How you can make your progess visible with a tracking routine

Here on the Fluent Language blog, we have previously covered the idea of invisible progress and how it affects your motivation. No language learner will find it easy to maintain high motivation and dedication when they feel like they are going along without much direction. So how do we make the progress a little more visible?

This is a look behind the scenes of a language tutor's work - all the prep and track work that students might not see, but that will be an important part of the service. My aim is not just to help my students learn, but to keep them going and keep an eye on what's already been covered and I do track every lesson. 

The Eureka moment doesn't come without Eureka work

Think Outliers and practice hours and remember that you are working systematically towards the moment when it all falls into place. Not as beautiful a story, but achievable.

Here are a few steps that you as the language learner can take in order to keep track and stay motivated. 

©dmachiavello on Flickr

Step 1: Decide where and how you will keep track

You will need a consistent place to do this, and one that is easy to use and very accessible. Basically, what we are looking for is a template which can be as low-key as a desk calendar or as high-powered as Evernote.

The important things are as follows:

• Make sure it's accessible enough for you to use all the time. If you travel, a paper notebook might be better than an app that needs to be online all the time. 
• Make it consistent, so that once the template works for you, you'll only need to fill it in. Predicability is key here. 

For me, formatting and printability were more important than universal access so I settled on creating a template that works for me, in MS Word. 

Step 2: Write desired objectives

Self-taught learners in particular should have an idea of where they want to get to. The key to planning is to mke sure your objectives actually make sense. So write down a 1 month goal, a 3 month goal and a 12 month goal. This can be as poetic as you like, so "Have a conversation with a real German market trader" can go up there.

Step 3: Break it down into smaller tasks

I insist that you cannot actually have that market chat without taking lots of individual steps, and here's how I may break them down: 

1. Learn all the numbers and currencies
2. Cover question making strategies in German grammar
3. Select items I would like to buy
4. Learn words for products
5. Learn market-relevant verbs and phrases
6. Arrange for travel to the German market

You should be looking at the long-term goal and breaking it down into smaller steps, then list the smaller steps as SMART goals.

Smaller steps for arranging travel to the German market?  

• Research German market towns
• Choose trip destination
• Ensure trip dates match market opening times
• Choose travel companion
• Book flights
• Book accommodation
• Exchange money
• Sort out visas
• Leave space in my suitcase for purchases from German market

If it looks so simple that it's all obvious now, remember your original goal was to talk to a German market trader. How did you think that was going to happen? 

Step 4: Check in regularly

The check in dates are the ones you chose in your objectives, and you are looking for an idea of how much closer you have come to the overall goal. These check ins are a great contribution to knowing whether your language learning project is running on time or behind, and they will also give you a chance to fix anything that's going very wrong. 

Should you be checking in and realising you've been way too ambitious, you only need to stay calm and work out what you actually got done. That's your realistic working pace. Apply it to future goals, without judgement. You will now know if you can achieve the end goal in a year or not, and will be able to add 2 months on at the end if required.  

Plan, Track and Optimise With The Language Habit Toolkit

If you want a step-by-step guide to creating your personal language learning system, check out the Language Habit Toolkit, featuring language trackers, goal-setting guides and a review sheet to help you cut out the unnecessary and speed up your progress to fluently communicating in any language.

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Fun and Motivation: Meet Mickey Mangan, host of the Lernen to Talk show

This week, I'm very pleased to share the story and successes of Mickey Mangan.

Mickey is best known on the internet as the host of the Lernen to Talk show. He has done all of us language learners a big favour by charting his progress as a native English speaker learning German during a year of living in Germany and taking his language skills from very basic to very comfortable.

If you have never seen or heard of the LTTS, I recommend you watch Mickey's own short introduction to the show.

I had the pleasure of speaking to him last week, highlights of which will be available to watch on Wednesday. (Note this interview is written as paraphrases, not word for word transcripts of Mickey's answers.)

Hey Mickey, thanks for chatting to me! I am definitely a fan of LTTS and I get a lot out of the episodes both as a teacher and as an expat getting to see her home country in real life snapshots. You mention right at the start that your goal is to show others how much improvement attacking a language like a fun, passionate project can bring. Are you a linguist by trade?

No, I actually went to university and took Mechanical Engineering. My first foreign language was Spanish, and I would say that yes, I liked it at school but after all those hours leading me to high school graduation I still didn't feel as though I could actually speak any of it. Think about it - that's approximately 1000 hours spent on a language and the result didn't feel like anything resembling fluency. I was left with a sense of wasted time.

“I made the most of every day and I had such fun using the language in real life.”

When I went on to university, the desire to make all those hours count stuck with me, and so I enrolled on a Study Abroad semester in Chile. That was my first experience of living in a country and going from these low-level speaking skills to full confidence (what many people would consider fluent). I made the most of every day and I had such fun using the language in real life.

Did you take Spanish in the partner university in Chile?

