JapanesePod101 vs traditional methods

[DanMont]

Just a place to go on.

[The Frankensteiner]

Well, I've never tried tradiational methods.
But I like learning at my own pace through jpod101.

I don't know if it's more effective or not but it's definately less stressful, not to mention cheaper.

[Liz21]

I don't understand Friday listener's viewpoint. Is he/she trying to change jpod's format?
For me, Japanesepod101.com is a wonderful way to hear Japanese being spoken in many different situations -- formal , informal. I have to admit I love the comic aspects!! Just because something is funny doesn't downgrade its quality.

I always feel that I can plan my own learning, using this website, by using the tools in the Learning Center. I know there are many other places on the Internet to find some of these resources and most of them are free, too. But in jpod I can make my own kanji and word banks. I love all the extras, too: kanji practice and line by line audio.

So, I do agree with Marie Bresson: Tu dois aller à une autre web, celui-ci n´est pas pour vous.

[DanMont]

Me neither.
I opened this thread to discuss it further.
I hope he will drop by.
Until then I will try to summarize his points of view for a later discussion. Friday listener, feel free to correct me if you drop by.

Against JPod.
-----------------
• Jpod privileges fun over reinforcement of basic grammatical notions, lengthening the time needed to learned basic stuff.

• There is something behind Web 2.0 expression.

• Rikaichan extension of firefow is better then jpod dictionary

• Wwwjdic is good

• We have an affection towards the webpage

• Notebook works much better to remember words.

• Jpod is copying ChinesePod

• Jpod may get better

I just wanted to express the points, not to comment them for the moment. I’d like Friday listener to have a look at them and to correct them if needed.

feel free to correct my English; as peter said I will kill two birds with one stone. (that's funny because I use Jpod dictionary to find the English expression)
一石三鳥 ですね。

Friday listener, what was this ‘au revoir’ at the end of your first post.

[Brugg]

Well, i don't think jpod is enough on it's own; you need to take classes, or get a textbook, or find some grammar on the internet, or something similar if you want to study seriously. But jpod is a great, and very much needed supplement. It manages to be entertaining while teaching new vocabulary and some expressions, and most important, it helps you get a feel for the language through the lively dialogues. And this is also a very important part of learning the language. The basis on which to build, however, i like to leave to "traditional" methods. I only use books now and then though, and don't take lessons, at least not yet.

[Jason]

If you can, I would definitely say that taking an actual class at a college or somewhere is preferable. As wonderful as Jpod101 is, it's really best to be able to interact with the teacher and other students in person, especially for practicing live conversations. As great as the internet is, nothing beats face to face interaction with other people.

However, having said that even if you are taking or have taken more formal classes, Jpod101 is a wonderful compliment to them. For example, a formal course will most likely deal almost exclusively with very "proper" Japanese and rarely venture into the more informal.

So I really hate the notion of Jpod101 and the like versus traditional teaching. They're both valuable in different ways. They can work together to give the learner a richer and more varied learning experience.

[edit] And as I've said before. If a person can't take a formal class for one reason or another and Jpod101 is all they have, then learning something in a less ideal way certainly beats the everloving crap out of not learning anything at all.

[DanMont]

I think Jason has a point saying that 'nothing beats face to face interaction with other people'.
What I feel about it is that textbook does not give you the proper way to address people. You know a lot of words and grammar points but you are not so sure how you can find a way to simply talk.
I wonder if a web site could allow this kind of interaction, you know IP phone, webcam.
Probably stupid Ideas, but anyway…

[Jason]

The idea of having conversations over Skype has been bounced around a little. The problem with that is that Jpod101 users are spread all over the place in different timezones and are at different skill levels. Something like that would be difficult to coordianate. But I'd love to see something happen with that at some point.

[The Frankensteiner]

Yeah, hey that'd be neat.
Once I'm better at this Nihongo thing I'd like to talk to some of you.

[Fridaylistener]

Danmont. It is a bit moving your reading of my message. If English language is the problem and if French is your mother tongue, please, feel free to use it, I can read French. I will try to answer quickly:

Jpod privileges fun over reinforcement of basic grammatical notions, lengthening the time needed to learned basic stuff.
YES. They want to be funny and they are successful but the linguistic contents are the losers. A careful analysis of the way they arrange their lessons and their contens show it easily.

There is something behind Web 2.0 expression.
YES. This expression hides the little progress they have made. If a teacher says that he has invented teaching2.0 because now her lessons can be listened on the mobile phone people would laugh at him but, on internet, this can happen and usually nobody see what ´s wrong with it. Internet gives more than that but it is outside jpod

Rikaichan extension of firefow is better then jpod dictionary
YES Rikaichan is a good dictionary whose meanings pop up whenever your mouse lands on a japanese word. It is wonderful.

