I find it super hard to find the content to consume but one thing that works quite well on youtube:
searching “interview with” in the language you’re learning (as in: “Interview mit” (for german), “interview met” (for dutch), “interview avec” (for french), …
Pros:
You learn about the coolest/craziest/weirdest people
You get to know who’s trendy in the country right now (like singers, politicians, etc) as well as what topic
The videos are typically posted by target-language channels (I for example found out about “vice nederlands” through an interview with the dutch singer Froukje)
Typically, interviews are done with quite interesting topics/people AND they’re 10-20min long (thus not overbearing)
Flewent- translates a certain % of your article in your target language ReadLang - translates the words you click on and adds them to a flashcards deck Linguarana - same as ReadLang but it also translates expressions
Read as much as possible daily. Try to set a certain amount of pages daily/weekly.
When you listen to music, find the lyrics and follow the singers while they’re singing.
Use wattpad if you like fanfiction. The site/app allows you to receive stories in a certain language if you look at the settings. Bonus:if you add the story to the library, you can read offline on your phone.
When you watch movies, find subs in your target language; regardless the language of the movie.
Find an app/site with manga. Many apps/sites have a pretty large selection when it comes to languages and if you are a fast reader, you can read quite a lot in 10-15 minutes. Bonus:many apps allow you to read offline.
Beelinguapp is an app with fairytales in different languages. It’s pretty useful for beginners or for people who don’t feel confident enough to try something else.
Use audiobooks. If you want and have time, try reading the book at the same time. If you listen and read at the same time, you have more chances to remember the words and their spelling, pronunciation.
Choose a song in your target language. Read the lyrics and their translation once or twice. Then sing the song trying to remember the lyrics. Optional: listen to the song with the lyrics. I wouldn’t really recommend this because you might focus too much on the spelling and less on the pronunciation at some point.
Many movies and videos. It will be frustrating at first but after a while, you will get used to it and focus on what you know so you can guess what’s the meaning of what you don’t know.
Try using audiocourse or courses that focus a lot on interaction and listening like Pimsleur.
Use apps like HelloTalk, Tandem, Skype, the audio messages on Facebook etc. if you want to practice with natives.
When you learn vocabulary, try to find the pronunciation on Forvo or just choose resources with audio.
Apps/Sites like 50languages, awabe, duolingo, memrise, busuu, babbel, lingodeer etc. have audio for most of their languages so they are worth your time.
Change the speed of the videos you are watching. Youtube has such a setting.
Writing
Read a lot. When you read you pay attention to what kind of structures are used in a text and the more you read, the more you get a “feeling” if the spelling of a word is right or if the strutcure makes any sense. If i ask an advanced learner why they write “i think of” they won’t be able to explain why “of” is there and not something else but they will know at any time that it’s a construction that need to be like that.
How to stop procrastinating on tasks you dread doing
After embarking on a journey of creating some new daily and weekly habits this month (and managing to succeed except for that week when I was sick), I’ve finally come to understand why I really dread doing certain things.
Simply, it’s just the fact that I hate starting anything. And I mean anything. Even things I find fun. I haven’t watched a new k-drama in months just because I don’t want to start one. And I love k-dramas.
So if you’re struggling to get things done, you likely have a similar problem. It’s just getting started that’s hard. Once I’m actually in the middle of doing something, it’s fine. So here are some tips that help me get started.
Tip #1: Do something similar but simpler.
In my case, the task I dread the most everyday is writing 500 words of the first draft of my novel. Once I’m writing though, I actually have fun. Yet for some reason I put it off everyday haha
But another daily habit I’ve been working on is reading some of a book everyday. Reading is similar to writing but it’s so much easier. I don’t have as much resistance to reading so it’s easy to start.
I either read fiction or a book on the craft of writing so once I read a chapter or so of this book, I find myself more amped up for writing.
