Tag Archives: Input/output

July 26, 2012 · 8:03 am

The Spirit of the Law VS The Letter of the Law

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(Photo credit: William & Mary Law Library)

This is a fun idiom in English.  Wikipedia has a whole article about it here.  In short it means that one can follow the exact wording of a law/rule/promise/plan, but yet still not accomplish the purpose of the Law.  On the other hand one can seem to “break” the specific wording of the law/rule/promise/plan, but do it so that you follow the intent or “spirit” much closer.

It’s also, in my opinion become a way for people to shift responsibility from themselves to some all mysterious “law” spirit that granted them “wisdom” to break the law/rule/promise/plan.  At Womenlearnthai.com, I wrote a post related to that.  In the post I talked about my Mission President, the head of all the missionaries in Thailand, would often say, “Ask a better question.”  The better question would be, how can I follow the spirit AND the law of what ever we promise to do.

Following “the Spirit and the Law” of Your System

I am a major advocate of creating a system and the sticking to it.  I have already wrote how you should adapt your system and sometimes just throw it out.  So, I obviously don’t expect anyone to follow it so strictly it is detrimental.  What I expect is that you make your own system of Inputs and outputs.  If you intend to follow My system, then you need to  know WHY you are doing the various activities I suggest.  That way you can adapt and throw out your system as needed, because you will understand why.

Recently, I finished my exams to get my licences that allow me to do the job I was hired to do.  My job now has me do a lot of busy work on my own.  I control myself and I am responsible for getting my tasks done.  When I am at my busiest, I listen to Spanish Radio online.  If I miss things, because I am concentrating on my work, I don’t mind so much.  Later in the day, I am less busy and can listen to podcasts or other programs that require more concentration.

This means I get at least an hour a day of listening, not including my hour-long commute in and out of work.  Having a plethora or time that I can use, means I can devote my commutes to only Output based learning and my free work moments into Input based learning.  Yes this is a change from My Language Learning System, but the Spirit is kept because I am doing both input and output based learning and making use of all my free time.

So the point of all this is. Make a system or steal mine, I don’t care.  Understand why you are doing it and then follow it!  When opportunity calls for it to be adapted, do it under the understanding that it needs to still follow the spirit of the original system.  Your success in adapting your system will be much higher if you do.

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April 15, 2012 · 12:11 am

My System….so far…..(Part 2)

Here is part 2 of how I organize my studying, or my system for lack of better words. In the last post, I explained why I divide my time between Input and Output. One thing I failed to mention was why I spend a week on input and the next on output. What I have found by experience is that using smaller time frame, such as a day, meant that you would cut the learning short just as you start getting on a role. Longer periods of time also make it so you get bored with learning just one part of the language. One week I have found was enough to keep you interested, yet not cut of your learning too early.

Step one is to gather as many resources, paid or free, into a big giant pile. These could be courses you found/purchased. Tutoring session or language exchanges. Talking to the wall, which is one of my favorites, or translating TV are examples of activities you can do to increase your language ability. If it is used to help you learn, then put it in the pile.

Once you have your pile you need to first divide them into input and output based activities/course. There is not a course out there that will say it is input or output based. You have to decide for yourself. Maybe go through the first lesson or two to figure this out. Here is my simple test. If the activity has you listen mostly, this includes those that show you how to speak and then have you repeat after them, than it is an input based course. If they course emphasises speaking, especially if it has you speak the word’s phrases first and then shows a correct version after, than it is an output based course.

Is that it?

Not quite, there is still a few more steps. Continue reading →

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January 31, 2012 · 10:48 am

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes….

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.  – Bertolt Brecht

Changes!  Gotta love it!  Changes come from very interesting places.  Sometimes it is the mere inconvenience (or convenience) of forgetting to do something.  Sometimes, it comes from having something stop working that makes us need or want to change.   But no matter what changes always occur and we can’t stop them.

Another way to refer to change is evolution.  I am not getting ready to start a religion vs Darwin debate, I am just talking about evolution of thought, ideas and practice.  What we think and what we do about it is always in constant flux.

Here is the interesting thing about evolution, by changing what you are doing now doesn’t mean what you were doing before was wrong.  In fact, at the time it may have been the best thing for you.  That said, now that you have changed you don’t know how you manages any other way(that is until you evolve again).  It’s kinda like literature, we loved reading Fun with Dick and Jane when we were young, but I can’t imagine how I could imagine reading it now(except to my kids, which somehow makes it enjoyable again)

What am I getting at?  Well obviously something in my pursuits of Spanish has changed.  It is remarkable how it happened, but now that it has changed, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.  It’s almost as break through as putting a sliding door on both sides of the mini van and not just one. What I am referring to is a subtle, yet big change in how I learn spanish.

What have you changed and why?

Let me start out by stating how it happened.  I have stated before that I am reviving my Thai.  You can go to my Thai blog and see how I am doing in that regard if you like.  Well The original plan was to miniaturize my Spanish system to just two days.  One day would be input days and the other would be output days.  Sounded like a good plan.

Then my I pod had a problem syncing and for some reason my Thai audio that I was using for output was having problems(I have since resolved the problem.)  So I ended up having two output days in a row.  This weekend was also special, in that it was a three-day weekend for me.  It was a holiday on monday(monday is over now, remember New Zealand is in the Future) and since I had already did two output days I decided to make it a Third.  I enjoyed it so much that I decided that I was going to follow the same pattern for my Thai weekends, one week is output and the next is Input.  It just makes things flow better and easier for me to building upon knowledge easier.

And then suddenly it hit me, like lightning had hit my brain

(Bonus points to anyone who can guess which movie I paraphrased that line from)

I thought, why don’t I do that with spanish?  One week input and one week output?  Work and build upon the skills that I already know and give myself a better chance to solidify the things I have learned by using them more.

It was one of those ‘ah – ha’ moments that just made sence the moment the thought came.  I don’t think what I was doing was wrong, in fact I think it may have been the best thing for me at the time, but now that my skills are getting better I need to focus perfect one skill at a time.  Then I can take a week off to allow my self to develop another skill and to let the other one rest for a bit!

So there you go.  It’s a subtle, yet powerful change.  I will see how it goes and I will tell you how it is going in a few weeks.  I am very open to the fact that this evolution may not make things better and I may have to evolve back again, but I have a feeling that it wont.

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