by Engineer33 on January 16th, 2010, 1:04 pm
I have reasonably good copies of audio for FSI Spanish units 31-55 (the last 2 blocks) If there is sufficient interest and need I would be willing to translate these to mp3 's and upload them, if the board would let me know that they would accept these.
I have some comments on the FSI Spanish:
This is by far the best language course I have ever had. This includes Berlitz Spanish, High School German, and FSI German. There are, however, a couple of weak points.
It took me more than half way through the course to figgure out what the "DIALOG" sections were doing and their context. These sections are interleaved with "NARRATIVE" sections which are self-evident, and are in the middle groups of lessons. (about units 16-45). One example is Unit 16, page 16.31 middle of the page. Here is the context for these "DIALOG" sections - it is NOT explained in any of the texts:
The scenario is a classroom with the students already assigned characters in a mini-skit which loosely follows the main section of "Basic Sentences" for the respective lesson unit. (Characters assigned by name of character - Jean, Bob, Jose, Juan,....etc.). The teacher reads the left-most column of the "DIALOG" section - one paragraph. - and possibly points, nods, or otherwise indicates to the acting student that he/she (the teacher) has completed the paragraph and that the student is to interpret these instructions and speak accordingly in terms of the mini-skit session. One acceptable response of the student is printed as a paragraph on the corresponding right-most column of the NARRITVE section. There are other acceptable responses and the teacher is left to judge and coach. To explain in detail by example perhaps to excess- On pg 16.31 (Unit 16) - the first of "DIALOG 1" left column is translated:
The teacher points to the student playing Jean and says to her, "Jean, ask Bob what you-all (both of you) are going to do tomorrow".
The student playing Jean could respond with one answer given on the right-hand column "What are we going to do tomorrow, Bob?"
After this (and possible coaching) the teacher goes to the next paragraph down on the left-hand column of "DIALOG" and the process continues with the next instruction and response.
Hopefully you can get the jist. Perhaps I am just slow to pick up on these details. If the web-master of this site and board feel that this helps enough people, they could add this bit of instruction to the on-line copy of the appropriate texts so that the explanation could be available to all. It would have helped me.
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The other weakness in FSI Spanish concerns the last group of lessons. It is painfully cear that in the FSI back about 1961-2 when this course was finishing up there was a change of administration and format for the course. (look ath the credits in the books). The last 10 lessons (46-55) are nowhere near as clearly outlined as the early ones. You can tell the change of feel for the development. It feels to me as if a new staff were assigned to finish the project and that they were told to get it done fast. The lesser care in organization and development is evident. Even with this drawback, this course outshines FSI German by leaps and bounds, not only technically from a language exposition standpoint, but also from the tape layout in allowing delays for responses and even in good recording and acoustic pickup for the high frequencies so necessary for fricative sounds.