I am still working through LingQ and spending a lot of time working on my L2 (Spanish) daily. I am starting to feel like I have a great rhythm with my learning and I am still balancing my work and home life.
I just spent a week in Mexico and feel my ability to communicate has drastically improved. During the next 6 months I am going to continue with a high input of tv series from Nextflix. The ability to import the transcripts has made a huge difference in my comprehension of the what I watch. I am adding a few songs that are popular with my students so that I can follow along in class better and practice singing with them. My singing is not great so they might choose to do their work 
It has taken me a few months to carve out not only the time that I need for learning my L2, but collecting the best resources for me is exhausting. I enjoy reading the National Geographic for Kids and many of the magazines focus on sea life, so they align well with my personal interests.
For those that are wondering why I am working so intensely. I have put together a L2 program for myself that mimics how I teach my students. My students and I created smart goals in February and one of my goals was to learn Spanish. One of my high achieving students suggested that I follow the same rigorous program that I created for them. She wanted me to feel the struggles that they went through with learning a new language at the pace that I teach.
I read daily and use LingQ during all of my spare time and only read, listen, or watch content in my target area. I have added Beeboop into my learning program and that represents the 2 hours (25 minute blocks, 4 times a day) of listening and speaking that I require of my students. The other 2 hours of studying that I require from my students comes in the form of story learning, flash cards, and actively watching and reviewing video content.
This is my Smart Goal that I created with my class.
I want to be able to listen, speak, and read Spanish at the B1 Common European Level by December 2021 because I want to keep improving at a pace that will allow me to speak with my students parents. I will accomplish this goal by studying Spanish 4 hours a day.
I would love to know what others are doing to meet or exceed their language goals for JULY!
4 Likes
My goal is to listen German 6 hours a day and I have been consistent with it, at least the first 7 days. Even though July is the exam time in Germany so I will not be using LingQ intensively but I will make sure I do not lose my daily streak and read something here through the month of July. August, I will try to spend more time on LingQ.
1 Like
I’m doing about two hours on here per day with as much attention as I can give it then an hour with a tutor 5 days a week speaking and studying ect. On top of that I’m ding the same as you trying to only watch content in Spanish which is a lot of football right now and netflix youtube ect.
I have a similar goal to yourself to be honest once I can start to speak a bit more with the people here it will all pay off!! Best of luck mate!!
1 Like
Some days it is difficult to get all of my studying done. I had three language lessons today for about 30 minutes each lesson. I can be honest at the end of the day I am just tired. fitting in 30 minute segments throughout the day takes a lot of planning. Tomorrow I have a 5:30 am lesson and I think I will reconsider or eliminate one of my evening lessons. I still need to work on my links and read my book today. Honestly, I am tired today and after a ton of work and doctors appointments. I think today is a good day for me to pass just for a moment.
What language are you currently working on? I do agree once you start speaking more it does feel like the work starts to pay off. I feel the extra work now will keep me motivated once conversations are easier.
That is a great goal! that type of goal will light your fire and will reward you will a pay off sooner rather than later. I do believe the harder you push during the first 6 months the better you will feel about your progress in 6 months. Many people become frustrated with learning a language and the lack of their ability to communicate but they have not put in the time. They think they have been learning for years but the reality those years when counted as hours might only be weeks or months.
1 Like
Are you meeting your goals of spending 4 hour daily? I have been able to listen German 6 hours a day until now. I will keep spending the same number of hours for the rest of the month.
I was still able to meet my 4 hours a day on my trip. While I was not online I always have plenty of work I can work on. I would add in some reading at a very low level. I enjoy national Geographic in my target language.
1 Like
How are doing with your listening this week? I know it takes time but all input and output is worth the time.
Full throttle as usual. I am not outputting because I am testing the hypothesis of MattvsJapan. He did not speak for the first 2 years and he said that without any forced practice he was able to come up with fluent sentences in Japanese. I am just curious to know what happens. I have to meet this 6-8 hour per day goal until March 2022. It will be 2 years of learning German without missing a single day.
I am just done with my academic exams. The next semester will start in October. I will have to make good use of August-September. This two-month period is important. I have to level up my reading now in German. Will be focusing on reading a few books.
Btw, how many books have you read in Spanish to date?