High Intensity Language Training on Kindle

Glad you’ve had such a good response to your post Aran.
Having read through your book just once it strikes me as a most illuminating glimpse into the workings of the wonderful personal computers we carry around in our heads.
A couple of things come to mind. First you mention that what we’re hearing is at 2x speed. Is it really? It doesn’t sound all that fast to me but perhaps I’m getting used to it as I’m now more than half way through course 2 (old)
Next, in chapter 8 you recommend charging ahead and not bothering about getting it right, but in the lessons you say that we shouldn’t worry if we have to go over each lesson several times. Where does the balance point between these two statements lie?
And finally, reading the forty posts ahead of this I keep seeing references to new and old courses. I have done course 1 (old) and am, as I said, well into the second, but should I be abandoning what I’ve done and start again with the new courses? I sincerely hope not.

Hi Bryan! And thanks for your comments and kind words :sunny:

This is a specific reference to the listening exercises in our new Level 1 material, so not relevant to you at the moment.

Ah, yes - the difference a few years makes! The intros/outros were originally intended to support people who naturally wanted to re-run the sessions ‘to get better’ - but it’s become increasingly clear to me that we’re actually just encouraging people to go more slowly than they are capable of - I’m currently envisaging re-recording the intros/outros at some stage.

First up, there’s no question of ‘abandoning’! What you’ve done will always stand you in good stead. Personally, I’d be inclined to move over to Level 1 - you’ll be surprised how soon it’s genuinely challenging for you - but there’s no reason for you not to finish off Course 2 and then think about whether or not you want to jump tracks. But it is not a backwards step, as you’ll see when (at some point!) you give it a shot :sunny:

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Brilliant, couldn’t have put it better myself!!!

Loved the book Aran! (Left a review). I will be recommending it to a few people I know who are wanting to learn a language. I will know what to ask Santa Clause for Christmas now! I would love a few intensive hours to help my confidence that I can get there if nothing else! I love the way you write, it has a personal aspect to it that is intersting without being patronising. Having some knowledge of nlp from my counselling career your theory makes absolute sense!

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Thank you so much, Tina, and thank you so much for your review :star2:

I know nothing about NLP - is there a connection with the explanations in HILT?

Stu

I’ve just read the book and, having also done the 10 day online bootcamp, wish I’d had it before I started on the SSiW courses as I think I would have approached them differently. I know that working in this way is effective and it has made me feel confident to have a go almost from the very beginning. I tend not to think about structures and vocabulary too much, which results in many mistakes, but people seem to know what I’m talking about and do “fine tune” for me. This leads me to make two points:

  1. The learning context/environment must have an important influence. If for example I have rest from the materials here on the Scottish Border, I really don’t have any contact with the language at all as there is no written or spoken Welsh around me. When I do come back to the materials, there is no one to do the fine tuning and, if I have misheard Iestyn or Cat, I learn what I have misheard without any of this important “tuning.”
  2. I feel that the proper use of other materials can be helpful in this “fine tuning” process, but I get the impression from the book that you consider them all to be very limited. I think this is too sweeping a claim to make. While I concentrate on SSiW, I do find it helpful to have access to other things. I have acquired a range of course materials which I dip into from time to time to check what I think I’ve heard and this seems to work for me. If I lived in Wales, I’d probably just go out into the community and try it out, but I only get down there about three times a year, which is a real handicap.
    I did find the book helpful and interesting and have left a review to that effect, at least I hope I have…this confidence which SSiW engenders may have led me to write without really thinking.
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I have seen discussions (complaints) about this restriction on the HTLAL forum (also an international membership). It seems to be a “normal” Amazon imposed restriction. There is no similar restriction on purchasing physical books however.

This restriction (on e-books) is another good reason for purchasing from other than Amazon, if you can, but of course, they seem to have the widest range.

You’d hope that the advent of e-books would be more liberating, not less liberating, but Amazon seems to see it differently. There may be a good reason for it, but I have never discovered it.

