Lindsay Dow's "Successful Self-Study" Course - A Full Review

Hi everyone, and strap yourselves in for today's review post all about a new course released by Lindsay from Lindsay does Languages. The course is called Successful Self Study, and it's all about every single step you need to follow for teaching yourself a language.

If you're a solo language learner hoping to meet an ambitious goal this year, read on to discover how Successful Self Study makes language learning easier.

Is This Instructor Worth Your Time?

You'll already know that Lindsay is my co-host on the Creative Language Learning Podcast. Lindsay is British, but she's one of the language-craziest people I know. She has studied over 8 foreign languages,.

Last year, she completed a self-directed university degree at the Open University. This means the end of 6 years doing a distance-learning course - the pinnacle of self study! And at the end of those 6 years, Lindsay has mastered a skill that so many of us struggle with: how to focus on your language studies and make real progress.

So before I go any further, let's go full disclosure: I have a lot of time for this person, and I believe she's totally trustworthy when it comes to language learning.

Lindsay has created the new course Successful Self Study, and allowed me a Sneak Preview so I can review it for you today.

The TL;DR Version: 7 Things You Need to Know

1. This course is perfect if you're trying to learn a language by yourself and you struggle with

   1. Having no time to study
   2. Getting distracted all the time
   3. Loneliness
   4. Lacking the commitment to your studies
   5. Feeling like you're stuck
   6. Over-researching and reading too many "guides to language mastery"
2. It's great value when you add up 60 items, consisting of videos + guides + the most incredible workbook I've ever seen + a private online community + downloadable bonuses
3. The thing is this: If you're learning a language by yourself, this is going to save you so much money and time in the long run that it would be ridiculous to mess around on Facebook's "Polyglot Procrastination" forums any longer
4. I liked the course structure and found that the approach throughout is totally about the practice - this is designed to make you do stuff!
5. It contains 3 amazing webinars, including my excellent goal-setting class with Lindsay that we held right at the start of the new year
6. That workbook really is the BEST language learning book I've ever seen, and I wish I could go into a book shop and buy a printed version. Do yourself a favour and download it today
7. Overall rating: 4.5/5

If you're ready to find out more and see the full curriculum, head over to Lindsay's site and watch the first video.

If you want to know more about what's inside Successful Self Study, let's have a look together.

The Look and Experience

This course is a combination of videos, workbooks, audio, and some extra downloads. It's hosted on the Teachable platform, which I can only applaud as this is what I chose as your best experience for the Fluent courses, too. The video selection is 50% Lindsay's friendly vlogging style and 50% screencast videos which demonstrate how different apps work.

The audio sections are going to be downloadable so you can listen and learn on the go (I haven't heard these yet, but they are announced for the release date.)

What's Inside The Course?

This course is divided into three main section, prefaced by a cute little introduction featuring Lindsay's own story as your instructor.

Section 1: Study Skills

The first section of the course is a short tour of the best practice in studying a foreign language by yourself.

The topic breaks down into aspects like motivation, productivity and how to build a language learning habit for the long haul. This section is what you think you already know, until you find yourself googling "how to speak a language tips" because you actually don't. Nice and useful to have it all in one place, and Lindsay definitely speaks from experience.

There's a definite focus on developing a routine, and it's just perfect for you if you're someone who needs to make every minute count. She's thought of every possible question: motivation, time management, confidence, productivity. It's like a secret library of self study shortcuts.

The course section can be kind of intense if you apply it all in one go, so remember that you have lifetime access and take it step by step. But you know...if we all wanted an easy hobby, we'd be Netflixing and not learning languages.

Section 2: Language Skills

Okay, this is a strange one for me but I bet you're going to like it lots. The second part of Successful Self Study is all about getting into learning a language (not just anything). It's structured perfectly featuring the 4 core skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) together with vocabulary and grammar. Exactly how I would do it!

Lindsay is super practical She doesn't waste too much time telling you why each aspect matters, instead the approach here is this:

If we know we gotta do this thing, how can be make it the easiest thing ever?

As a result, it's motivating and very actionable. Within just a few minutes of watching these videos, I promise you're going to be excited to try out new tools and jump deeply into your new language.

She recommends the best possible tools for every aspect, so that you can come away with a roadmap for learning vocabulary, grammar, and every important language skill you need for fluency.

Section 2 is my favourite because it's the most "language-nerdy". I like background and research about what works for us from a scientific or social perspective. This isn't covered in the videos, but easily accessible with links to Lindsay's best articles around the web.

