Multimedia Work
Some but not all of the ALSO textbooks contain multimedia supplements --mostly dialogues or aural comprehension activities to do in your workbook. You should spread the multimedia work evenly over the entire week, in short (30 minute), manageable sessions, in which you can remain focused on the tasks. (Cramming all of your multimedia work into one session is counterproductive).
Listen and repeat
The multimedia program will repeat material without the slightest change in pronunciation or construction. This makes it possible to receive in a relatively short time the exposure to the countless repetitions you need to imprint a foreign language utterance in your mind. In order to make sure the imprint becomes an output, it is imperative that you repeat or respond when you are asked to in a loud voice (mumbling is also counterproductive). Also, try to duplicate precisely the utterance on the audio, and not merely to make a "reasonable" approximation in your own accent. Think of yourself as an actor learning to play a character role, and attempt to copy in every possible detail the utterances you hear.
Avoid using visual “crutches”
While working with multimedia, keep the text closed unless the text/workbook requests otherwise. The reason for closing the text is that we tend to become over-reliant on reading to help us learn a language, though in order to communicate orally, we need to learn to use our ears and mouths.
Encountering Frustrations
Never give up on a multimedia component that you don't understand. Try listening to it and repeating it several times without the text in front of you. Then, if it is still unclear, refer to the text for an explanation. Do not be put off by differences in pronunciation between the speech of your tutor and that on the audio; you should eventually be able to understand both. If you have trouble with comprehension in the multimedia work, you will have to spend some extra time listening to utterances, and then stopping to check yourself closely on how well you really understood what was said and repeating them. Try using the “backwards build-up” technique to learn longer or more complex utterances: divide the sentence into short phrases, and begin drilling the final phrase. When you are comfortable with it, add the phrase (or few words) immediately preceding, and so on, until you have reached the words which start the sentence-at which point, you will be reciting the entire statement without error or hesitation.