Another thing I do sometimes is just think about the story. Without actually writing anything, I start thinking about the next scene and what might happen (I haven’t planned most of this novel so I’m just writing willy-nilly basically lol) and that also usually gets me in the mood to start writing that scene.
So for you maybe this could be:
When studying a foreign language, watch some videos/tv in that language then do your actual studying.
Homework: Do the tiniest and/or most enjoyable bit of homework first then your larger, harder stuff
Chores: Start small like just picking up stuff off the floor and then get into the actual mopping, dusting etc
But there’s an important thing to keep in mind when using this tip. You have to do the simple task and the dreaded task really close together, preferably one after the other. It’s all about momentum. If you do the small task then go do something else that’s unrelated, you lose the momentum. And the whole point of doing the small task in the first place is to gain momentum! Which brings me to the next tip.
Tip #2: Momentum, momentum, momentum
Once I start being productive I’ve noticed it’s so much easier to just keep going and knock off all my tasks.
It’s actually the reason why the pomodoro method just doesn’t work for me and I’ve tried it so many times. I’m not a “take breaks in the middle” kind of person because any break halts my momentum which makes it hard to get started again.
I’m definitely a “do all the things at once then take a break for the rest of the day” kind of person, so if you’re similar this tip will work for you.
After gaining some momentum by doing a similar but simple task, just do everything in one long chain.
In my case, in the mornings, I’ll go from reading a chapter of a Korean book to writing my Korean essay thing to exercising. Reading in Korean is obviously similar to writing in Korean. But exercising doesn’t have anything in common except the fact that it’s another task on my list.
Once I’m in the “productive mood” I like to milk it and do as much as I can then take a long break when I get too tired.
You can chain anything really. The trick is to just not think about it too much. If I paused and thought “hmm do I really want to exercise right now and what exercise should I do” etc, it breaks the momentum. I just see the next task I have to do and start doing it.
Tip #3: Make it more convenient to do the task.
Increasing the convenience of doing a task will lower the barrier to entry by making it feel like the task is easier to start.
A small example from my life is that I really hate washing my face in the evening. I know it’s weird. But anyway after dinner, I turn on the water heater (otherwise the water will be freezing cold) and wash the dishes.
Well guess what? I like washing my face with warm water too. So I always think, “well while I have the water heater on, I might as well go wash my face then turn it off.”
Already having the water heater on eliminates one extra step that I’d have to do to wash my face which makes it more convenient.
This also demonstrates another example of starting with the similar but simpler task, which for me is washing the dishes.
So just do whatever you can to make doing the thing you dread more convenient like:
Lay out everything you need on your desk/work space and keep it there until you complete the task.
Open every program you’ll need on your computer and have them open until you complete the task (in my case I always have Scrivener, which I use to write my novel, open)
Lay out your exercise clothes in advance or maybe even sleep in them if you exercise in the morning.
If you workout at home like me, you can always have your exercise mat on the floor or whatever equipment you use out.
Also for exercise, plan your workouts in advance. Like I said in the previous tip, deciding what workout to do breaks momentum. I usually follow along with YouTube videos so before I go to bed I open up the YouTube video I plan on doing in the morning and just hit play when it’s time.
Tip #4: When all else fails, promise yourself a reward.
If you have a little bit of self-control, this can be an effective method for you, assuming there’s something you want.
It can be as simple as I just want to lay in bed and watch YouTube videos, which is usually the reward I give myself haha
And there’s nothing as sweet to me as lazing about completely guilt-free because I did the task. Because the thing is, I can laze about without having done the task but there will always be that tinge of guilt, the ole “I really shouldn’t be doing this right now…,” which ruins everything.
Now that I’ve experienced guilt-free lazing about, I live for it.
And this doesn’t just apply to my personal life. At work, if I’m smart and effective, I can get all my lesson planning and prep done so that I have one or two hours left before the end of the work day which means sitting at my desk watching junk. Ah yes, the highlight of my work day.
