Clear the List November 2019: No-English Lessons as a Beginner?!

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Clear the List November 2019: No-English Lessons at My Level?!

Hello and welcome to another blog post in the Clear The List series, the monthly language learning round-up about language learning goals and progress.

That’s right - NOVEMBER goals! October was a very interesting month for my language learning as I tried out something I had never tried before. Exciting stuff!

This check-in is part of the #clearthelist round-up hosted by Shannon Kennedy and Lindsay Williams.

What Happened in October?

I was busy signing up participants for the next Fluent German Retreat, and then I travelled to the USA again! This time, my time was spent at a retreat in Colorado and it took up about half of the month. So that means I had half of the month for studying languages.

I don’t usually allow a lot of my weekend to become language study time as I want to spend it with my husband and my inner lazybones, but this month I challenged myself and took several lessons on Saturday afternoons. It was actually great fun, and definitely a time of the week that now feels open for languages.

The Fluent Show in October

I travelled to London to record my first ever interview in person! The interview was with David Peterson, the remarkable creator of languages for TV shows like Game of Thrones, The 100, and Defiance. The resulting show is out on 11 November so look out for it in your usual podcast locations.

Recording in person was a new adventure for me and I travelled up to London with brand new microphones, cables, and mic stands! It’s worth it for a special recording atmosphere, I can’t wait to record in person again soon. If you listen to just one episode from October 2019, I recommend this deep dive into finding a perfect language teacher with my co-host Lindsay Williams.

Reminder: The Fluent Show has opened a Patreon page. This allows all listeners to become involved in making the show with a small monthly pledge. If you want to become a part of the community, please visit our Patreon page.

Language Goals and Progress

During the month of October, I pushed myself to take as many italki lessons as possible in the italki language challenge.

If you’ve never heard of italki, click here to find out more and get $10 credit - it is a platform for finding online language teachers, and it’s excellent.

Now before the big reveal, lemme tell you a thing: italki sets the challenge goals in lesson hours. But for me, language lessons are rarely an hour long when I’m crouching around somewhere at an early level. With the approach I took in Chinese, an hour would have felt very exhausting for me and the tutor so I chose to take lots of lessons but many of them were half an hour long.

And on that note, I totally didn’t meet the goal of 12 study hours. But I hadn’t expected to.

Instead, I took 6.25 hours of study time split over 9 lessons. The results were surprisingly positive, I felt reinvigorated and reminded how much I love languages! Here are the specifics.

Mandarin Chinese

Wow! Considering I was tutor-less a month ago, the italki challenge absolutely pushed me to find a new style and tutor that worked for me. And in Chinese, I tried a whole new approach this time.

Instead of choosing an experienced and formally qualified tutor, I decided to go with what italki calls a “community tutor”, i.e. someone who is ready to help and teach but who hasn’t formally studied the language as much.

This was 100% the right decision for someone like me who is

  • an experienced language learner
  • already working with 1 or 2 guiding resources
  • pretty confident about knowing what to do.

Going for a tutor who approaches teaching less formally suits my own informal style perfectly, especially since I tend to follow up after class and do my own homework without prompting.

By the way, you can learn more about the differences and what they mean in this month’s podcast episode about language teachers.

No-English Lessons at My Level?!

I took inspiration from Scott Young’s interview on the Actual Fluency podcast (episode 164). In this interview, Scott mentioned that he used to hire tutors and tell them beforehand that he doesn’t know a lot but he wants to eliminate English during the class, so he will heavily use google translate.

I had previously taken lessons that involved a tutor working through a textbook with me, and I did not enjoy them so much. So I figured “what the heck” and decided to throw myself in at the deep end and speak terrible internet Chinese to a few people. They get paid, after all!

And the result was totally positive! I enjoyed each class, had lots of fun, experimented, and understood almost nothing my partners said to me. But it didn’t matter! We came away after 30 minutes feeling like there had been some level of conversation.

I am NOT speaking well yet, but or the first time since I started, I was having fun in Chinese.

If you want to try this out for yourself, go for it! The key is having good follow-up.

Each tutor was very diligent about typing what they said for me, so that after the lesson I took time to copy it into my notebook and I reviewed it for myself. This added about 30 minutes of follow-up time to the lessons, but it’s how I was able to remember things, and it’s also writing practice. Worth it!

App and Book Update

I’m enjoying Lingodeer and Assimil’s “Chinese False Beginners” workbook.

LingQ has fallen by the wayside because I’ve now finished the beginner’s material and there is a big gap between beginner and intermediate. No one wants to review 50 expressions after every page.

Welsh

I also took online lessons with a new Welsh teacher, who was lovely! After my US trip I noticed that I was particularly rusty, so getting right back into an hour of conversation was crucial. Looking forward to more!

In other goals, I have finally booked my next trip to Wales! I’m going to Cardiff/Pontypridd for a Sadwrn Siarad on 23 November and I cannot wait. Love Cardiff, and it’s been too long.

Wildcard Language!

My wildcard language for the italki challenge was BSL (British Sign Language), and I loved each of my 2 classes so much that it left me very eager to learn more and more. In reality, this would come at the cost of either Welsh or Chinese…what to do? Maybe I end up being a learner of all my local languages?

Language Goals for November 2019

Let’s get into detail then! November is a month without international travel, and I’m grateful for it.

Listening

When I’m a beginner in any language, listening without the visuals makes me feel more lost than supported. So this is all about my intermediate/advanced language, Welsh. I regularly listen to the radio and watch TV in Welsh, so my goal is to continue the good work with radio 2-3 times a week and TV for at least 2 hours without subtitles.

When I’m in Cardiff, I’ll also see if I can’t make it to a gig in Welsh.

In Chinese I’ll take a bit of Yabla practice but it’s not my main focus.

Reading

In Chinese, I read a lot as it’s my main source of information. My goal is to complete 2 more chapters in the Assimil workbook and to review the handwritten lesson notes I make.

In Welsh, once again I will finish Ffenestri. I WILL!!! It’s an important goal because then I can take it to Cardiff, give it away to another learner, and get a new supply.

Speaking

I want to build on the good work from October and take another 4 italki lessons in Chinese.

In Welsh, I’m obviously going to a whole day about siarad (speaking), and will also try to hang out with local friends when I’m in Cardiff. I am so excited.

Writing

This is one for Chinese study, where I want to continue my discipline in terms of following up on each lesson with hand-written notes that I can review easily.

What About You?

How do you work with online tutors? How was your October? Leave a comment below or if you’re an Instagram fan, click on the post below to share your own goals in your stories with my template.