Section 3: Tech Training

The list of tech training resources is excellent - overall she's demonstrating 11 different websites, apps and tools. None of them costs any money at all, so this is like the ticket to the biggest free online playground you've ever seen. You're guaranteed to find something new to try - my favourites were Periscope and italki.

Some of these videos felt pretty basic and could be a little shorter. Things like joining Facebook groups seem obvious, and many of you have done this already. Having said that, remember that I'm pretty tech-savvy, I write a blog and it's my job to know this stuff.

I don't think as a learner you need to become hung up on the two videos about the tool you already knew. Use this section in line with your own priorities, and you'll have saved yourself a likely 300 hours of googling over the next year.

The key is that you don't just find it, but you do something with it. And the way Lindsay builds in this accountability is absolutely fantastic - let me tell you more!

Now THIS Is Going To Double Your Productivity

The absolute key to a course with so much content is to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Lindsay doesn't tell you when, how, or for how long you should work on this.

But this doesn't mean that you're left alone. Quite the contrary!

The course structure and delivery are solid, and Lindsay concludes every single lecture with an actionable exercise - you don't get to be passive. As a fellow online teacher, I rate this a very good thing.

The one thing you have GOT to do right after sitting down and clicking the purchase button (if you choose to) is download that amazing workbook.

It's an editable PDF. But that description does it no justice. Let me try and say it differently.

I Love This Self Study Workbook!!!!

This workbook is the single most awesome self study language learning resource I've ever seen. If you are one of the people who liked the 3-Week Planner in Fluency Made Achievable, you are going to faint with excitement at the sight of this thing.

I would really hate for super-keen learners to discover it halfway through the course. So do yourself a favour and listen to me here: You want to download this and have it by your side as the course companion, as it contains every planning worksheet, printout, notes section, EVERYTHING.

The one thing it was missing at the time I tested it was a table of contents to help you navigate through the book, but Lindsay has promised to add this in the next edition.

You can choose to have the workbook with you and make your notes on the computer, or to print it out. In fact, send the PDF to my local printer and have it bound. The workbook is just really, really good.

Bonuses

The bonus section contains starter credit for italki and HelloTalk plus four webinars with a bunch of experienced and knowledgeable guests (spot me and my super-cool hoodie) on topics like goal-setting and maintaining motivation.

Conclusion

Yep, we've got to a conclusion stage at the end of this super-detailed review.

Successful Self Study ratings:

• For structure and engagement (workbook!), it's 5/5.
• For video quality, it's 5/5.
• The tech training is a 3/5 in my book, because I would skip a lot of it.

For the results you can expect from taking this course, it's 5/5 because if you do the work, it is guaranteed to

• help you learn a language quickly
• teach you that discipline so you don't feel overwhelmed and busy
• boost your confidence so you actually start speaking within a few weeks
• save you money - with all the tools, a new langauge can be studied very cheaply.

Overall rating: 4.5/5 - highly recommended for anyone new to studying by themselves or struggling because life is busy. So that's all of us then.

How to Get Started

You can join Lindsay's Course Successful Self Study today.

It's easy peasy:

1. Follow this link to get to the course page and select the yellow course
2. Click "Enroll in Course"

2017 Update: Lindsay has recently updated this course and added a huge amount of bonus content, including training for grammar, better reading, speaking, listening, and lots more. It's priced at $120 which currently represents ENORMOUS value. Go forth and try it - well done, Lindsay!

Here's that sign-up link again: http://www.fluentlanguage.co.uk/selfstudycourse

So you're getting

• the world's most awesome workbook
• tech training
• 6 language study videos
• membership in a private online community of language learnears
• bonus webinars
• PDF guides to help you master language exchanges, YouTube & more
• practical self study tutorials
• my audiobook.

Compare that to $500 spent on Rosetta Stone, or at your local Goethe institute. WHOAH. Go for it.

Tell Me More!

Have you joined Successful Self Study? How did you find it? I'd love to hear what you thought in the comments below.

*This offer's good throughout 2017.

Olly Richards' Language Learning Foundations Course reviewed in Full

In every language learning story, there comes a moment where you start wondering whether you’re doing things in the right way. You may start off with a burst of inspiration and the certainty that you’ll be fluent in just a few months. Then weird things start to happen. You wonder how to work less, remember more, and whether you’re cut out for studying every day. You miss a day, you google “is this normal?”.