Anyway, I hope maybe these tips will help you overcome the dreaded task(s) and enjoy yourself guilt-free!
So, you want to learn a language: 6 tips from a language teacher
Here I am, trying to explicate how to make it easier lerning other languages. I’m not an expert, but I’ve got some experience.
First of all, I’m a polyglot. I’m Albanian born but I’ve been raised in Italy. I speak both languages but my Italian is better. I also speak fluent English, even if I often commit grammar errors; I speak some Spanish too, but my listening skills are far superior to the writing/speaking ones in this case. I’m also living in Poland right now and I’m studying the language.
I’m not writing this post because I think I’m an example you must follow but the think is that part of my current job here in Poland is to run Italian lessons for adults. I also help my two two flatmates (Turkish and Georgian girls) improve their English since mine is better so far.
If you an think of other tips, add them reblogging and help a fellow language student!
1. Have your keyboard help you
Smartphone keyboards comes in multilanguage format so download your target language keyboard so it starts suggesting you words or correcting you when you write in that language. Sure, it won’t correct all of your errors, but it helps greatly for vocabulary and basic language. And yes, your keyboard may be a bastard and also betray you from time to time (stupid autocorrect).
2. Dear Dairy
You probably don’t know who Heinrich Schlieman is. Well, he was the guy who discovered Troy and one of the fathers of archeology. He was also a proficient german businessman and merchant who traveled a lot and knew more than a bunch of languages. He wrote his diary in the language of the county he was in that moment, so his diary is basically written in 6-7 languages. The thing is, this really helps. No one is gonna correct you diary writings, no one’s gonna judge you. You can start with simple sentences and actually see your advancement through time. It’s also great for vocabulary building. You can also merge this with point 1, having a digital diary.
3. Post-that-shit-it
May seem banal but yes. Use post-it. Use a lot of them. Also, remove them for time to time and go around the house naming the things that had a post it aloud. Then write all the names you remember and attach the post-it when you think they belong and check if you were right or not. Here, you auto-tested your self in 10 minutes or less.
4. Mama Disney
Now, who doesn’t love Disney? Well, even if you do if your trying to learn a language Disney is your new BFF. Why? Because their cartoons are translated in a ton of languages and, since they target are children, the language they use is not super-complicated. Start with your favorite cartoons. You know the plot by heart by know, so you won’t relay excessively on subtitles. Dawnloand the songs of the movies in your target languages and sing them. Disney loves you. Disney is your friend. Hakuna Matata.
5. 1st grade literature book
If you can put your hands on literature books of the elementary schools, choosing the class of reference depending of your knowledge level. Especially the ones of the 1st and 2nd grade are very helpful for beginners who already know simple words and are trying to put them together to make sentences. Children books are generally very helpful.
6. Foreign music and Musicxmatch
It’s a common thing listening to music in your target language. Now, the next step is using some karaoke app like musicxmatch or any other app that has the lyrics so you can sing the song along with the right words. It improves your pronunciation greatly. Try also to translate your favorite songs from one language to another. Not only from the original language to your native one, try also finding and already translated song and re-translate it from n your native language back to the original one. Obviously, try not to ‘cheat’, even if you know the lyrics by heart, try to translate how you think should be translated. That helps your vocabulary and your use of synonyms.
Everyone has moments when they can’t do anything for their goals but they don’t want to take a break either so let’s see what you could do.
Read about your area of interest. - regardless of what interests you, can find some kind of book, article, blog etc. You can learn new things by reading.
Watch movies. - this is quite relaxing because a movie is usually around an idea/plot so it doesn’t feel overwhelming and you don’t have to focus 100%.
Watch some tutorial on YouTube. - You can always learn something new from others and you just need to watch a video.
