[lojban-beginners] Re: podcast (pimsleur method)

[Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com>]

Supermemo is based on graduated interval recall. The supermemo site
contains information about their algorithm and other research into
human memory. I believe it mentions Pimsleur as a source or
inspiration for the method.

I was actually in the process of designing a lojban course based on
formatting *all* lojban knowledge, grammar and vocabulary, into items
suitable for use in supermemo, but then I got distracted. It would
work a lot like the Spanish Pimsleur series that Christopher
mentioned, except that while the Spanish series manually introduces
the spaced repetition effect, by having material repeated in
succeeding lessons, Supermemo schedules each item's next interval
based on its model of your memory.

To have a supermemo-based course be effective, it seems like you'd
have to include some basic concept items, have them repeated a few
days to firmly settle into the student's memory, and only then
introduce example items which use the concepts. Lots of example
sentences, both to and from Lojban, along with all of the vocabulary.
It'd be good to find a middle balance between explicitly explaining
the grammar and usage and having the student learn by example.

I believe something like this could fully replace the LFB material,
and more. I think it'd easily be the preferred method for learning
lojban, especially because all needed information is presented to the
user in the correct order--thus no need for looking things up--every
day, without the user having to make decisions about what to review.

For instance, I become interested in lojban again a few weeks back,
and started entering items into supermemo. In the past week I've
gotten very distracted from it, but because the items are in Suprmemo,
I'm still reviewing a few of them every day, so I'm not losing any of
the knowledge, and when I want to, I can add more vocabulary starting
from where I left off. If the the whole grammar, plus tons of
examples, were included in this process, I'd have very little work
outside of supermemo needed to actually use the language.

Chris Capel

On 9/17/05, John Leuner <jewel@pixie.co.za> wrote:
> I read about the Pimsleur method a couple of weeks ago. The main point
> of Pimsleur material is that is carefully constructed using "Graduated
> Interval Recall". I searched the web for any papers or research about
> this model of memory retention but I only found hundreds of sites
> flogging Pimsleur language sets.
> 
> Does anyone know more about this theory or have a link to some research?
> 
> John Leuner
> 
> On Fri, 2005-09-16 at 21:30, Christopher Zervic wrote:
> > I actually posess the entire Spanish Pimsleur series lessons 1-90. You
> > can probably find this or one of the other ones at Your Local Public
> > Library™.
> >
> > Pimsleur uses three voices, a native man, a native woman and a
> > narrator. Having the man and woman are somewhat necessary to
> > straighten out gender issues. The principles are anticipation and
> > repitition, each lesson introduces circa 10 new concepts, and hammers
> > them home. There is also a reading section (which for a language
> > posessing perfect orthographic mapping would be hardly necessary).
> >
> > A typical script would be something in he beginning would be
> >
> > Narrator: Let's say you meet a woman on the street. Say "Excuse me."
> > Listen and repeat.
> > Man: Perdón. (Pause) dón. (Pause) dón. (Pause) dón. (Pause) Perdón.
> > (Pause) Perdón.
> > Narrator: Say "Excuse me"
> > Man: Perdón. (Pause) Perdón.
> > Narrator: Ask her if she speaks English. Listen and repeat.
> > Man: ¿Habla Inglés? (Pause) ¿Habla Inglés?
> > Narrator: Do you speak English?
> > Man: ¿Habla Inglés? (Pause) glés (Pause) glés (Pause) Inglés (Pause)
> > Inglés.
> > Narrator: Do you speak English?
> > Man: ¿Habla Inglés?
> >
> > Little by little they introduce more phrases and each time  Later on,
> > it might sound like this:
> > Narrator: Have you seen Maria?
> > Man: Escucha y repita: ¿He visto María?  (Pause) visto (Pause) He
> > visto
> > Narrator: Have you seen Maria?
> > Man: ¿He visto María?
> >
> > and on and on...
> >
> > I don't know how well this would work with jbo, because Lojban as a
> > spoken language appears to be still a shade or two underripe.

-- 
"What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it
like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?"
-- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)