And before you know it, you’re caught in “what the hell should I do?” territory feeling like a loser.

If any of that kind of feeling sounds familiar, let me tell you one thing: You don’t need any more theories. You need to start doing sensible things and following simple steps. In today’s review, I want to share a course that is all about teaching those simple steps.

Course Structure

Language Learning Foundations by Olly Richards is offered through his popular site iwillteachyoualanguage.com. It is not a huge course that will take you weeks to complete. It consists of 10 video lectures. You could block yourself off half a rainy Saturday, get comfortable with a laptop and use the time to overhaul your whole language routine. I’d say that’s a lot better than overloading your whole system.

Language Learning Foundations answers some of the most common questions that I see language learners ask all the time, and in this course you will get some answers that really help you out. Olly provides tips and instructions that will help you learn more effectively and achieve your goals a little faster.

Every training video and slideshow can be downloaded. They require some concentration from you, but I was impressed because they were all designed for real life. There's no dry theory here, instead you get tips that you can apply immediately.

How to make progress and not get distracted

For example, Module 3 is called “How to make progress and not get distracted”. Olly goes into detail here about how to get started, advising first of all on the best criteria for a helpful textbook or resource. This alone could save you hours of failed attempts with materials that just don't work. He then brings a bunch of solid arguments for why learners should select this type of resource, and what makes them different from other higgledy-piggledy types of approaches.

In the same module, Olly then moves on to sharing his own views on what your learning mindset should be when working with materials such as textbooks. Finally, there's an exact strategy for the actions you should take with textbook dialogues and audio examples. His advice is very detailed and focused throughout, it's the real deal and so helpful if you want to know how to learn a language independently.

Each module’s video takes 10-15 minutes to watch, but I think you should allow a quarter hour to digest their content afterwards and really think about how you’ll apply what Olly just discussed.

What’s in the package?

Olly has put together two different course packages, starting from just $47 which is a kick-ass price for a course that will enable you to learn without Rosetta Stone, without classes, without hand-holding. You can even upgrade the course to get an ebook version and audio training so you can learn away from your computer. He also offers interviews with four experts:

• Alex Rawlings (only the most multilingual student in Britain!)
• Richard Simcott
• Chris Parker (famously fluent in Mandarin Chinese) and
• …me as the language learning and teaching poster girl.

Olly’s interview with me was excellent. He asked intelligent questions, made sure every answer I gave was practical and useful for all learners, and our conversation goes perfectly with what this course is all about. So in other words, if you have the extra pennies to invest in these expert videos, go for it.

The slides and audio quality are fabulous throughout, by the way, and Olly also does that thing I love in video teachers: he shows his face regularly and speaks to you as the learner so you know this is your dedicated instructor.

Who’s it for?

Language Learning Foundations is designed so it can benefit any learner, especially beginners or those who are keen to reach dizzy polyglot heights.

A course like this is best if you’ve never enjoyed formal language training and you want to learn a language in your own way.

If you hated language learning in school, then you will enjoy Language Learning Foundations.

Conclusion

Olly has gone into great detail in his language learning course. He is a teacher and language blogger and speaks 7 languages himself. The course is for those who are looking for the best method to teach them skills for learning a language independently.

At the end of Language Learning Foundations, you will

• Know specific techniques for setting your intentions, staying motivated and experiencing language learning success
• Be able to select the perfect materials FOR YOU and know how to cut through empty promises
• Feel confident and ready to tackle the world in a new language
• Have solid foundations for cutting out the things in language learning that have always frustrated you

It is an incredibly friendly experience, so go and try out Language Learning Foundations if you’re new to language learning.

You can purchase the basic or extended video course versions from Olly’s course page.

Thanks for reading this article on Fluent, the Language Learning Blog. The links in this article are affiliate links and support Fluent without costing you any more money. My review is not paid for and being an affiliate did not affect the content.

It's a free app loved by millions. Is Duolingo wasting your time?

If you enjoy this article and topic, check out my 2017 update 3 Tutor-Approved Ideas for Improving Your Duolingo Experience, which discusses where language learning is at right now.

Whenever I hear that someone new is starting language learning, I get excited. They’re about to enter into this world of verbs and nouns, expressions and exclamations, new culture and new countries. When I hear you say “I’ve started learning a new language”, I want to give you a big ol’ high five.

