On “Day 1” I described how I evaluated my level in French using various techniques, and so defined what my target would be, in terms of improving my ability to understand the spoken language.
Yes, I know this site is not about French. But I already understand spoken Italian pretty well, so I’m walking you through the process of improving your Italian listening comprehension skills as I would do it. See?
So, if you’ve been following along, you should now have an idea of your current level, and a “descriptor” for the next level up i.e. an idea of what you will be able to do when you’ve improved which you can’t do now.
In my case that is: “understand the main points of clear speech”.
I can’t. I’d like to.
Ci siamo? (With me?)
The man with the plan
Quite often in my teaching career I have seen students achieve what they never thought they would be able to achieve once they had been forcibly sat down and made to write out a plan.
Day 1, do this. Day 2, do that. Day 3, now do this. Etc.
Just the process of thinking it through and writing it down makes the whole task seem less impossible, somehow.
And when you know what you have to do today, tomorrow, the next day, it’s a simple case of finding a few minutes and knocking it off the list.
Then forgetting about it, until the next day.
So, yesterday, I sat down and wrote a plan on how to get my listening from A2 to B1 in approximately 6 weeks, (without spending any money, natch.)
It looks like this:
Week 1 (now): do a D.E.L.F. A1 past listening paper each day (I’m starting below my current level of A2, as I haven’t studied French for 30 years and want to refresh my memory, and get my confidence up)
Weeks 2 & 3: do the D.E.L.F. A2 listening papers, plus supplementary work on any areas of weakness that become evident. It seems I’ll need to brush up on the numbers. (Why the hell don’t the French have nice easy words for ‘seventy’ and ‘eighty’?)
Weeks 4 & 5: use non-exam listening materials (authentic materials, audio books, DVDs) to build experience with complex texts
Week 6: do the D.E.L.F. B1 papers, as practice for my “final exam”. Do the last one as a “final exam”. Compare results with what I got when I first tried (5%!) Have I improved?
Make a new plan. Might work on my reading, next. Or speaking…
OK, so it looks pretty vague, and is probably rather optimistic. But there’s the advantage that I now know exactly what I’ll be doing, when.
And I can of course come back and modify my plan if circumstances require.
And YOUR plan is..?
I think we’ve established that a lot of you would like to listen better in Italian.
So, let’s hear how you plan to go about it…
Be brave. Post details. Think of it as a New Year’s resolution.
And if you’ve found any great Italian listening materials out there, that you think others would benefit from, well go ahead and post the links.
Not got a plan yet? So sit down and write one. Takes ten minutes. You can always copy someone else’s later, if you like what you see….
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
P.S. LAST TWO DAYS FOR THE FREE SKYPE LESSON! OFFER EXPIRES MONDAY 6th. Click here to get a free online lesson worth €20. Offer valid for new clients, old clients, anyone at all – we’re feeling generous! But only until Monday. No catches. Book your free online Italian lesson now.
John Thomson says
Throwing my cap in the ring
As of today my levels are –
Excluding listening – livello A2/B1 cusp (I used the clubs method to evaluate this)
Listening only – livello a low A1 (I used the official descriptor and the result from 4 of the listening exercises in your article)
my plan
week 1 and 2 revise the A1 workbook pay particular attention to the listening exercises go over and over them
week 3 and 4 revise the A2 workbook pay particular attention to the listening exercises go over and over them
The reason I have chosen the workbooks is because there is less chance of encountering higher level vocabulary and grammatical constructs to confuse the issue and skew the results
week 5 recalculate my livello
Tomorrow I am going to book one of your free skype lessons to see if one of the girls suggests a better plan
Cheers
John (Thomson)
Daniel says
OK, that sounds like a good plan.
Only one thing to add:
– I’d suggest you don’t limit yourself to our materials. Research on the Internet, there’s some great stuff out there. I’d definitely be using CILS or CELI past papers, if I were you (they’re written by professionals).
And, as you say, if you’re really not sure how to proceed, finding a teacher and dumping the problem in his/her lap is a good start.
John Thomson says
Va bene Daniel
I have been researching the layout of the CILS past exams, when I work out how to navigate them I will start with Livello A1 i bambini, appropriate really, me having entered my second childhood
Come tu Katy sono un gran appassionato di Commisario Montalbano, il mio personaggio preferito e Caterella
Katy, come ce la fai l’accento Siciliano ?
Auguri
John
Daniel says
I realise that CILS are only giving away the last exam on their site, which means you only have one example… And it isn’t easy to navigate, John, that’s true.
Shame.
My colleague tells me the exam boards in Italy make money selling books of past papers. Might be worth a look, for anyone who has an ample budget.
John Thomson says
Daniel
Tu non ti fai la giustizia.
