Are these Beginner level?

Open Forum
1

One of the members confuse about content level in English library. I have noticed that some lessons should change to the suitable level.

I checked the lessons my favorite collection EnglishlingQ provided by EnglishLingQ. Here are the list of lessons which leveled as Biginner1 or Beginner2.

Speaking speed is natural native speakers’ speed, time is relatively long and text is too many words. I think most of the following “Beginner” lessons should be labeled “Intermediate1 or 2”.
What do you think?

Title and Description Time Level
#1 Introduction to LingQ - 4:23 Beginner 1

#2 Introduction to The Linguist an… 6:34 Beginner 2

#3 Asking For Things in English 4:20 Beginner 2

#4 Darcy Rezac, Managing Director … 11:46 Beginner 2

#6 English Greetings and Goodbyes 5:34 Beginner 1

#7 The Linguist Manifesto for Engl… 5:06 Beginner 1

#15 Interviews and Resumes 6:44 Beginner 2

#16 The Flu 1:40 Beginner 2

#22 A Special Birthday Surprise 6:59 Beginner 2

#35 Interracial Marriage 14:19 Beginner 1

#45 Hiking The Grouse Grind 14:52 Beginner 2

#60 Keys to Success 2:11 Beginner 2

#61 The YMCA 17:58 Beginner 2

#94 Writing Analysis: Tony Sparkle… 17:32 Beginner 1

#95 Winter Sports 27:56 Beginner 2

#97 Mark and Jill Have a Friendly … 32:17 Beginner 2

#102 Learning Words 5:37 Beginner 2

#103 Central American Holiday 9:01 Beginner 2

#111 Skiing the Vasaloppet 14:16 Beginner 2

#115 Housing in Vancouver–Part 1 13:44 Beginner 2

#116 Housing in Vancouver–Part 2 13:10 Beginner 2

#117 Housing in Vancouver–Part 3 13:34 Beginner 2

#118 Steve and Jill Have a Friendl… 11:54 Beginner 1

#120 Steve and Jill: Childhood 11:24 Beginner 1

#121 Company Outing --Part 1 9:32 Beginner 2

#122 Company Outing–Part 2 9:11 Beginner 2

#123 Mark and Jill’s Friendly Conv… 11:41 Beginner 1

#124 Arguments and Holidays 11:19 Beginner 2

#125 Debating Gay Marriage 10:37 Beginner 2

#126 Grammar and Usage 11:08 Beginner 1

#127 Summer Time 7:19 Beginner 2

#128 Relative Pronouns 9:52 Beginner 1

#129 Tigh Na Mara 9:06 Beginner 2

#130 Eating Out 10:45 Beginner 1

#131 Why should web apps be free? 9:36 Beginner 2

#132 Steve, Jill and Mark Discuss … 11:40 Beginner 2

#133 Motivation and Language Learn… 13:05 Beginner 1

#134 LingQ FAQs 11:46 Beginner 2

#135 How to Start to Learn a New L… 11:29 Beginner 2

#137 Jill, Mark and Steve Brainsto… 10:25 Beginner 2

#136 Jill and Mark Discuss Daily R… 3:41 Beginner 1

#138 Jill and Steve Discuss Daily … 11:59 Beginner 2

#139 Jill and Steve Fashion and Tr… 11:36 Beginner 1

#140 Socializing through the Net 10:42 Beginner 1

#141 Discussing LingQ Slowly 13:32 Beginner 2

#142 Discussing LingQ at Normal Sp… 15:06 Beginner 1

#143 Public Speaking 12:10 Beginner 2

#144 Life in Japan 9:11 Beginner 2

#145 Japan versus Sweden 6:39 Beginner 2

#146 Vacationing in France 11:58 Beginner 2

#147 Blogging and Podcasting 10:25 Beginner 2

#148 LingQ Update - Membership 22:10 Beginner 1

#149 Web 18:28 Beginner 2

#150 Cross-border Shopping and Rug… 15:25 Beginner 2

#151 The Benefits of Tagging 9:15 Beginner 2

#152 LingQ Update - Forum and Assi… 11:28 Beginner 2

#153 Weekend in Las Vegas 11:49 Beginner 2

#154 Different Synonyms for ‘To Se… 15:17 Beginner 2

#155 LingQ Update - Assignments by… 13:51 Beginner 2

#156 Soccer in the Rain 16:52 Beginner 2

#157 Different Ways of Saying the … 13:21 Beginner 1

#158 General Discussion about Engl… 9:19 Beginner 1

#158 General Discussion about Engl… 10:07 Beginner 1

#159 Famous Chef in the News. Part… 9:47 Beginner 2

