We’re ten days into the new year, which means right about now is the time when your New Year’s Resolution to learn a new language might need a bit of a boost. Before you give up and put it off until 2014, here are five simple steps you can take to keep that promise to yourself.
1. Don’t set unrealistic goals.
If you expect to sound like a native speaker, or panic when you’re at a loss for a word, or freak out when you make a grammatical mistake, you’ll never be satisfied. Worse still, you’ll take all the joy out of learning a new language. Look forward to that day when you can carry on a conversation with ease, but relax and have fun along the way, and learn to embrace your status as a non-native speaker. That means having a foreign accent, a limited vocabulary, and imperfect grammar. Big deal! You’re a work in progress.
2. Make language learning fit into your life; don’t try to change your life to accommodate language learning.
You’ll need to carve out time, space, and energy for your new language, and the smaller the impact all of that has on your life, the better the chances are that you’ll continue. With a self-study program like Living Language, you choose when and where you learn, and at what pace. You can enroll in eTutor sessions when you’re ready, and take advantage of down-time by using the apps on your smart phone or tablet. Take stock of your regular routine, and look for chunks of time that can become opportunities to learn, review, or practice.
3. Divide the task into small, easily achievable goals.
Learning a language is a series of small steps. Don’t focus on the whole task or even the endpoint. Instead, just focus on the next step. The Living Language programs are all divided into small, manageable chunks, even smaller the size of a lesson. There are vocabulary groups, grammar points, practice exercises. Make it your immediate goal to master the dozen or so vocabulary flashcards in a particular group, and you’ll find that the task isn’t so daunting.
4. Reward yourself.
Once you’ve completed a few of those small-step goals, reward yourself. A natural point for this might be when you finish a lesson, or after you’ve done an eTutor session. The reward can be anything that acknowledges that you’ve accomplished something, whether it’s dinner out, a new pair of shoes, or a smiley face on your wall calendar.
5. It’s all about the contact hours.
Finally, keep a simple “Golden Rule of Language Learning” in mind: it’s all about the contact hours. You want to try to have as much regular contact with your new language as possible. That doesn’t have to mean huge chunks out of your daily routine. Just try to come up with a schedule that fits into your life and that will give you regular time with the language as often as possible. Remember that 20 minute intervals several days a week are better than one two-hour session just once a week. You want regular contact, with as little away-time as possible. The apps can help you there, because you can turn down-time into review-time. You’ll retain more and make better progress.