Listen to a podcast. - just listen to some tips or stories and do something else, quite passive
Get a piece of paper or agenda and write about your goal. - personally I prefer to do this usually because it motivates me to write why I have certain goals and how I can improve my ideas
Do something different but similar. - For example, if you learn languages but you feel sick and tired of studying, you can go and research how to memorize better. If you draw digitally, you can learn how to animate. Etc. Doing something new can be refreshing.
Make a motivational board, digitally or irl. - save quotes, drawings, images etc. Anything that triggers you to be motivated.
Give yourself feedback for what you did already. - taking a step back and looking at your progress is also productive because you can think how to improve.
Talk to someone you trust. - sometimes, just talking to someone else about your goals can motivate you and also give you new ideas and new goals; that’s why it’s important to have someone you can talk to about your goals and you know they will support you
Think of your past achievements. - this is called the “cookie jar” because you use your emotions to get energy again and just thinking of what you managed to do is enough to feel refreshed.
Flewent- translates a certain % of your article in your target language ReadLang - translates the words you click on and adds them to a flashcards deck Linguarana - same as ReadLang but it also translates expressions
Read as much as possible daily. Try to set a certain amount of pages daily/weekly.
When you listen to music, find the lyrics and follow the singers while they’re singing.
Use wattpad if you like fanfiction. The site/app allows you to receive stories in a certain language if you look at the settings. Bonus:if you add the story to the library, you can read offline on your phone.
When you watch movies, find subs in your target language; regardless the language of the movie.
Find an app/site with manga. Many apps/sites have a pretty large selection when it comes to languages and if you are a fast reader, you can read quite a lot in 10-15 minutes. Bonus:many apps allow you to read offline.
Beelinguapp is an app with fairytales in different languages. It’s pretty useful for beginners or for people who don’t feel confident enough to try something else.
Use audiobooks. If you want and have time, try reading the book at the same time. If you listen and read at the same time, you have more chances to remember the words and their spelling, pronunciation.
Choose a song in your target language. Read the lyrics and their translation once or twice. Then sing the song trying to remember the lyrics. Optional: listen to the song with the lyrics. I wouldn’t really recommend this because you might focus too much on the spelling and less on the pronunciation at some point.
Many movies and videos. It will be frustrating at first but after a while, you will get used to it and focus on what you know so you can guess what’s the meaning of what you don’t know.
Try using audiocourse or courses that focus a lot on interaction and listening like Pimsleur.
Use apps like HelloTalk, Tandem, Skype, the audio messages on Facebook etc. if you want to practice with natives.
When you learn vocabulary, try to find the pronunciation on Forvo or just choose resources with audio.
Apps/Sites like 50languages, awabe, duolingo, memrise, busuu, babbel, lingodeer etc. have audio for most of their languages so they are worth your time.
Change the speed of the videos you are watching. Youtube has such a setting.
Writing
Read a lot. When you read you pay attention to what kind of structures are used in a text and the more you read, the more you get a “feeling” if the spelling of a word is right or if the strutcure makes any sense. If i ask an advanced learner why they write “i think of” they won’t be able to explain why “of” is there and not something else but they will know at any time that it’s a construction that need to be like that.