That is, until you mention Duolingo. The little app with the friendly owl has become the absolute go-to resource for newbies trying to acquire any language. It’s free, it’s accessible and it is based on solid research. What’s not to love, right?

Here is the thing: I don’t love Duolingo. In fact, I don’t get it. I want to enjoy using this little app. I want to be part of the club of people who sit in a doctor’s waiting room levelling up their vocab, but somehow I just don’t get it. In today’s post, I’m going to try and give you some insight into what it is that is making Duolingo so unattractive to me. And by unattractive, I don’t just mean that I personally don’t want to use it. It’s that I actively stay away from recommending it to people as their first language learning contact. When someone asks me how they can get started learning a new language, I don’t want them to start with the Duolingo app. Why?

1. It’s not the Interface

Duolingo is well-designed, pretty, engaging and takes away a lot of the “dusty books” image from learning. It’s an app designed for modern consumers. The mascot is very cute too, so there is very little to dislike about how Duolingo is designed.

2. It’s not the Gamification

Personally, I don’t feel that giving a language learner three lives to pass a lesson is an idea that you’d ever get away with in real life. Imagine if I carried that message into my lessons? Three errors and you’re out? Same error three times, let me start you again? If any IRL teacher did this to a student, they’d be asked to come in for a review with the pedagogy council. If nothing else, the “three lives” concept can actually deter a student from really learning something by understanding it. It prompts learners to guess their way through lessons by remembering what isn’t correct. The addictive nature of game playing makes it tempting to try again, but it doesn’t help with linguistic understanding.

Now why is this not a huge problem with the app? The thing is it seems to be what millions of people want. People enjoy the gameplay aspect of Duolingo so much that its user base grows every single day. And there’s no arguing with the masses. Maybe the gamification aspect is an ineffective gimmick, but it does make language learning accessible. I would argue that it doesn’t make it more fun, but if a label says “game” on it, you’re just more likely to try.

In other words: I don’t think you need a language learning game in your life, but I like that it makes you want to play.

3. It’s not the Business Model

In Episode 12 of the podcast, Chris Broholm and I touched on Duolingo’s business model, which includes selling user generated translations in exchange for providing free language training. I’m not 100% comfortable with this, partly because we would all be up in arms if Flickr or Facebook did it. Paying with your information is an accepted economic fact on the 21st century internet. In effect, Duolingo is not free. It just doesn’t take your money. As long as you're aware of it as a user, then go for it.

2017 update: Duolingo's business model is always evolving, and I feel confident that this is bringing lots of improvements and more transparency than ever. Thank you, Duolingo.

4. It’s not the Results

Hey, if there have been studies saying that this works then I am not qualified to argue. Duolingo officially works for getting people to do well on tests. In fact, I think as a pronunciation trainer it is doing a pretty good job. Will the system make you love your new language? Will it make you excited to go out and speak, or to read road signs from abroad? Those are the results I care about when a language learning app comes out, but they’re a lot tougher to measure.

So what is my problem?

Here we get to the nitty-gritty of what drives me crazy about Duolingo. Not the general issues or concepts, but the real reasons that I close down the app within minutes of opening it.

2017 Update: If you would like to learn more about how to overcome the problems below, check out the updated Tips for Improving Your Duolingo Experience.

1. It’s the Vocab

Duolingo telling me what my problem is.

When I first started with Duolingo, I tested right into lesson 52 of French. This got me to a vocab level where the app thinks I should handle the following sentences:

“We needed fire.”, “You have to be big.”, “You must eat more.”

I’m not sure that I could come up with many sentences that I am even less likely to use in my life, or to enjoy translating. Because the app generates its sentences automatically, you don’t really get anything that’s very in-depth. In fact, this sentence from a critical review over at Hacking Portuguese sums it up perfectly for me:

The sentences are so far removed from anything that you might actually want to use in conversation that I doubt how much value there is in rote translation.

2. It’s the Translation Pre-Sets

Now, again this is the complaint of an accomplished language learner and not a beginner. I understand that Duolingo isn’t really built with me in mind. For the sake of this post, I tried out both a language I’m proficient at (French) and one that I didn’t know well at all (Danish). Yet I feel it’s justified to complain if they’re going to offer high-level grammatical structures that no one encounters before year 3 or 4 of French, then the computer just needs to become better at knowing that there is way more than one possible translation for most sentences. For a system that builds user habit and loyalty based on little hearts, I lose way too many hearts because I phrase my answers slightly differently than the computer wants me to do this. This is so incredibly frustrating, and so far removed from a joyful and challenging approach to language acquisition that it makes me want to shut down the app straight away.

