posted by Catherine on Jul 18
Collins Language Revolution – This Time You’ll Remember – Beginner Level
Format: 2 CD’s and a Coursebook.
Style: 1 CD follows you through the 10 Units in the coursebook, and CD 2 follows the same (9) Units but can be used alone without using the coursebook.
Language: Latin/Roman Script – (My Language: Same)
Have I Tried This Language Before? - Yes, but still a beginner.
General Comments:
The idea is wonderful – a well laid out coursebook and 2 cds. Bright colours, large lettering, mainly nouns (so no horrible verb conjugation) and some useful accompanying pictures. However, it’s a little tougher than it looks.
There is quite a small amount of actual ‘tested and repeated’ language. By this I mean that the course teaches you say, 10 new words, then the little test part might only test you a a couple of them. Or in one Unit – give you the longest conversation in a foreign language I have ever sat through in a ‘Beginners Course’. Even after pausing and rewinding it several times I couldn’t make all the details out – and even after trying to write it down, there were parts that we incomprehensible to my ‘learner’ ear.
Also, alongside this course – there is the idea that you can use Mindmaps to re-inforce the learning. Basically using a spider diagram or sorts to keep reminding yourself of the learned words. So in the unit discussing food and drink, you might draw a menu in the middle, then a glass to one side for drinks and a plate to the other side for food. Then leading off from these you would have images and written names of the foods and drinks you had just learnt.
I can see how this would be a great exercise for some people, my brain doesn’t really work like that, so I found spending time writing down what I had just said but with wavy lines and sparkly colours wasn’t something that I felt increased my learning. However, I know of friends who prefer this style of learning.
They may well have been useful tools towards the final chapter, as the course started throwing 2 or even 3 times as many new words at you at a time – and they weren’t really related either. I mean Unit 9 had Lost Luggage, Going to the Dr and Broken Household Appliances! 40 new words in total and Unit 8 had 48. Compare this to 18 in Unit 1 and 27 in Unit 2 (and 10 of them were 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10!).
With reference to the CD’s with this, they had both good and bad sides. The ‘good’ was the noise they used to signify the end of a track – as it allowed you to know the track was about to end, and so you could skip back easily to hear it again – which I had to do many times!
The ‘bad’ part was that there were seemingly endless different tracks along the way, sometimes with only 5 or 6 words on it. And there seriously were not long enough pauses sometimes to answer the questions or repeat the conversations. You would listen to them, then think of your answer, but part way through they started talking – so not only did you lose your concentration, but you didn’t hear whether you were right or not!
I did however, really enjoy working through their exercises (and there is more support online if you want it), but as there was no ‘answers’ section or glossary in the book. So unless you logged on in the middle of the course you wouldn’t be 100% sure your answers were right, and if you came across a word you didn’t remember from earlier in the book, you had no choice but to flick back through all the previous pages to locate it or just ignore it!
Perhaps I should try the course again and make a go of the mind maps – as although I got to the end of the course, I don’t think it improved my confidence very much!
Ease Of Use: 4/5
Result: Finished But Still Confused
Reason: Didn’t Like The Style, Still Not Sure Of Key Verbs & Probably Need To Complete Again
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