Brun Ugle wrote:I like the idea of an intensive-only challenge, but I think it would be difficult to define intensive. I’ve been thinking about gsbod’s Problem Solving Challenge and that maybe you could sort of combine them. You could have a number of predefined skills/problem areas like grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, or whatever we decide on, but predefined, so that it makes comparison easier. People could register for one language and one skill/problem and work intensively on that for the three weeks. Then there would be a circa one week break and they could pick a different area for the next challenge. And maybe we don’t need to track every language and every activity, only the one language and activity that we’ve chosen. I think all the excessive tracking might be one of the things that burns people out anyway.
I too like the idea of intensive-only or explicit learning or active learning. I'd define it by excluding all input activity that does not have the learner actively doing something - if you aren't taking notes, if you aren't writing, if you aren't looking things up, if you aren't speaking, if you reviewing material, working on vocab then it's out. Reading, listening or watching stuff would be excluded from explicit learning. Or you can only count those non-intensive activities for up to the amount of your explicit learning. So that if watching videos is your thing, you get to count it for a max of 50% of all activity (intensive + extensive).
I'm not sure I would participate in a skill/task based challenge unless the skill were sufficiently open to fit into my own desires for activity. For example, if the problem is spend this week studying only grammar and I'm focusing on an A0 language like classical Nahuatl I'm going to quit.
I'm sure some people might be interested in an Input-only challenge, too.