- if u have an oral exam lead the conversation and offer up information, this way they can’t stump you as much with words you don’t understand cause ur the one saying all the words, only say what you know, not what u dont -this ones a bit dorky so more for actual language lovers than jus ppl trying to pass an exam but keep notebooks where u write down all turns of phrases, to the left in ur first language and to the right the one ur studying for, this is mostly also gonna give u the image of being really well read and spoken since u know a few of these turns of phrases that they don’t just give u in the vocab lists
-he gave me this little scheme of like things that are vital when forming a sentence -> writing a text: 4 things to pay attention to:
the gender of the word (un/une, le/la)
the amount (like is it singular or plural)
the conjugation of the verb with the subject (if its feminine plural the verb must be too) and the adjective with its subject)
the tense
thats it, thats like all u need 2 know to make a text work.. also personal tip from me if u dont know a word, you have plenty of knowledge to work around it. if its a text on a written exam, they’re not gonna hear ur umming, and u can jus change the sentence. - most people know and do this one but read news stories in ur target language, and then here the notebook w turns of phrases can be helpful -FIND A VOCAB LIST THAT IS RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS AND HOBBIES if you are going to be doing an oral exam where they ask u to introduce urself, dont waste too much time on words that aren’t relevant to you personally. im not going to learn too many words about fixing cars, but im gonna learn all the art words. - relevant in every language but if u have to write a text based on something they give u, write from the bottom up, by which i mean form an opinion of whatever they’ve given you (which is ur conclusion) and then find ways to get to that conclusion
i think thats all i got for now if i remember more ill tell ya, also i might post some more pics of things hes given me and also my actual workbook cause its really good and useful
recently i finished second stage of linguistic olympiad, which focuses on translating rare languages based on logical analysis, basically you don’t know the language but there is a logic rule you have to guess to translate things, yeah, its fun, now im waiting for the results of the second stage.
the thing is, after practicing, doing many problems from previous years, i found myself understanding languages’ rules easier. i’ve always been convinced that to learn language is not to learn the rules by heart, but to understand them, so here are my tips based on that:
1. native speakers are your best resource. some may disagree due to them often not being aware of certain grammar rules, but thats the point. learn the usage, not the rules.rules will come naturally to you when you analyse them for yourself based on using the language.
2. ive been learning russian for almost 2 years now and my teacher has been focusing on remembering the rules, as if thats the best way to learn the language. so we didnt have much access to any context, not to mention poorly made textbooks. but now that ive become familiar with lots of usage, i dont need to stress about the rules, but base the grammar on previous, similiar contexts.
3. you dont need the rules unless youre majoring philology. for real, i understand that its not your native language, but whats so bad about treating it as one? learn it just like kids would. use it.
4. about using it, put yourself in native speaker’s position, change the language of your fav sites, talk to people even if you dont know much yet, stop stressing about grammar. imagine people talking to you without using cases, conjugations - youre still gonna understand them, so why not start with that yourself?
summary:
-analyse the grammar yourself instead of learning written rules (thats also gonna make you remember it better)
-vocabulary > grammar
-make friends with native speakers
-embarass yourself, make mistakes, talk bullshit - its all a way to success
It’s the bane of every language learner that wants to self study or study at home. If you are one of these self-learning warriors them you know what I mean. You have to create your own study schedule and plan your own curriculum and it can be a real P in the A. There are so many things to consider, such as your level, available time, your study style (which you can learn about here) and the goal of your learning. HOWEVER, despite all these variables, I am here to help you create your own customized language learning study planner that is both efficient and effective for YOU. So if you want to become a master study schedule maker, keep reading!
Calculate Your Hourly Study
Before you create your schedule begin by looking at your regular schedule (work or school) and determine how many hours per day you can study. Then calculate how many hours per week that makes. This will determine how much material you will be able to cover and how fast you will be able to get through it. The fewer hours of time you have available, the less content you will be able to learn over the span of a week. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Just have to say this clearly so that you don’t expect to be fluent in a few months if you only study an hour a day for five days. Don’t expect miracles people!
My Suggestions
If you work full time, I would suggest only studying about 30 minutes to one hour a day with review on weekends.
For people who have more time to study, you will be able to cover more content in the same week. However, make sure you aren’t adding too many hours so you don’t burn out. For those with more time, I suggest studying between 2-3 hours a day with review on weekends.
TLDR: Count hours because just like a regular language course, the amount of hours a week you study dictates how intense the course is and how much you will cover in a semester.
Determine How Many Days a Week You’d Like To Study
This part is ENTIRELY up to you! However, whatever you choose to do, make sure you leave at least one day of break to avoid burn out. I am currently doing 5 days a week of study with weekends off.
