Hey, all. As some of you know, I built and promoted PollyGot a while back. While I've been polishing the data and working on a few other things, I took some of my own difficulties with the process and made a small addition to the GUI.
Normally, when it comes to language apps, you really only get one of two models:
- The first is a module-based method that mirrors language textbooks. As many of you note, it's all right to start off, but not much else. Most of this is due to a retention problem. As you cruise through modules, there's not enough repetition to reinforce previous ones. So, to apply a rinse-and-repeat metaphor, there's a lot of rinsing, but not enough repeating.
- The second is a flashcard-based method. These usually work better, except that decks often don't help with key acquisition features, like syntax. They also often suffer from a lack of pacing. There are some exceptions to this, but without certain revisions, these won't help people meet their goals, either.
Therefore, I decided to take a different route, one that I used to become proficient in Mandarin, but am now applying to my Russian and Japanese.
It works to draw mental connections between phonemes, lexemes, tagmemes, and graphemes in a sensibly paced manner. In practice, it's basically example-based translation, along with lots of tools for self-monitoring to help make these connections more easily, starting with graphemes to the other three, and then connecting the other three to each other. This produces competence in three of four main areas of fluency: reading, writing, and listening. PollyGot, however, does not help much with speaking, which is better served by language-exchange apps or speaking partners.
Anyway, as I was using the app at the very beginning, I was getting frustrated to make appropriate grapheme-phoneme and grapheme-lexeme connections. Therefore, I added a piece that shows what characters are involved in every translation, just not in the correct order. It doesn't work as a sentence scramble, but rather a tool that first promotes experimentation. I then can ignore it as I advance through the database of sentences, since I already know the proper spellings and can hear lexemes and tagmemes (words) rather than mere phonemes. Over time, I've also stopped using the audio cues for some sentences, because I already know the expected translations as a whole. Then, once I reach the top levels, I should be able to mentally construct the translations without any assistance from the monitoring tools.
Also, I have been working on the back end to saturate the database more quickly and accurately. I'm borrowing a technique from EBMT to accomplish this, and the results have been positive. It also means that, instead of only adding 100 new sentences a week, I can add up to 100 new sentences a day.
Anyway, that's all for now. If you tinker with it, let me know if I should add or adjust anything else.
[link] [comments]
from Cześć | Languagelearning https://ift.tt/2AwGsyC
via Learn Online English Speaking
Comments
Post a Comment