Since completing Lesson 6 of Course 1, I’ve been using the daily listening and speaking practices “for those who have completed lessons 1 to 6”. But now I’ve reached the end of Lesson 10, and I feel I’m ready to have some practices for stuff learnt in lesson 7 onwards.
But when and where do I find these further practices? I’ve clicked on the “C1 Speaking” button, but what comes up is a number of words I haven’t learnt yet, such as “win”, “lose”, “worry” and “return”. And in the “how to use the practices” Iestyn specifically states that they use only language we’ve already learnt - so I must be looking in the wrong place.
The practices for course 1 is designed for use after you have completed all 25 lessons of course 1 (or 26 in the northern course). If you want to practice your listening, then the listening practices can be useful, but note that you won’t recognise all the words until you start to gradually complete the course. That said, as you do complete the course and learn the new words you’re hearing, the practices start to make a lot more sense after a while, and your understanding of the language and its structures start to improve.
As for the speaking practices, I would stick to the Lessons 1-6 practices until you have finished the course, as you will struggle when you reach the words you are unfamiliar with.
I’m still having a bit of a problem with this. Basically, there’s a mismatch between the speed at which I’m doing the lessons and the time I’m devoting to the listening and speaking practices. My “lesson speed” is fairly leisurely at present, but I’m able to do the practices most days.
The result is that I still have half of Course One to do, which is likely to take me a little while yet, but I’ve been doing the Lessons1 to 6 practices ever since I completed Lesson 6. So I find that at present I’m repeating the same stuff over and over and over again with the practices, and they aren’t really challenging or stretching me any more.
It would be really useful to have practices at a roughly “halfway point” through Course One, rather than the big gap between Lesson 6 and the end of the course. I realise that this isn’t going to happen, because Course One is on its way out in favour of Level One.
But I’m just wondering whether anyone else who is doing or has done Course One, has experienced similar problems to me!
I had a similar experience with feeling like the listening practise wasn’t of much use to me (I had it memorised). This is when I started subbing in listening to Radio Cymru or listening to the audio from Cymraeg tv. At first I understood practically none of it, but soon I was able to pick out words here and there that I did know. Now I can follow conversations fairly easily. Even if I’m lacking the vocabulary, I can get the gist of it and hear the individual words being said. So while this won’t give you practise hearing and understanding the Cymraeg you know, I feel like it’s been very helpful for me!
While repeating the lessons 1-6 material over and over are not challenging or stretching, the repetition of these key words and patterns is helping to keep these words firmly in your mind. Throughout the lessons, you are using words you have previously learned, and it’s this repetition that is helping you to never forget them.
Once you have completed course 1 and you move up to the Course 1 practises, it will be the same thing, right up until you finish course 2. But, remember that the repetition of these words that you’re now becoming very familiar with is only helping you to not forget them - which is a good thing!
As for listening, you can be more flexible here. I believe you can benefit already from listening to Course 1 listening practices as suggested before. Also, Megan’s suggestion of listening to Radio Cymru and audio from S4C will also be of help. You will pick up new words again by repetition - particularly if a certain subject is topic of discussion. You will also get used to speech speeds and sounds of accents will become more familiar as dialogue becomes more and more understandable.
Another thing you can try, is the new listening practices for the new course. Each one has dialogue available on the website, but some will be spoken at double speed too. The downside is that many of the words in these practices would not be introduced into the old course until later on, so understanding the dialogue will be a challenge. But, it’s still spoken Welsh, and it’s still a way to get your ears tuned to the sounds and the accents, just like radio and TV.
So, yes, stick with the speaking practices for lessons 1-6 until the end - the repetition is good, even if the challenge factor isn’t so anymore! Venture onto course 1 listening practices if you’re ready, and listen to as much spoken Welsh from as many sources as you can access. And keep going with the course. Eventually you will reach the end and you can move on to the more challenging speaking practices!
Another idea, is to revisit a lesson at random. Any lesson from 7 to wherever you’re at now. You could do the whole lesson, or just 5-10 mins of one, started at a random point in the lesson (possible if you’re using an MP3 player, lessons burned onto CD or the SSiW app). It’s the closest you can get to a speaking practice beyond lessons 1-6 until you complete the course, but could be of help with the ‘challenge’ aspect.
Excellent advice here from Gavin Faithless and Megan - I’d go with what they’re saying, other Gavin!
And also - don’t worry too much about keeping the listening matching the speaking - it’s fine for them to develop out of step with each other - and what you’re describing at the moment is actually weighting the process heavily in favour of listening. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not vital. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if you didn’t do any more listening work until you get to the end of Course 1, however leisurely you take it
Hi GavinM and all. I want to thank you all for this thread! I was having the same thoughts as Gavin and happened on this conversation in browsing about it- in that being on lesson 18 in course 1 I was finding the weekly practices not very stretching while at the same time feeling I wasn’t revisiting content after lesson 6. This last week I’ve re-listened and worked through lessons 7-13 and intend to go push on through using them as revision. It’s been excellent, not only for revision but more for motivation, things I found really difficult first doing the lessons, I’m flying through now! It’s so encouraging and helpful at the same time!
Diolch!!
Patrick