Choose Some Material
There is such a wealth of materials on the internet that I don’t recommend that you purchase ANY textbooks until you search the web to see if it is available online in pdf or something. That’s what I did. If you would like some free Japanese textbook pdfs, you can visit my post about free Japanese resources. I did find online a list of the best textbook by language:
TLDR: Do some research to find some material that will be best for you. DO NOT RELY ON APPS. THOSE ARE ONLY FOR DOWNTIME PRACTICE.
Create a Semester and a Syllabus (Get Creative)
The big cons of self-studying languages is the lack of organization. You have to do it alllll by yourself and it isn’t a basket a roses, believe me. So to make it easier for you, plan your studies in semesters like college courses. That way, you have more concrete and plannable goals. If you just float throughout the year as one continuous study blob, you’ll get bored, burnt out, and more likely to give up since your progress is not as easily trackable. But if you study by semester, you can set concrete goals for the semester and what you’d like to cover every day, week, and month. This way, you are easily able to track your progress. This is the best way to study, if you want to see real progress.
The other thing you need to do is create a syllabus, so once you’ve chosen your textbook and materials, go ahead and plan the WHOLE SEMESTER of what you will cover on what days, what days you will have tests, what days you will review, etc. This will require you to go through your textbook or online program in advanced to plan your studies. Try to plan each week by textbook chapters, program units, or specific subject you’d like to learn (celebrities, music, fashion, animals, etc) If you create a week where you are studying a specific subject, you can use movies, books, articles, youtube videos, or music to learn that subject!
For example:
Week 1: Korean From Zero Chapter 1 and 2/ Wani Kani 1
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Week 2: Korean From Zero Chapter 3 and 4/ Quiz
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Week 2: Desserts – Ms. Panda and Mr. Hedgehog Viki Tv Show
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Get creative! Your study schedule is whatever you want it to be!! Don’t forget to mark down the goals for the semester and what you’d like to be able to do by the end of the semester.
TLDR: Create your own semester-based plan to create concrete learning goals and trackable progress. Create a syllabus to write down your goals and your daily and weekly material to cover.
Figure Out Your Study Style
There are essentially two, which I talk about in an earlier post. The Systematic Style and the Intuitive Style. To find out which one you are, visit my post. Essentially, a Systematic learner would rather learn the concepts first, then practice them. An intuitive learner (such as myself) would prefer to be thrown in to an immersive environment and learn while immersed THEN learn the details of the concepts. This GREATLY effects how you need to approach your language study because you will need to develop specific language study skills. For example, if you are intuitive, you MUST have audio/video based lessons with explanations and you may not need a textbook at all.
is and implement this style into your study syllabus
HOW TO ORGANIZE AND PLAN MATERIAL
One of the biggest problems among self-taught language learners, is staying organized. You need to be having fun with your studies, but it needs to be organized. Take a journey with me into hypothetical land. Imagine that you wanted to use kpop lyrics to learn Korean. So to do it, you choose a song to start and then everyday you sing the song over and over and study more and more of the lyrics till EVENTUALLY you learn the whole song. Then you choose another and start again. This sounds normal doesn’t it? It’s shouldn’t be. It’s bad.
What you SHOULD do is determine exactly how long you want to take to learn the lyrics to the song. For this case, we’ll say five days (an entire work week). For each day, you need to determine how much of the song you want to cover. One verse? Two verses? Then you plan that the LAST day (the fifth) day of your studies, you review all the vocabulary words and grammar you’ve learned. On Saturday or Sunday, you test yourself on the material.
Voila!! You’ve just created an ENTIRE study plan for a week just around a single K-pop song!! Stick that in your syllabus and move it along!
TLDR: Organize. Organize. Organize.
