pm
by Soffía
A question about the challenge... would it make sense to ask people to choose a goal date for completion? Otherwise it seems like it will be really easy (for me at least) to think "I'll finish these... someday." I was thinking about choosing an achievable end-of-year goal, for example.

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:28 pm
by lingua
Language: Italian

Course Material:
Italian Language and Culture: Beginner
Italian Language and Culture: Intermediate
Italian Language and Culture: Advanced

Comments: These three free classes are on edX from WellesleyX. I have one unit left in the Beginner course (which was too easy and I skipped a lot of the instructional material) but would like to complete all three courses so I can see where my weaknesses are and then work on them. Goal is to complete all three classes by the end of this year.

Language: Thai

Course Material:
ThaiPod101 Lessons
LearnThaiPodcast Lessons

Comments: I found free podcast lessons from both of these sources and was sufficiently impressed with the quality to pay for their online sites which both have 100s of lessons at all levels. There is some overlap but because they are both heavy in audio/video it will help me to hear different voices saying the same thing. They also have lesson plans, pdf transcriptions and exercises. My goal is to get through all of the beginner lessons by the end of this year.

My log:
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=2394

Re: Course Completion Challenge -- Open for business!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 6:04 pm
by tomgosse
Well, why not?

Language: French, of course

Course Material: French In Action, Part I & Part 2 (lessons 1 - 52)

Time: Approximately one year.

Comments: As you may know, I have had a long time desire to learn French. I have a number of courses in and about the French language. This one has been collecting dust on my bookcase for a while. I guess it is time to give it another shot.

One thing that I would like to point out, this is a very expensive course. To make the best use of it you do need the text book, workbook, audio files for the workbook, the video episodes, and the study guide to put it all together. Each part of twenty-six lessons will cost about $300 US. The most expensive are the audio and video discs. Now, you can watch and listen to them online at this site: Middlebury College.

The videos are small, 720x480, and standard definition. There are 26 videos of thirty minutes each in each part. Each episode can have from four to thirty-five audio files. They can be downloaded by right clicking on them and choose either "Save Audio As ..." or "Save Video As ..." Be prepared to spend a lot of time downloading. Or just dish out the money and buy the CD's and DVD's like me. :(

Now, the audio files are useless with out the workbook and vice versa. The workbook tells you what file to listen to, and how to answer the questions. The audio by itself makes not sense without the workbook.

Finally, I am in awe of people who are going to use this course along side another course. My hat is off to you! Bonne courage !1 My goal, and I think it is a practical one, is to do one lesson a week. That will take me up to January. I'm also signed up for a half Super Challenge where I am supposed to read fifty books and watch fifty movies. Oh la la la la !2

Never mind that my doctor wants me to get out of the house and exercise.

My Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1185



1 Good luck ! (lit. Good Courage)
2 Oh my ! (lit. Oh, that that that that.)