#159 Famous Chef in the News. Part… 9:06 Beginner 1

#160 Focus on Vocabulary 12:48 Beginner 2

#161 LingQ Update-Tutor Selection 16:54 Beginner 1

#162 Long-Weekend Fun 15:59 Beginner 1

#164 Disneyland 18:10 Beginner 1

#163 Polite Terminology 14:25 Beginner 1

#166 Pop Culture 15:41 Beginner 2

#167 New York, New York 18:05 Beginner 2

#168 Company Christmas Party 13:33 Beginner 2

#169 LingQ Update - Activity Score… 18:46 Beginner 2

#170 Snowy Weekend in Vancouver 15:05 Beginner 1

#171 Immigration to Canada 13:23 Beginner 2

#172 Weekend Plans 19:20 Beginner 2

#173 Family Fun – Christmas Train 19:43 Beginner 1

#174 English – Is it Logical? 16:43 Beginner 1

#175 Is it Okay to Say “Merry Chri… 18:24 Beginner 2

#176 Weekend Activities and Forum … 15:09 Beginner 1

#177 Discussion about “to say”, “t… 8:17 Beginner 1

#178 Christmas Gifts 17:10 Beginner 1

#179 Phrasal Verbs and Adjectives 9:42 Beginner 2

#180 Baby Names 17:16 Beginner 1

#181 The Holidays 19:12 Beginner 2

#182 Learning a Language from Scra… 13:10 Beginner 1

#183 Buying a Car 19:39 Beginner 1

#184 Is Life Too Fast-Paced? 12:22 Beginner 1

#185 Learning to Snowboard 16:54 Beginner 2

#186 Drinking and Driving 10:40 Beginner 2

#187 Computer Problems 17:48 Beginner 1

#188 Local and International News 17:48 Beginner 1

#189 80th Birthday Party 14:14 Beginner 2

#190 Different Accents 15:38 Beginner 2

#191 New Points System 15:09 Beginner 1

#192 Valentine’s Day 14:25 Beginner 2

#193 Baby Lessons 18:58 Beginner 1

#194 Gordie Gets Skunked 17:32 Beginner 2

#196 2010 Olympics 17:59 Beginner 2

#197 Family Life and Having Kids 19:08 Beginner 1

#198 Vandals Damage Vehicles 13:44 Beginner 2

#199 Growl, groan, mutter and when… 12:56 Beginner 2

#201 Interview with Paul Nation, P… 15:54 Beginner 2

#202 Interview with Paul Nation, P… 16:20 Beginner 2

#203 Mark & Kindrey - American TV … 14:29 Beginner 2

#204 Mark & Steve - World Food Cri… 16:07 Beginner 2

#206 Podcast in your language and … 11:58 Beginner 2

#207 Mark and Kindrey Talk About D… 10:16 Beginner 2

#208 Steve is Interviewed on CBC 15:40 Beginner 2

#209 Jill’s Visit 6:06 Beginner 1

#210 Mark & Kindrey - Summer Vacat… 10:02 Beginner 2

#211 Mark & Steve – Euro 2008 14:41 Beginner 2

#212 Steve & Kyle – French School … 9:19 Beginner 2

#213 Steve & Annie – French School… 11:06 Beginner 2

#214 Carmen & Steve - French Natio… 11:50 Beginner 2

#215 Steve & Mark – Yell, Holler a… 17:25 Beginner 2

#218 Mark & Steve - The Beijing Ol… 19:47 Beginner 2

#219 Mark & Steve - The U.S. Elect… 16:14 Beginner 2

#220 Steve & Mark - Great News Sit… 18:25 Beginner 2

#221 Steve & Mark – Controlled Ana… 16:47 Beginner 2

#222 Steve & Mark – World Financia… 19:08 Beginner 2

#223 Steve & Tom – Joking Around 15:35 Beginner 2

#224 Steve & Jill - Jill Stops By 6:03 Beginner 2

#225 Tom Talks to Steve about His … 11:29 Beginner 2

#226 Tom and Steve Talk about the … 15:06 Beginner 2

#227 Mark & Steve – Traveling Euro… 16:41 Beginner 2

#229 Mark & Steve - Skiing Big Whi… 17:44 Beginner 2

#230 Mark & Steve – Blatant Self-P… 15:16 Beginner 2

#231 Mark & Steve – Barack Obama 15:45 Beginner 2

#232 Mark & Steve – Learning to Sp… 16:29 Beginner 1

#233 Mark & Steve – Political Corr… 18:47 Beginner 2

#234 Mark & Steve – Are Kids Overp… 14:38 Beginner 2

#235 Steve on the Jon and Mary Rad… 4:33 Beginner 2

#236 Steve on Radio in Kansas City… 22:20 Beginner 2

#237 Mark & Steve – Childhood Obes… 21:24 Beginner 2

#240 Mark & Steve – Financial Cris… 20:47 Beginner 2

#241 Mark & Steve – Swine Flu 18:17 Beginner 2