Tu hai detto “cerca gli altri luoghi per la materiale insegnamento, particulamente le prove CILS”
Il tuo sito ha molto materiale di insegnamento, compressi gli esercizi di ascolto
Io faccio tutte le due
Anyway enough with the Italian already
I have completed two A1 papers, obviously I cannot test my oral or writing skills
I have been as honest as I can, answering the spoken stuff before it is spoken slowly
Here are the results so far for Livello A1
bambini adolescenti
total 90% 70%
Listening only 81% 50%
comprehension 94% 80%
I will carry on, at the moment it looks like I am livello A1
B.T.W. Daniel – la plume di ma tante e sur le pont d’Avignon
– la penna di mia Zia e su la ponte d’Avignon
– my aunt’s pen is on Avignon bridge
Does this mean I am multilingual ?
Cheers
John
Daniel says
Well of COURSE you’re multi-lingual, John. Keep going like this and you’ll be a proper polyglot.
To me, it looks from your scores that you could push yourself a bit and start with the A2 stuff.
A good aim is 60-70% on listening tasks. You’ll only ever get full marks if you’re aiming too low.
The point is that in trying to learn a foreign language, by definition you need to be preparing for situations which are both unpredictable and highly complex (i.e. talking to a native speaker who isn’t making allowances…)
So, staying with the baby stuff is not as much help as you’d imagine… Better to be trying and almost failing with more advanced material than doing the level below flawlessly.
By the way, I didn’t understand the reference to your aunt’s penis…
John Thomson says
Daniel
Ecco i miei resultati
Giugno 2012
Livello A1
Bambini
totale 90%…. senza ascoltando 94% .…..solo ascoltando 81%
Adolescenti
totale 71%…. senza ascoltando 75% ……solo ascoltando 67%
Integrazione
totale 77%…. senza ascoltando 83% ……solo ascoltando 71%
Adulti
totale 79%…. senza ascoltando 92% …..solo ascoltando 67%
I have been particularly hard on myself, foe example,I have answered the listening exercises before listening to the second, slower, reading.
I obviously cannot test my writing skills but the results are probably a fair representation of my level
If I were taking the exam I presume I would take the ‘adulti’ version
Pensi tu che io superei l’esame ?
Adesso faccio Livello A2 (adulti)
In bocca al lupo a me
John (Thomson)
Daniel says
Anything above 70% is reasonable, John. Definitely time to give the A2 a try. Now you’re ahead of me…
Katy Wheeler says
Ciao John!
Ah Catarella – non capisco niente da Catarella! Parla troppo veloce per me. Invece, Mimi parla piu chiaramente – posso capire di piu.
E il mio accento Siciliano e molto buono … ovviamente 😉
Auguri
Katy
John Thomson says
Ciao Katy e Daniel
Katy, ci sono state due nuove serie sul T.V. Britannica
1 – il giovane Montalbano, quando Montalbano era giovane
2 – quattro nuovi episodi di Commissario Montalbano
Non credo che siano ancora disponibile su DVD
Daniel. I have just completed livello A1 – bambini
as best as I can measure my scores are –
Total 45/50 = 90%
listening only 13/16 = 81%
minus listening 32/34 = 94%
If it shows nothing else it shows where my weakness lies
What is the pass mark for future reference ?
Tomorrow I will start on livello A1 adolescenti
Auguri
John
P.S. Everton 4 Queens Park Rangers 0 Bravo !
nancy dunbar says
Okay, I have a plan. Sort of. It’s not week by week, but rather a set of activities that I will pursue over the next 5 weeks. I’ll test myself at the end in the same way that I did when I started (which is a little flakey, but as long as I can perceive some improvement, I don’t really care). Here are the activities:
1. I have subscribed to several italian podcasts; I will listen to at least three podcasts each week.
2. I’ve found several Italian radio stations (there’s an iTunes app for international stations. But http://www.radioitalylive.com is another possibility and, for some, easier to connect to) that I want to use as
“helpful background.” The idea is to just be surrounded by Italian without necessarily working to understand all of it. But if the first half hour is any indication, Italian is clearer in song that in the spoken word.
3. my vocabulary stinks. So i will just commit to learning (actually learning, as opposed to writing down and knowing for a few days) 10 new words each week.
4. I will continue to drill verb forms. (I tend to trip over them and just want to make them more automatic.)
5. Until the end of January when I’ll be out of town for a while, I will continue my weekly conversation group with three other italian language learners.
6. I’m in the middle of a book, but I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with it or not. That’s a question mark. (When in Italy, I buy childrens’ books so that the plots are easy and the grammar and vocabulary not too sophisticated.)
Daniel says
Hi Nancy,
Sounds like you’ve thought this through…
I’d add that for “helpful background” newspapers are pretty much indispensable…
Daniel
Katy Wheeler says
OK well I have struggled to find a nice self-evaluation website where I can do a series of tests and come up with a % or grade, but just from doing the listening tests that you recommended, it seems that I am a rusty A2 level. I can understand the A2 listening after several repeats and careful study but there is quite a lot of vocabulary that I don’t know, and I haven’t studied any tenses apart from the present and just started on the imperative. This is probably just a factor of the types of texts and learning aids that my Italian teacher uses.
