My end-goal usually tends to be fluency, or sometimes (more recently) accent reduction. But to start off, most people would be more than happy to aim for basic or intermediate level conversation skills first. However, no matter what you are aiming for you need a plan of action. Rather than a New Years resolution or, even worse, an Id like to or I hope to, I have missions. This is more than just a change of words; a mission is an urgent plan-of-action to achieve your target, and the process involved is completely different. Im sure youve had many tasks you may have aimed for before; give up smoking, join the gym, stop watching TV, use the stairs rather than the elevator, etc. Some of these imply a dramatic change in habit and many people dont realise how hard this is to maintain. There are some interesting tips on 30-day trials in the audio interview with Scott Young, so check that out for another perspective on changing broader seemingly difficult tasks into smaller, more achievable chunks. The problem with an objective like speak fluently in three months / six months / a year is that it is too vague and none have any strategy incorporated in them. Ive met a lot of people with New Years resolutions to speak Spanish/French,... etc. by the end of the year and they almost never achieve it. This is because they havent defined speak, and because the end of the year is so far away that they can constantly leave doing any work until “later”, and even if they make it a shorter timespan, they still might just be doing nothing more than telling themselves that theyd like to. You need a strategy. This guide gives you some advice in particular strategies that have worked for me, but there have been a huge amount of language learners that have done it in very different other clever ways (such as Khatzumoto, whom Ive also interviewed). What we all have in common is not necessarily the strategies themselves, but the fact that we HAVE them. We all have a plan and we stick to it. Even someone with an inefficient strategy (and lets face it, no strategy is perfect) will achieve so much more than someone with the best ideas that never get implemented. If you read this entire guide and listen to all of the interviews and come away with a sense of what is involved in learning a language, then I feel like nothing important will actually have been achieved. You need to apply these. Im serious! Right now, make a plan of the next months and the realistic objectives you want to achieve in your language. Do you want to be able to understand most of what is said in TV shows within six months? Write it down! Want to be able to make it up to at least 20 seconds into a conversation with a native and still be able to continue confidently? Write it down! There are a couple of exercises Ive included in the worksheet with this guide that should help you, and this is one of them. Print it out or copy it by hand, but dont just do it on your computer. Having something written down and on the desk or in your pocket can be an excellent reminder to keep you working towards those goals. Im all about technology, but having something in the physical world makes a huge difference. That sheet of paper with my list of objectives that I have cello-taped to my table is not going away, even when I shut off my PC. If you havent started writing already, why are you still reading this? You should have written down your goals by now! Im not joking, start it now and add to it or refine it if you see something else in this guide, but be clear about what youre aiming for. Summary: All the best ideas in the world are worth nothing if they arent implemented. Steps needed Once you have the end-goal in mind, the way you can come up with your strategy is to break it up into the components needed to reach it. See the end-goal as a definite. It simply will happen, so work backwards to see the logical steps needed that would have helped you reach that goal. Get rid of this idea of maybe and work to make it happen. Taking the example I mentioned above, if you want to understand TV shows, you need to make sure that listening is the focus of your mission. Maybe youll jump straight in and listen to native TV series from the start and force yourself to sink or swim (this method has been effective for Khatzumoto, in the interviews), or maybe youll listen to materials prepared for language learners to ease yourself in, get used to slower speech, and start (I personally mix both up, which by no means is “better”, it has just been the most enjoyable way for me). Each of these approaches has its own advantages and reasons, but whats important is the fact that you are genuinely devoted to it. For the deep-end approach, you need to set aside time every day to expose yourself to the language as much as possible, and make sure you are doing something active to increase your understanding. Have the TV shows downloaded or recorded, waiting to be watched so there are no excuses to miss a single session. For the gradual approach, you need to have the materials ready and be even more devoted to make sure you can get through them quickly. Basic, very slowly spoken audio does a poor job at helping you understand real and natural speech, but when its difficulty is increased incrementally but quickly it can help a lot. Make the overall time shorter by doing it intensively (since what you are doing is easier) so you start practising on your end-goal (watching TV) long before the deadline. This is just one example; whatever your end-goal is, break it up into the steps involved so that you know you will make progress every day. When you have a time set aside every day, then you can go to the next step of MINI-GOALS.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 13:15:05 +0000
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