Besides the set curriculum, one thing I find that traditional learning does well, compared to self-study, is the “nag factor.” These are all the variables–being in a campus environment, having scheduled classes, homework, exams and grades to work on, constantly seeing students and instructors outside of courses, etc.–that all add up to “nag” you into putting time and effort into studying and learning. It’s why “taking a class” is seen as serious whereas “making a resolution” seems more wishy-washy.

I think the folks at Praxis understand the desire for a strong “nag factor” with their Practice Plans. With a 10 minute phone call coming in everyday, one constantly receives positive encouragement–the daily call encourages one to study in preparation, while also providing feedback and a reflection of improvement. It is however, extremely cost-prohibitive and it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to spend that much money in the near future.

And that’s where I currently am–looking for factors to nag me into studying. The Conversations and forums at Chinesepod don’t seem to interest me as much as they look like they should. Granted, I’ve only been using the service seriously for a month or so, but here are my impressions:

• An unfamiliar establishment. There’s an established group of users that are posting most of the time, and they move from conversation to conversation as only recently created items are “new” to them, whereas even 2-year old items are “new” to someone that just started the service. If one wanted to participate in active conversations, they’d have to mostly participate in new ones, which defeats the purpose.
• Shared lessons, unshared curriculum. Unless you are those few that participated from the get-go (and are now jumping from new lesson to new lesson), the beauty of pick-and-choose comes at the cost of a common community. Sure, I may pick up the odd tip or so from a random user’s old posts in a lesson’s conversation thread, but it’s different from a group of the same people learning the same lessons together, able to practice and continually share the same learning experience and tips.
• Partici-what? User participation doesn’t seem to be as cracked up as it’s built up to be. If this chart on Hank Harkoff’s blog is correct, there is an extreme lack of participation in community features amongst Chinesepod users as a whole. The forums are practically dead as well. If that’s true, the comparisons to Facebook and Myspace should be a little off–and it’s probably a little more like the Web 1.5 of Slashdot and Metafilter–most consume, some contribute. It’s a tad disappointing as the feeling of being part of a community is pretty important for a learning environment.
• Lack of outside nag factors. The only factor that I see “nagging” people to visit the website (and in turn, “nagging” them to study) are the e-mails or RSS updates announcing new material. Again, this only really benefits those established folks that are jumping from new lesson to new lesson.

So, I wish there were some stronger “nag factors” in the Praxis arsenal (that I don’t have to pay any more money for!). As it is, I’m thinking of various artificial things to create to push myself into studying more efficiently. I think I’ll integrate textbooks into my study and formalize some schedule for listening to the language podcasts. And I’ll try to make better use of Anki now.

After a long time spent trying to work through 3000 or so words from the HSK deck I had pulled from FlashCardExchange, I’ve decided to give up on attempting this brute-force rote memorization technique. It works, but it’s slow and very unmemorable, making it a very inefficient use of my time. I’m going to stick to actual lesson-based learning from now on. Supplemented with Anki, I should be on a better pace going forward.

I’ve recently discovered Anki as a language learning tool, and it’s pretty neat and useful, from my impressions so far. I’ve spent a couple of hours studying a list of 3000 or so Chinese words and phrases that I imported from FlashCardExchange. Anki basically keeps you within a moving window of 20 or so words, removing and adding words as they are learned. It keeps track of what you’ve learned, how difficult you rated it, and will bring the word up after a specific time to see if you remember it, lengthening the intervals in between each time you’re presented with the same word every time you get it right.

From what I’ve been reading elsewhere, the key really is to study sentences, rather than just random words–since sentences show you the context of the word in a given situation, and also lets you “see” how grammar should work. That’s probably how I’m going to go about building various decks as I go forward.

The only issue I have is that I’ve got to sit in front of the computer the whole time. There’s a smartphone-compatible online version and there are rumblings regarding an iPhone port, which could be pretty cool in the future (of course that requires me to obtain a smartphone…).