3. It’s the Machine

I cannot tell you how much I dislike the computer voice. It doesn’t intone, it doesn’t emote, it’s just blank. A blank canvas of words coming at me. Who learns a language for that? Languages are about people. I wish they’d play and work with snippets from media shows or real people’s recordings. Just think of the big efforts Audio Lingua and Rhinospike are making in this area, and you can see that automated heartless computer voices really don’t need to be used in automated language instruction.

Whenever I switch on Duolingo, I get to a place that sits between boredom and outright irritation. Its mechanical, box-ticking structure reminds me of the worst in education, when learners are simply put in front of a multiple choice test and made to regurgitate whatever they had crammed into their minds before. This is not what language learning is about, and this is not how to become good at it. I just straight out refuse to believe that Duolingo can incite the same excitement that a book, a conversation or a foreign tv show could. It doesn’t do it for me.

4. It’s the Lack of Explanations

So here is the thing: Immersion is fine, but I don’t think it’s the answer to all of an adult learner’s language issues. Starting with this app means making up your own explanations for why things are right, it means trial and error. I get the sense that here is where “immersion” becomes completely pointless. In this app, you learn by parroting phrases without even beginning to cover the background stories that grammar and pragmatics tell. I have seen so many forum posts and emails from language learners who felt like they were completely losing the plot and ever wondering “Why am I getting this bit wrong?”. Duolingo would make me so much happier if it provided grammar references, even the most basic ones, and a perspective telling the user “Here’s why people say things this way”. I just cannot fathom how any self-respecting adult learner would put themselves in this babylike position where they simply take the word of a robot as the law. Language learning should make you curious, while this feels to me like it wants to create robots.

Perhaps surprisingly, the aspect of explanation is another thing that the Tell Me More version of Rosetta Stone has been doing rather well. Rosetta certainly isn’t free, but I think it is not comparable.

In Conclusion

This review of Duolingo might fly in the face of what many language beginners experience when they first start interacting with the app. In fact, our regular writer Angel has recently shared her own experiences and lauded Duolingo for a lot of the good stuff it does. The “learning game for adults” aspect of the app is brilliant, and I commend Duolingo for giving millions of people something to do when they feel a little bored online.

I've recently examined Duolingo's advantages in this article, which is exactly how to use this app to really learn a language.

My thoughts come from the point of view of a language teacher, someone who wants people to get into feeling the language instead of simply mastering its technical aspects. Just like the promise of fluency that many tools throw at you, I want you to feel that you have a right to make up your own mind about the Duolingo system. You can use this once a week, you can use it intensively for a few days and run out of steam, or you can just never try at all. Whatever you do, it won’t make you a better or worse language learner.

You’re not going about this the wrong way - in fact, if you are just getting started with a new language, here’s my advice: don't make Duolingo your first stop because it's too likely to be your last. There are lots of cheap ways to start learning a language, so make sure that you put something into place that really is productive and doesn’t just feel that way because you earn 200 meaningless points on an app every day.

Have you had good experiences using Duolingo? Have you stuck with it for more than two weeks? I'm sure there are many ways in which you could argue I'm wrong, and I'd love to hear a few in the comments.

If you Enjoyed This Article..

• Check out my 2017 update 3 Tutor-Approved Ideas for Improving Your Duolingo Experience, which discusses where language learning is at right now.

• You will love 12 Ideas For Making the Perfect Language Learning App - what do you think about my ideas?

And finally, I also recorded a podcast episode full of ideas about what you can do when/if you start to get bored by Duolingo.

If you enjoyed this article, HIGH FIVE! Why not sign up to my newsletter and read more news from my world? I look forward to seeing you on the road to fluency.

New Podcast! Randy Glover on Rosetta Stone, Starting at 57 and Why You Should Not Give Up

The new Fluent Language Podcast is out now. We are on episode 6, and I have got something unusual for you. I'm interviewing one of my own students - not a language tutor, a study guru or a 16 language outlier, but instead a busy and dedicated learner who started at 57 and gets better every month. We also reviewed the new version of Rosetta Stone, and there is A LOT in there for you.

Now on Stitcher

If you're using Stitcher, you can now find the Creative Language Learning Podcast on there too. Help us out by giving it some stars! Here's an easy link to Stitcher's website.