I took Engineering modules, but the experience of my own subject paled in comparison to the energy and stimulation I felt from focusing on understanding it all in Spanish. I found myself doing better at my own subject because it was taught in another language. That extra challenge just kick-started my interest.

On my return from Chile, I was filled such excitement and appreciation for taking the learning experience into real life that I just wanted to go abroad again and learn another language.

Was that the motivation behind LTTS as well?

Yes and no. My semester in Chile gave me a clear appreciation of how much and how fast progress in language learning can be made. But the real idea for LTTS came at summer camp!

I had a job as a counsellor at Concordia LV, a camp which provides this immersive foreign language experience for children. When I was there, I could see that those students who really signed on to making the most out of camp were the ones that improved the most. I wanted to show them what can be achieved in language learning by talking to people, and eventually the idea of the videos was born.

Fast forward to your trip to Germany. How and why Germany?

The programme was CBYX. It had a lot of attractive aspects for me in particular, being an engineer interested in sustainable energy sources for example.

“The point of the Lernen to Talk show is having fun and instilling motivation.”

And in the LTTS videos, you have managed to document a full year of language improvements. Did you ever feel that you might not achieve your goal?

Actually, I must say I knew with 100% certainty that I would be fluent in German within a year. In fact, as I was filming the LTTS I always had the final time lapse in mind - I couldn't wait to cut the videos together and just show all this progress. I felt that having this as a project and attacking it with a sense of fun really kept my motivation going. The point of LTTS is having fun and instilling motivation.

And from the comments that you receive on your videos, I can tell that it has worked!

Finally, I noticed how confident you are right from the start. How aware were you of your own progress?

I didn't feel it very strongly in the first two months, but after those two I moved to a different place and suddenly made contact with so many new people who all met me for the first time. They were so impressed with how much German I had learnt in just two months that it really boosted my confidence. Progress can be so microscopically incremental for a language learner that I would really say the best way to stay encouraged is to change your environment completely. Find a new person to practice with or join a new group, so that you can get the positive feedback.

“Progress can be so incremental for a language learner that the best way to stay encouraged is to change your environment completely.”

— (my favourite thing Mickey said)

So, now that your CBYX year has come to an end, would you say you're "done", a finished product now fluent in German?

Well. I would confidently write "fluent" next to my German and Spanish on my CV - but fluent is a meaningless word by most measures - but really I wouldn't say I'm fluent until I can fully enjoy a novel in the language.  With progress comes more interest and motivation, so now I want to discover Goethe.

Why you must train 4 skills to achieve fluency

Ask most language learners what they are hoping to achieve, and you will come across a recurring ambition: fluency. The word fluent comes from the Latin language and indicates a sense of flow, because that's what conversations often do: they flow. So what you're hoping to achieve is a point where using another language becomes so easy that you won't have to hesitate, you won't look for words all the time and won't feel stuck.

If you are an independent learner, have you ever found yourself off balance? For example, you find yourself becoming a real expert in understanding spoken language, but a wall comes up in your brain as soon as you try to say the simplest of things. Or sometimes you have picked up a lot of spoken language and you'd be ok at the shop, but you can't read a single label!

Four Core Skills

As a language tutor, I make my students aware that there are four core skills to language learning: Speaking, Reading, Listening and Writing. You have got to become good at all of them and keep your levels balanced to prepare for true fluency in a language.

One example: Audio-based systems, such as CDs or podcasts, will put a lot of emphasis on speaking and listening. This is excellent for basic travelling or conversation. But it is enough if you really want to find that elusive fluency in your new language? Personally, I don't think so. Neglecting two of the four skills can really affect your confidence!

Since these core skills are ever so important, why don't we get to know them a little better:

Writing doesn't just refer to how good you are at composing a letter, note or blog post. It also includes your sound recognition. For example, how good are you at making notes based on what you're hearing, spelling them correctly and writing something legible in your target language.

Speaking, now that sounds hard doesn't it? It's not all about producing free-hand sentences and word order. Speaking starts when you meet the sounds of your target language. Pronunciation and accent work breed confidence, and putting that speaking practice in right from the start is key to helping you feel like communication is possible.

Listening is the skill of piecing together all the foreign sounds, analysing them in your mind and making sense of them as words and phrases. Listening helps you get the idea of what's going on, but more importantly it teaches you important pronunciation skills. All language production depends on what you hear, so don't underestimate this one.

Reading looks like a simple task after all those others. In any target language, the essence of this skill is in training you to spot patterns. Reading a lot will bring you in tune with the way sentences are built in a different language, and exercises engaging with a text are among the most useful you can work on for becoming fluent.

On top of learning those, you should engage with the culture, civics and geography of your target language. It really is a tall order, but trust me, it's worth it. You'll finally get over those "errrrr" moments.

How to test yourself

Ommm...find your balance, young deshi.​

Here is an exercise I work on together with a lot of my learners. It's perfect for exposing a training rut or giving you inspiration for a new challenge. Draw yourself a diagram of all the skills you're hoping to train. Think about them and rate yourself out of 10 in each one. Then consult someone like a teacher or language buddy - what do they think? The outside perspective of another learner or a native speaker adds real value to the assessment.