Wwwjdic is good YES. The link I gave you is one of the best know dictionaries online

We have an affection towards the webpage YES. There is nothing wrong with it (just the opposite) as long as this page is the best one to fit your needs. Affection is perfect for lovers, friends... but not when you want to learn in the most effective way. If time is not a problem, you love jpod and you can study japanese patiently year after year, please, go on with them.

Notebook works much better to remember words. YES Whenever you write a word you have to concentrate on it and this helps. Besides, watching your own handwriting makes it easier to remember the words though this in Japanese is not as effective in western languages.

Jpod is copying ChinesePod YES. It is a bad copy of that web

Jpod may get better YES but this is difficult to happen given the limitations its staff pose on themselves. This is made for kids, no matter how old they are, and by kids. As long as they think having that audience is OK with them they will go on like that but this format, as chinesepod.com shows, provides opportunities to do much more than what they do.

Liz,I don´t try to change jpod (how I could if I am not the webmaster) I love laughing as much as you but when I study I search the best posible way to learn. It is just common sense. You can plan your own learning with many other tools out there. If jpod is the best for you, congratulations but you miss many other places (not only webs) more effective than this one. Japanese language is very rewarding but very hard to learn and, in the end, every effort to make it easier pays you back. Making your own word bank can work but, as I said before, that´s not the best solution to learn, just a complement. Even the wordbanks in the notebooks aren´t at all the final solution and they need other things.

[The Frankensteiner]

Personally I really appreciate how much fun the jpod crew has. I've tried listening to another "learn Japanese for free" podcast and it was boring beyond belief. Just stale, stale, stale. It really made me want to turn it off actually.

[JockZon]

The reason that I learn so much with Japanesepod is that it's so casual and the crew has so much fun in the studio. Everybody may not agree but the ones that doesn't like japanesepod they are not forced to be here and listen to the podcast. If you compare the regulare listen courses to this lessons, this is much more fun learning.

How fun is it to listen to someone that says a whole sentence in the learning language and then translates it and then go to another sentence without explenation and braking the words apart.

[DanMont]

Friday listener, thank you for your answer and hello again.

What I would like us to try is to really think about the points I listed before.
I wanted to be sure to have correctly understood, so I just write them down. As you seem to agree to my understanding of what you wrote, I would like us to take every point at a turn, and just talk.

These will probably take a few days, but anyway that might be fun.

And on the other hand I’d like to change the comment I made about rating the jPod by my only improvements. I’d rather have a kind of challenge. I don’t know your present level of Japanese. If you are a beginner as I am, we could find a way to confront our progress time to time, you progressing with your methods, me with jPod and mines.

If you’re already intermediate, advanced or fluent, then, sorry but it should be by my only improvements.

Anyway, what I also wanted to stress is that no harm was intended in the previous posts. I’d rather see those conversations as a kind of game, but I was sorry to realize that it could hurt Vicky.

Since it becoming quiet late here, I will leave you all now until tomorrow. If everybody you agree, We will discuss the first point:

• Jpod privileges fun over reinforcement of basic grammatical notions, lengthening the time needed to learned basic stuff.
YES. They want to be funny and they are successful but the linguistic contents are the losers. A careful analysis of the way they arrange their lessons and their contens show it easily.

[kinoko]

I personally couldn't imagine learning any language with this sort of thing alone. But I still think that this is one of the greatest ways to reinforce what I've already learned and practice my pronunciation.

[Ersby]

As an ex-teacher of English As A Foreign Language, I'd say that there's no correct way to teach a language. At least not one that works for everyone. Some people like light-hearted stuff and others want to be corrected every step of the way. The quickest way to get someone to learn a language is to get them to speak it. Unfortunately that's not possible here.

I listen to Jpod, but I also have textbooks and dictionaries to work from as well. I learn my grammar from there, and my conversational skills from Jpod. And it works very well on those terms.

I also think the sheer volume of material on offer is a big plus point. I much prefer short daily lessons to a weekly binge of a couple of hours. The students who made the most progress in my classes were those who made the effort to listen to or read English between the weekly lessons.

Sometimes Jpod skimp on a grammar point in one lesson, only to return to it a few lessons later. So they don't do what a traditional class based course does: take a grammar topic and cover it for one hour plus. But they cover these topics in bits and pieces. I can understand this looses continuity, but given the time limit, I can't think of an alternative.