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Rout - TAC 2013 - Team Pax

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Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5525 days ago

326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 1 of 18
20 December 2012 at 7:56am | IP Logged 
Current Level:

So I think self-assessment is probably the least reliable kind of assessment, therefore I asked Spanish speakers familiar with my Spanish for their opinions. My conversation partner put me at B1+ and my tutor (more familiar with my spoken abilities) put me at B2-. I took several online tests (some of them are a joke) and these were the results of the most reliable tests:

- The test from http://www.spanish-test.net/ was probably the hardest, but it didn't include an aural comprehension part. Results:

"Your results
A1: 90 %
A2: 87 %
B1: 93 %
B2: 57 %

Your actual level is: B1"

This test was also in line with the assessments of the two people I'd asked (and, coincidentally, my own assessment).

- The "official" practice test from Instituto Cervantes was pretty challenging (it was long, more than anything). It also had a reading comprehension section, and a listening comprehension section. The reading comprehension section I thought was a little too easy since they let you flip back and forth to the text to answer the questions (would they let you do that in a real life scenario?). I'm including this test because of the listening and reading comprehension sections (which I feel are my strong points). Results:

"Prueba finalizada. Según esta prueba, usted puede realizar los niveles C1.3 - C1.4 del AVE. Consulte con su centro para que le sitúen en el curso más adecuado."

This scale seemed a bit different from the regular CEFR scale I'm used to so I looked into a bit more. This is apparently how their classification system works:

- Beginning 1 (A1.1) - Beginning 2 (A1.2) - Beginning 3 (A2.1) - Beginning 4 (A2.2)

- Intermediate 1 (B1.1) - Intermediate 2 (B1.2) - Intermediate 3 - (B1.3) - Intermediate 4 (B1.4)

- Advanced 1 (B2.1) - Advanced 2 (B2.2) - Advanced 3 (B2.3) - Advanced 4 (B2.4)

- Superior 1 (C1.1) - Superior 2 (C1.2) - Superior 3 (C1.3) - Superior 4 (C1.4)

So, apparently, with a somewhat official (and challenging) test I scored very high. Of course, I'm not C1, but it did make me happy.

- Other tests I took I discounted since they gave ridiculously high scores.

Lastly, according to the Cambridge ESOL and Deutsche Welle reports on guided learning hours (they're mostly in line with each other so I'll only include the Cambridge numbers only):

A2, 180–200; B1, 350–400; B2, 500–600; C1, 700–800, and C2, 1,000–1,200

I'm at about between 400-500 hours of blended self-learning/conversational tutoring, and much higher than that if you consider extensive reading. I didn't include the FSI numbers because I believe the numbers to be artificially deflated, probably due to the rigor of such courses.

Qualitative Goal

I'm a high B1 and it took me 6 months to achieve this level (discounting some dabbling I did a long time ago [of which I somehow managed to maintain a very tiny bit], in which time I shadowed halfway through Assimil Spanish with Ease and worked 1/3-1/2 through Spanish for Beginners by Duff). Anecdotally, I've heard each level takes twice as much work to achieve than the preceding level. Therefore, if I maintain my current study regimen:

A1-A2: ~ 3 weeks
A2-B1: ~ 1.5 months
B1-B2: ~ 6 months (current level)
B2-C1: ~ 1.5 years
C1-C2: ~ 4.5 years
C2+ :   immersion

My goal is to be B2+/on the cusp of C1 by the end of the year. This falls in line with the (unscientific) anecdotal suggestion. I'd be happy with a B2+, but it would be great to be in C1 territory. If I feel comfortable I might take the actual DELE test for C1 at the beginning of next year (2014).

Of course this logic starts to fall apart at the higher end when compared to the Cambridge ESOL numbers, which is more or less linear:

A2, 180–200; B1, 350–400; B2, 500–600; C1, 700–800, and C2, 1,000–1,200

According to this, if my previous (conservative) assumption of being a little over 400 hours of study time is correct, then I should actually be C2 by the end of the year.

Quantitative Goal

Because of all this confusion, I have decided to make my actual goal a quantitative (i.e. realistically measurable) one:

Reading Hours: 365 hours (i.e. 1 hour a day)
Writing Hours: 365 hours
Listening Hours: 365 hours
Grammatical Study Hours: 365 hours
Conversational Hours: 100 hours

Now let me qualify a couple of these:

- "Listening Hours" will be authentic podcasts and almost exclusively extensive listening. I will surely go over this since I have headphones practically glued into my ears. Any other listening will not be included.

