so, immersion*

let's take notes as we go, shall we?

(pre-)intermediate:

1. grammar excercise.

2. free grammar/rigid sentence composition: sentences to exemplify a rule.

v

(GIANT ABÎME** OF DOOM.)

v

3. let's talk about current issues!

"je, er... *interpretivedancemove* ...*falsefriend*..."

v

3. let's talk about current issues!

"*grammatically correct sentence a native speaker wouldn't make, only features simple tenses*"

v

foreseeing another abîme here before internalizing fancy tenses/moods.

to do: repeat step 2. lots of mindless conjugation.

instruction time devoted to the above: 0 minutes per week.

weaknesses that shouldn't be there, considering: conjugating verbs correctly verbally. conjugating verbs correctly in writing. homophone confusion esp. with verbs. forming natural-sounding questions. grammatical gender. having forgotten entire tenses/moods existed.

other stuff to whine about: instructor not v. sympathethic; a tendency to stay on task instead of going off into grammar&vocab-related tangents. difficulty finding stuff to say: the case for every glossy language textbook ever, aggravated by the fact that the characters are a. not funny. b. cartoon (=loooow production values). lack of time&determination to do mindless conjugation. a sinking feeling. personality not really suited to this kind of thing. a perpetual state of very-mild-but-there annoyance directed to fellow learners with offending accents (who otherwise have good language skills). questioning whether you've been oh-so-r-ironically but steadily bleeding self-confidence and similar public speaking skills for the last couple of years without realizing. the reasonable certainty that the method on its own won't solve the verb problem in a million years. lack of available mindless conjugation materials***.

affirmations: there's still time.

*oh, the memories.

**hugo injoke.

***always wanted to own a heavily used copy of EnglishGrammarInUse.