Use Material You’re Interested In
Keep in mind that you DO NOT have to only use your textbook or language learning program. The internet is vast and so are the resources, so don’t limit yourself! If you would like to learn about fashion, sports, science, or whatever, then plan a week or two of study where you use online resources to do exactly that! You can use movies, shows, articles, music, or even books. Whatever you want in the subject that you want in order to make your language study as interesting and less brutalizing as possible. So it’s okay if you suddenly take a break from your textbook study to learn a kpop song or watch an anime. Do what you want!
TLDR: Mix in topics and subjects you’re interested in learning about into your language study to help keep you interested in your language study!
Conclusion
I hope this wasn’t totally overwhelming! I know it’s a lot, but if you want real language progress, you MUST be organized. It doesn’t matter if you want to know how to study Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, German or whatever. You can use these study tips to help you no matter what the language or what the level. Use these steps and you will become a master schedule maker in minutes! I hope this helps!! Good luck with your language study!!!
All Steps:
Calculate Your Hourly Study
Determine How Many Days a Week You’d Like To Study
In my experience textbooks aren’t really the best way to learn after you’ve passed a certain level. They’re incredibly useful for beginners to learn grammar and vocab but after that they don’t offer a lot of activities that help you implement your learning in a way that reflects how you will actually use it.
It’s also near impossible to learn a language without help. Don’t isolate yourself just because you are self-learning rather than taking lessons. You NEED to talk to native speakers, both through text messages and actual verbal conversations. Colloquial conversations will differ greatly to formal an ‘correct’ ones spoken in a classroom.
1. The first step I suggest when creating a curriculum is to know what your goal is. Are you planning to move to the country the language is spoken in? Do you want to study as a way to better understand and appreciate the culture?
2. The next would be to gauge what level you are at through taking a language competency test. This is mostly so you have an idea of what you do know and what is considered the universal “next step” to give yourself a general direction to head towards.
3. Write down topics that interest you. For me these would be my career (marketing and digital media), my interests (video games, ttrpgs, fashion, history, horror novels), and important parts of my identity (my religion, my sexuality, my partner, my disability) etc. I didn’t bother writing down anything I already know such as how to talk about my family, how to talk about my country of birth, or hobbies commonly written in textbooks such as reading, swimming, camping.
4. Now come up with a list of general activities to cover your listening, writing, reading and speaking skills. Some examples are listed below:
Listening:
Watch 5 minutes of the news - recaps or weekly rundowns are great for this
Listen to an audio book for half an hour whilst cooking, cleaning, commuting etc.
Create playlists of music you actually like in your target language - you can further this by watching interviews about the artists or watching any live performances/streams they have done.
Writing:
Write 1-2 paragraphs about a chosen topic without any dictionary or vocab list aid, any words you cannot remember or do not know just write in your native language. Return with a dictionary to fill in these missing words after and ask a native speaker to make any corrections they can spot and finally rewrite everything with all the corrections (taken from Lindie Botes).
Write practice professional emails, blog-posts, product reviews, leave comments under Instagram posts etc. Make sure to learn how to write in different situations: how does writing an email to your boss differ from writing to your colleague? How are businesses addressed on review sites? What changes when writing a blog for fashion from one about politics? Learn these nuances.
Text your native speaker friends - simple but necessary
Reading:
Read and summarise a key news article from this week
Read a page from a book in your target language, highlight any unknown words to return to. Write out the sentences these words occurred in then the words on their own with their definition and create a new sentence using them. My key tip for this is not to be too ambitious with what you are reading. Don’t try to read an epic fantasy, instead focus on short stories and books for children aged around 5-10. As you improve you can read more complicated plots but just because you are familiar with the book in your native language does not mean you will understand what is going on.
Speaking
Record yourself leaving fake voice mails. This can be for a doctor’s appointment, inquiring about a job, asking to hangout with a friend etc. Keep it short and tone appropriate. This also gives you the opportunity to research phone etiquette in that culture.
Talk. To. Native. Speakers.
5. Combine your topics of interest with activities to give you something that should resemble almost a lesson plan.
