Your Typical Session - Making the most of resources

[mackie1402]

There are plenty of resources describing study plans, but these usually don't go too deep or detailed when it comes to how they actually study.

 

Usually it's 'this day I'll use this book and listen to this resource, the next day I'll do this..'

 

I've done this myself a thousand times over as I am extremely enthusiastic when it comes to organizing (work, books, office layouts), yet I still have a weakness when it comes to actually studying.

 

So I thought we could share some ideas here.

 

- How do you study per session?

 

For example, let's say you have a typical book with:

 

- dialogues

- phonetic exercises

- grammar exercises

- reading comprehension

- role play

- pattern drills

- CD / DVD resource with audio and video

 

How do you begin to start a new Chapter?

 

Personally, I like to listen to the audio to begin with, see what I can comprehend. Then I will read the text from start to finish and see if I can get the idea of the lesson. Next I highlight any new words I haven't come across and reread the text. Then I usually look at the grammar notes and most of the time forget about the exercises. I habit I must break!

 

As I self study I always feel deflated trying to do the pattern drills as it's usually a two person drill. The role plays I never touch for this reason.

 

Would be nice to hear some others ideas.

[stapler]

For a modern textbook which follows the formula you mentioned I'll listen to the audio in full twice. The first time I generally can get a rough idea about what is being discussed. The second time I get a lot more details. After that I go through the audio a third time, much more slowly, pausing and rewinding trying to understand it all. Finally, once I've gone as far as I can I'll go and read the dialogue to fill in the gaps. Sometimes if the dialogue has a fairly specialised vocabulary I'll read the vocab list before listening, focusing on the words that I'm not too familiar with.

 

I do a lot of listening first because 1) in my environment I don't get much (read: none) listening practice and 2) my reading ability is vastly beyond my listening ability, so if I read the dialogue first I don't get much out of the listening practice because I'm just "hearing what I already know".

 

The grammar exercises and pattern drills are my favourite part. I don't really have any "method" for doing these kinds of things unless there is a set of substitution drills. I found that if I read the sentences while doing the substitution drills it greatly diminished their effect. So I'll read the sentences, then cover it up so I can only see the words that I'm meant to be substituting. This helps me reduce reading as a crutch and better internalise the patterns.

 

Reading comprehension I can't say much about. I find it a breeze. It's the more productive parts of Chinese (speaking, writing) that I struggle with. At most I'll read the text and circle any words or word usages I find interesting and add them to my flashcards.

 

Role play - I just perform both roles by myself. I really struggle with them because my speaking is by far my most underdeveloped skill. There's something I find uneasy about the contrived nature of speaking a dialogue to myself. Ideally you should be doing this with someone else, preferably a nature speaker,  I imagine.

 

For any "write a story" type task, I'll write it and put it on something like lang-8 to get feedback on it.

 

I don't think we should dodge the parts of the textbook we dislike. That we dislike particular parts is a signal that they're probably some kind of weak point for us. In my case this would be speaking.

[Shelley]

I laid out my study routine here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/48918-share-your-study-planschedual/

 

I was hoping more people would contribute but it doesn't seem popular but you can read my plan there.

 

I am also documenting my study experience with a new course offered by edX, I have written about that on my blog here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blog/108-my-chinese-learning-blog/