Well. NLP is a way of “re-programming” your outlook on things - one of its mantras is “The map is not the territory”.

If we get locked into one view of things it can restrict our choices.

So I guess NLP could help you to be more open to new ideas of learning, and since SSiW is aiming at a complete paradigm change in learning, NLP might be helpful, although I doubt if is essential.

Diolch Mike! So its a psychological technique of some kind…

Hwyl,

Stu

Thanks for covering these points Aran. I obviously came into SSiW at a point where things were changing. I was fairly well into the old course 1 when I found there were conversations on the forum about the merits/differences of/between the new and old courses, which left me rather at a loss to know how to proceed. At that point I decided I’d continue with what I was doing and see how things panned out.
I will do as you suggest and complete course 2 and then more than likely have a go at the new level 1
In the light of your reply, are you recommending that I/we only do each lesson once?
Diolch yn fawr i chi

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Thanks for your comments, Doug. Do I actually make that claim, though? I’ve focused in that booklet on the most interesting things we’ve been seeing in working with people in a more intense environment - traditional methods haven’t been part of that process, so I’m not commenting on them. People find lots of different ways to achieve different things, and that’s great - but I can’t comment on those in the context of H.I.L.T. if they haven’t been used in that context. In particular, I don’t think it would be easy to extrapolate that what we see in terms of memory with certain materials will work in the same way with other materials.

I think that would be a good starting point - if you find yourself absolutely incapable of getting anything out at all, then you might need to be flexible about it - but as a starting point, that will certainly give you some interesting experiences in finding out how well the interval learning patterns work for you :sunny:

Just read the e-book, and found it really interesting and so logical! I especially liked the chapter about The Sea and the Land - as that whole thing was what happened to me at Bootcamp Pen Llyn in April. The land grew bigger and the sea grew smaller! I still have lots of lakes to fill! Well done. Have posted comment on Amazon.

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Thank you so much, Anne - and I really appreciated your review… :sunny: :thumbsup:

The reviewers have made a huge, huge difference - we’re currently at 142 for today, after hitting 145 yesterday - I presumed that we’d follow the usual pattern of peaking on the first day and being down to about 30-40% on the second day - so this is a fascinating pattern interrupt, and definitely thanks in huge part to the reviewers :star2:

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Indeed it should! It is like not being allowed to go shopping in Tampere because you live in Helsinki.

Well, we ended up with an increase on the second day - from 145 up to 161 - I don’t really know how that’s happening, but it was a lovely surprise. I think I owe a drink to all the reviewers… :sunny:

Ga’ i Benderyn dwbl, plis? :smile: Llongyfarchiadau Aran!
Stu

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I found the ideas interesting and the idea of learning useful phrases or ‘digestible chunks’ of language reminded me of the work of Michael Lewis. I wonder whether as well as producing a list of the most used words in Welsh one should also identify a thousand or so chunks of language with the highest statistical probability of them being used. I think the Poles are exposed to a similar and successful method of language learning these days and I always remember comparing the terrible English of Poles who came here during or after the War and youngsters taught in Poland
I want to spend more time using the speeded up items in the SSiW .I am sure I will benefit. I think learners differ in the sense that some do seem to need to master a chunk before moving on whilst others are comfortable with letting far more of the language wash over them and not worry about perfection.

There’s work happening at the moment to try and create a Welsh National Corpus, which I’m hoping will make this kind of study easier/possible. We may also need to try and do some stuff ourselves on analysing bodies of speech by area/profession/interests etc.

I’ll look forward to hearing how the accelerated material goes for you. I think you’re absolutely right about the psychological differences in individual learners - finding ways to help people get used to losing control is one of the recurring themes of a lot of what we need to do :sunny:

I have completed the old level 1 and 2 lessons. I was about to revisit the last few to consolidate but first of all decided to have a look at the new level 1 section. I am so glad that I did and am thoroughly enjoying and benefitting from working through them, and I of course now appreciate the fascinating explanation of HILT in your book Aran - llongyfarchiadau.
Johnghwilym

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