I’m very rusty at the moment as, because of Christmas and minor illnesses, I’ve not had a lesson for a good 6 weeks. However my plan is now as follows.
This week I will revise through my most recent lessons in time for my Italian lesson at the end of the week. Just knowing more vocabulary/brushing up on what I used to know will help with listening. I use Teach200 software, which is free to be downloaded and very helpful for learning vocabulary. http://www.teach2000.org/download.php?hl=english . I input what I learn each week, learn it and revise the previous week. My Italian lesson is mostly held in Italian, so that is a whole hour a week of personal interaction/listening and responding.
The following weeks, I will keep to the same kind of schedule. I asked for, and received, three DVD sets of the Italian tv series “Inspector Montalbano” for Christmas. I caught this on BBC in the Autumn and found it really helpful for my listening and understanding. The episodes are in Italian with English subtitles, and the show is quite entertaining – a mixture of crime solving and light humour. I’d recommend them to others to help with listening. I will try to watch at least one episode a week (they are an hour long).
I will ask my Italian teacher to evaluate my level in a few weeks’ time. My longer term goal is to go back to Istituto Venezia in Venice in the early Summer and be ready to start B1 level … or maybe even B2! (ha!)
Katy
Daniel says
You’re right, Katy. There aren’t many good sites out there for Italian. Much easier learning French!!
Katy Wheeler says
My degree is in French and my level is fairly good – so I can’t say I have much need of french sites at this point … dang! 😉
Daniel says
Amusing comment just in from Nina, via e-mail:
Why don’t the French have easy words for 70 and 80? My personal theory is that they were so mesmerised by the possibilities of “soixante-neuf” that they were unable to count any further. (I live in France)
Thanks Nina, that made me chuckle…
Katy Wheeler says
Ciao John
Um …
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_10?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=inspector+montalbano&sprefix=inspector+%2Caps%2C178
Plenty of Inspector Montalbano DVDs available on Amazon at the moment! I’ve received 3 DVD sets for Christmas – plenty for me to be getting on with too!
Auguri
Katy
John Thomson says
Ciao Katy
Ho copiato tutti gli episodi dalla televisione su DVD, dunque, con i DVD ho comprato, penso che ne ho tutti.
Comunque ti ringrazio per il link
Dove abiti in Inghilterra? Mia moglie ed io abitiamo vicino a Liverpool
mi sto godendo questo ‘thread’ su i problemi di ascolto
auguri
John
Katy Wheeler says
Ciao John
Sono nata a Londra ma ora abito a Southampton con mio marito e due figli (adulti!). Che lavoro fai? Sono voluntaria insegnante di computer ora ma voglio devenire insegnante di inglese per stranieri in futuro. Mi piace imparare le lingue. Parlo gia francese e un poco tedesco. Le lingue sono affascinante!
Non conosco ancora i verbi del passato in italiano, allora mi piace per gli errori … Ieri, ho guardato un’ora di “Inspector Montalbano”. Sono molto felice! haha
Auguri
Katy
John Thomson says
Ciao Katy
Ti ringrazio per il tuo riposte. Sono felice che ti diverti, come io, Commissario Montalbano.
A proposito di me, sono in pensionato, lavoravo in ospedale, ero il capo di pronto soccorso,adesso studio la lingua italiana, mi piaciono tutti le cose italiane, particulamente il cibo. Purtroppo non ho mai visitato l’Italia, ed ora sono troppo vecchio, ho ottant’ anni
Frequento un corso di Italiano a U3A, molto divertento
Vivo con mia moglie Jennifer e il nostro cane a Ormskirk, vicino a Liverpool
Sono un tifoso di Everton football club
Come va i tuoi studi ? Io uso l’esame scorse di CILS livello A1
Una cosa che Daniel mi ha insegnato e – “non me ne frega gli errori”
Comunica comunica e di nuovo comunica
Ciao
John
Didi says
Suggested listening today for anyone interested – I mean in chocolates!!
http://youtu.be/a1pEZLWrck8
Daniel says
Are we missing the link here, Didi? Paste the URL and then use the “link” button to format it as a link. With a little trial and error, you’ll work it out.
sandslane says
Many GCSE past papers including listening tasks available on the Edexcel and AQA websites.
http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/italian/gcse/italian-4630/past-papers-and-mark-schemes
http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse09/mfl/italian/Pages/default.aspx
Daniel says
This is a good tip from Sandslane.
I noticed this in my search for material to learn French. School age past exam papers, often freely available on line. Different companies produce them, so there’s lots of great listening material available.