Write your numbers on the diagram - are they balanced? Do you have a particular weakness or strength? Then think about how you have learnt your language so far, and what kind of exercises you've done most, and perhaps what you've been missing. For more exercises getting you ready to target your core skills, please check out my forthcoming ebook.

Thanks for reading this article!

Please have a look around other extremely useful articles on the blog by visiting the blog topics page or skipping straight to the Must Read content. Popular posts include:

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Helau! Inside German Carnival

You may have heard that some countries have a fifth season of some kind. Maybe monsoon season or the time of the cherry blossoms. But did you know that right in the heart of Europe the serious, hard-working* Germans celebrate their own fifth season called carnival?

Deutsche Welle has made a fun little video introducing the uninitiated to one of our most fabulous traditions:

The celebration is called Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht - different regions give it different names. It starts with womens' thursday (Weiberdonnerstag), when women are allowed to cut off the tie of any man they encounter! It's followed by mock-serious carnival conventions all throughout the weekend, where the "carnival president" makes a speech called the Büttenrede and a fake army performs dances while the audience get to drink, laugh and sway with linked arms.

On the Monday (Rosenmontag), the country has a day off work and school in order to attend processions where you do more dancing and singing and admire themed floats and costumes. Everybody shouts Helau! or Alaaf! and the children receive sweets which are thrown from the procession - called Kamelle, so if you're ever in Germany at this time make sure you shout the right thing.

The biggest and most famous capital city is Köln (Cologne), where hundreds of thousands will come together today to admire the Rosenmontagszug. I kind of wish I was there...

Germany is not the only country in Europe that dedicates itself to celebrating carnival - you can find parades and fun in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and many other countries too.

Let's enjoy these two days of fun and fancy dress with classic carnival songs, because on Ash Wednesday (Aschermittwoch) it's all over!

Helau!

*All stereotypes!

How can Music help you learn a Language? - Part 3: Musical Hacks

IMG credit: www.courtneycarmody.com

The following is the next instalment in my series looking at how music can help you get better in a foreign language. We looked at the way it transports you to the heart of the culture in your target country, and a great method for getting to know new words and practicing structures through song. In the final part, I wanted to share some more ingenious ways to use music for learning with you. These are my musical hacks.

1) Join a choir, sing vocal harmonies

A few years ago, I was in Poland with a group of other travellers and got chatting to a British girl who had studied French and German. We both had good fun trying to pick up a few Polish phrases and others had remarked on our good pronunciation skills. In the course of an evening at the pub, she presented me with the theory that our common hobby of choir singing could have something to do with our pronunciation and copying skills. In fact, to me this has always rung true, and in fact there are scientific studies looking into this "listen and copy" training method.

Your listening and copying skills are invaluable tools for language learning. You will need them to

• become familiar with pronunciation
• develop conversation skills
• get comfortable listening to yourself and others
• apply rules and instructions to produce sounds.

Singing in harmony with other vocal performers trains you to make sure you know the sounds they are producing. So for this musical hack, I recommend that you make your local choir into your new best friends. You will reproduce melodies and ensure that you observe and develop other sound producers (singers, speakers). Some choirs even use sign language to accompany the sung words, and many will feature pieces of music in foreign languages. Not only will it train the essential listen and copy skills, but you'll also learn to sing in a new language.

2) Make up your own jingle

Have you ever come across an earworm? It's a piece or section of music that gets stuck and plays over and over in your head. Use this repetition to practice by singing your vocab and getting that stuck in your head.

Every language has its own rhythm and melody, and building that into your jingle is a powerful thing. If you are feeling a little apprehensive starting this off, try a really well-known song. How about Gangnam Style? Listen here:

That was me practicing some Russian with a song stuck in everyone's head.

Advanced learners

Your option for this could be to translate some lines from your favourite song and sing them in the target language. For inspiration, maybe try the "Call Me Maybe" polyglot video.

Use a microphone or voice recording app to compare your pronunciation to the real speakers', and catch yourself in a moment where you were not worrying about getting it right or wrong because you are too busy trying to sing in time with the music.

3) Jam

Building a "jamming" session into your learning experience is a low-pressure way of letting go and allowing yourself to experiment. You need a little creativity for this, but there are no goals - just have fun and experiment.

Some ideas; Sing a song with your language partner (from Italki or Verbling for example). Learn the days of the week using notes from musical scales. Raid youtube for a foreign language song, use it as your alarm tune for a week, then write down all the words and translate them.

So that's it, I hope you enjoyed these posts as much as I did. As ever, I love hearing from you and if you enjoyed this post, please consider joining my newsletter crowd!

Further Reading

• 7 reasons why you should sing to learn languages.. by Benny Lewis
• Language Learning Tip: Use Music to Learn a Foreign Language by The Everyday Language Learner
• Tools to Learn Spanish #2 – Practicing Spanish with Lyrics Training on Fair Languages