#243 Mark & Steve – Politics and D… 14:36 Beginner 2

#244 Mark & Steve – Politics and D… 12:56 Beginner 2

#245 Steve & Mark – Official Langu… 20:13 Beginner 2

#246 Steve & Mark – NHL Playoffs 20:32 Beginner 2

#247 Mark & Steve – Energy 17:53 Beginner 2

#248 Mark & Steve – Dentists and I… 18:17 Beginner 2

#249 Mark & Steve – The Lake, a Bo… 20:20 Beginner 2

2

The link of the collection EnglishLingQ in English library is

3

I also feel that the level for some lessons is not appropriate. For example, the first lesson of the “Who is she?” series in Italian already features some linguistical issues like courtesy forms, that a Beginner 1 student is not expected to understand. If I had shared that lesson, maybe I would have labelled it as “Beginner 2”.
Maybe it would be useful to create more levels (or even a different system) or to give better guidelines on how to select the level of a lesson.

4

There are many lessons with the wrong level, quite possibly these levels were automatically set based on words frequency, and the results were not good.

Changing them is a big job. We welcome members to come forward and offer to change them for us. Please let us know and we will make you an editor, (give you a pencil). This can be done by native speakers and learners alike.

5

Who is She is fine where it is.

A beginner lesson just needs to be short, most of the vocabulary should be quite basic, and the story fairly uncomplicated. We do not need to spoon feed learners. In my opinion it is not possible, nor necessary to make sure that only simple linguistical issues are introduced. That is not the case in the real world either.

I like Who is She because it introduces a lot of subjunctive and tense issues. If the learner listens over and over, saves the words, etc, everything will gradually clear up. Also, since the learner should listen to these beginner lessons many many times, the phrases learned here tend to stick for a long time, and with them the patterns.

6

where is beginner 2 ?? i can not find :\

7

Have you looked in the library? You can choose which level of material you want to see, just click the box for the level you want to read. Good luck!

8

Finding content at the appropriate difficulty level might be easier if the library showed the fraction of unknown words (i.e. blue plus yellow words) in a lesson instead of the number of new words (a quantity I find completely useless for me when choosing a lesson).

2 Likes
9

I dream to have a possibility to find lessons including the range of unknown words in percents. For example, lessons with 17-19% of unknown words. It’s not harder to implement than the existing list of check boxes.

10

One day we will do things to improve the Library but for now is it not enough to select the new words percentage from the filters? After all this is not science, one lesson may have more place names or different forms of words that you know and other lessons may have more genuinely new words.

11

We used to count the number of LingQs but each calculation slows down the site. I find the new words to be the best indicator of the difficulty of a text. If I read enough I become familiar with my yellow words and the number of them really does not influence the level of difficulty for me.

12

New Words Percent
1 - 5%
5 - 10%
10 - 15%
15 - 25%
> 25%

Most of my new lessons have 15 - 25% of unknown words. I would like to split it into 15-20% and 20-25% or to introduce the ability of choosing any range.

13

To be honest, I didn’t know one could do this. (facepalm)