The use of FSI, a question of efficiency. (2024)

Ani wrote:I don't know what supercoco is, but Pimsleur doesn't even touch the volume of content and grammar of FSI, as Reineke mentioned.

"Just speak more" isn't the same as doing targeted drills for automaticy. You can speak all you want and potentially still stumble on the same constructs, or fall into a functional but low level of speech because you have made certain types of constructs automatic but not more advanced ones.

I'm planning on finishing FSI French this year, even as I get closer to the more advanced end of intermediate, because natives just don't correct your speech well enough for "talking to natives" to be a reliable way to make grammar automatic. Great for input, great for speaking practice, sort of the reason for learning a language in the first place right? But if you study a grammar point in a book but can't use it quickly and easily in your own thoughts, how is speaking it out loud to a native gong to fix that for you? Even if you do it once, the frequency just isn't there.

See Also

FSI Blog :A Comprehensive Guide - Tech to ForceFSI Blog: Your Go-To Source for Financial Services Industry Insights | NexNews NetworkUnblock FSI Blog - 6 Ways to Bypass Restricted ContentHow you can learn a language by yourself – A Year of Self-Study

Anyway I certainly don't think FSI is essential at all. I do think it is valuable though, and an excellent piece to the puzzle for some people. I personally need a LOT of audio drills to make things come out well.

Per my response to Reineke, I understand FSI is much more advanced, though on further review I think the products are different altogether. I use the training wheels analogy for all of them but I think FSI isn't really designed to be that. The other programs are beginner friendly, and designed to help get your feet wet enough so that you can at least get some confidence to then take the plunge and start speaking with native speakers (hence training wheels). In the spirit of what people like iguanamon suggest, if your goal is working with native materials as soon as possible, I assume this also includes working with native speakers. So clearly these programs have different goals, for one, the actual program FSI was used in, assumed you'd be working with native speakers the whole time in conjunction with the curriculum.

There are some good points raised in your post, though it leads me to a follow-up question, how then do people achieve such fluency without the use of a tool such as FSI? I've seen at least one documented example of someone who never used any audio program type drills (drill courses specifically I'm talking about here, not general listening material) yet passed a C2 exam in roughly 2 years time. He also was not immersed in the language though of course he spoke on skype with a tutor and/or conversation partner everyday. He did heavily use Anki, and from the looks of it, used pretty basic card types.

Now, maybe if he had used FSI he would have had more ''automatic'' speech (probably only in the situations that FSI specifically covers?). But I suppose if he can pass a C2 exam in 2 years time without ever worrying about these types of drills, it leads to the age old question of: when is good enough simply good enough? Or maybe even....is FSI (or any other audio program) the most efficient way to drill automacity in the areas that you need work in (back to my main question).

Source:

http://brianjx.altervista.org/#_Toc415769763

"Just speak more" isn't the same as doing targeted drills for automaticy. You can speak all you want and potentially still stumble on the same constructs, or fall into a functional but low level of speech because you have made certain types of constructs automatic but not more advanced ones.''

This is the heart of the ''practicing automacity'' claim. I'd like for you or someone to actually back this up. What proof is there that people don't get relatively ''automatic'' when fluently speaking, and at an advanced level, the more they use it over time? So before FSI or any audio programs, no one ever had good ''automacity'', to an advanced level, in their foreign language usage? There are so many variables here, for instance, maybe someone has been speaking for 5 years+ and still bad at advanced constructions, sure. But have they also been explicitly studying grammar, using a tutor, reading and listening to more advanced literature and authors, etc.? Have they been actively pushing themselves to advance in any way or did they simply allow themselves to stagnate? It's not a fair comparison unless context comes into play. There are native speakers that never actively use advanced vocabulary and grammar constructions because they don't actively educate themselves in order to do so.

I find it hard to believe someone who has been doing these things would be stuck at a basic usage simply because he didn't do targeted drills with an audio program. Not to mention FSI is only designed to go up to C1 (again, talking self-instruction here so you probably won't get you that high since it's not designed to be used that way) so what then do you do after FSI if your goal is to go for C2 and onward? Whatever the answer is, why not just do those things instead of using FSI to begin with (especially when talking about just starting to use FSI at an intermediate level)?

It could be along the same lines as the input conundrum, basically you just need massive amounts of input according to some. Would the same not be the case for output? It seems to me that you'll naturally get better and more automatic with the output that you most frequently use over time.

And if you need to get more automatic in specific areas, for an exam (as in the source I provided), work, etc. would it not be more efficient to use a tutor in order to drill the areas that you actually need rather than just drilling what FSI or any other program gives you?

Thanks for the response!