- "Writing Hours" will be hours working my way through these topics and having them corrected at lang-8. Any other writing will not be included.

- "Conversational Hours" will be hours spent with my online conversation tutors. I'm down to two teachers, once a week each. I set a goal of 100 hours (as opposed to 104) because, Latin American countries being as religious as they are, my teachers get fickle around the holidays.

These will be my goals for 2013. I will make changes, if necessary, at quarterly intervals. Therefore, my next evaluation will be April 1, 2013.

Edited by Rout on 04 January 2013 at 10:07am

2 persons have voted this message useful



Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5525 days ago

326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 2 of 18
03 January 2013 at 2:19am | IP Logged 
01/02/2013

Reading Hours: 002/365 hours
Writing Hours: 002/365 hours
Listening Hours: 002/365 hours
Grammatical Study Hours: 002/365 hours
Conversational Hours: 000/100 hours

Instead of posting every day, I'll post once a week (after this post). Also, I might get busy this year (with school and work), so I've decided to let myself make up hours I've missed as long as they're within a reasonable amount of time (say a week). I've decided not to allow myself to bank hours (e.g., if I read 3 hours today and o hours tomorrow, I still have to make up tomorrow's hours). I'm not saying this is a bad idea if you wanted, but I can't allow myself too much slack at this point.

I've bought four calendars, one for each section of study. I put a big red 'X' for the day, when I've completed the appropriate section of study. I hope to have these marked up pretty nicely by the end of the year! I've also marked April 1st as my first evaluation, both of my own abilities and my current method/allocation of study hours. I intend to keep most future updates extremely short. I also plan to keep alive my other learning log. Cheers and good luck everybody!

Edited by Rout on 03 January 2013 at 2:21am

1 person has voted this message useful



Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5208 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 18
03 January 2013 at 4:34am | IP Logged 

Wow, you are ambitious! Good luck with all your goals this year!
1 person has voted this message useful



Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5525 days ago

326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 4 of 18
03 January 2013 at 6:34pm | IP Logged 
Kerrie wrote:

Wow, you are ambitious! Good luck with all your goals this year!


This coming from you? ;) Just kidding, and thanks. =)
1 person has voted this message useful



Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5208 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 18
04 January 2013 at 1:28am | IP Logged 
Rout wrote:
Kerrie wrote:
Wow, you are ambitious! Good luck with all your goals this year!

This coming from you? ;) Just kidding, and thanks. =)


LOL. Even doing 5-6 languages a day, I don't normally get an average of 4h20m.

Besides, I'm pretty sure I won't meet all my goals for the year, which is why there's a "Spanish and French are my only definite goals for the year" clause at the beginning of my log. :)

But I like to reach for the stars. Even if I only make it to the moon, I can still look around and see how far I've come. :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5525 days ago

326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 6 of 18
04 January 2013 at 1:41am | IP Logged 
Kerrie wrote:
Rout wrote:
Kerrie wrote:
Wow, you are ambitious! Good luck with all your goals this year!

This coming from you? ;) Just kidding, and thanks. =)


LOL. Even doing 5-6 languages a day, I don't normally get an average of 4h20m.

Besides, I'm pretty sure I won't meet all my goals for the year, which is why there's a "Spanish and French are my only definite goals for the year" clause at the beginning of my log. :)

But I like to reach for the stars. Even if I only make it to the moon, I can still look around and see how far I've come. :)


I agree. Just 30 minutes a day will bring you a loooong way in a year. It only feels like I'm doing 2 hours of study, since reading doesn't feel like study, and I can multitask (you have to be at that stage though) when listening to podcasts. I've found that getting up early in the morning (around 5) and just getting straight through the grammar study, writing, and reading is helpful. I have the rest of the day to myself and just listen to the headphones all day while, driving, exercising, shopping, walking, whatever. I'm getting some seeeerious podcast time, I should really keep track of it.

Edited by Rout on 04 January 2013 at 1:43am

2 persons have voted this message useful



sillygoose1
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4449 days ago

566 posts - 814 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
Studies: German, Latin

 
 Message 7 of 18
04 January 2013 at 1:44am | IP Logged 
dfgdfg

Edited by sillygoose1 on 29 January 2013 at 1:28am

1 person has voted this message useful



Brun Ugle
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
brunugle.wordpress.c
Joined 6433 days ago

1292 posts - 1766 votes 
Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1
Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish

 
 Message 8 of 18
04 January 2013 at 6:54am | IP Logged 
Since the Spanish team no longer exists, you should probably change the title of your thread to should that you are on Pax. To do that, you just edit the first post.


1 person has voted this message useful



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