5 Steps for Planning a Productive and Successful Language Learning Week

The weekend is a great time to spend an hour looking to the week ahead by mapping out goals and intentions.

Many people plan ahead for business goals, upcoming deadlines, events, meetings at work, fitness or meals. But did you know that making a language learning plan can actually help you learn a language faster?

When you plan, set goals, and know what’s coming up, it’s like winding up a little engine so you can hit “GO” and learn in the most effective, productive way.

To celebrate the brand new weekly language planner in the Language Habit Toolkit, here are some steps to help you get the ball rolling.

Step 1: Set Path Goals for your Language Learning Week

To start your plan, focus on what’s right in front of you and answer the question “What should I do next?”. Look for Path Goals: specific, achievable, relevant actions that will help you learn a language right now.

With Path Goals, smaller is better. It’s better to meet all your “not so difficult” goals than to aim high and miss the target.

For example, in a week my Language Learning Goals might include

• Completing 2 pages in my grammar book
• Watching an episode of a TV show in my new language
• Writing 10 texts or sentences in my target language

Don’t overload the week. Keep it simple and focus on your system. If you want to go deeper with goal setting, use the Language Goals and Vision Goals worksheets from the Language Habit Toolkit.

Step 2: Check Your Schedule

After you have set your initial goals, it’s helpful to look ahead at what’s on your schedule every day. Have you been realistic? Will you be able to fit in all the sessions you are hoping to complete?

Sometimes, you may find that your list of goals and tasks feels like it might give you a heart attack. Remember that it is okay to aim for what you know you can do, and move some goals to the “not this week” zone.

Productivity does not mean having to do everything all at once.

When I’m thinking about running, it can be hard to motivate myself because doing less than 5k feels lazy. But then I remember this line:

Even when you run 10 steps, you are still faster than everyone on the couch.

It is ABSOLUTELY OKAY to aim for the minimum, because everything you do builds on each other. In the next step, you’ll learn how to make progress even when you don’t have a massive goal in mind.

Step 3: Ensure Daily Contact with Your Target Language

In the Language Habit method, it is not critical to count how many minutes or hours you spend with your language learning materials each day. The first aim should be contact with your target language on a daily basis.

The Golden Rules of Daily Language Learning:

• Aim for contact with your target language on a daily basis
• You have to find a convenient way of finding contact - the easier, the better.
• You should prioritise fun and find something you enjoy in your target language

For example, here are a few easy ways that I incorporate Welsh language into my daily routine:

• Following Welsh language accounts on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, so all I need to do is scroll through my feed

• Watching a new TV series or subscribing to a podcast, so I always have a next episode queued up

• Downloading different language learning apps, so I can follow my mood and spend a few minutes doing Duolingo, Clozemaster, Memrise, etc

• Leaving a magazine or book open on my breakfast table or setting the Welsh news website as my browser homepage

None of these activities are designed to take many hours of study, but they all do their part and keep my brain engaged with what Welsh looks and sounds like.

Step 4: Choose a Reward

Try writing down how you will reward yourself at the end of the week.

No matter how many minutes or hours you study, you will be working hard (even procrastination is work, right?). For ideas and thoughts on the psychology of reviewing, check out my recent podcast episode.

Great rewards can be small and low-cost like borrowing a new book from the library, enjoying a drink with friends, or going to a concert. It’s your call whether you want to make these related to your target language. Just make sure it’s something you’ll enjoy, and that you know you earned it with a great week of study.

Step 5: Raise the Bar with Bigger Language Sessions

Every day, you have the opportunity to grow your language learning routine through bigger study sessions. These are focused, dedicated times when your focus shifts to improving your language skills.

Take speaking practice for example: These are usually around an hour long and challenge you to be 100% engaged, think on your feet, speak the language, understand native speakers, and get over the mistakes you’re making. A session like that is an intense learning experience, doing wonders for your level.

Sometimes you may not have a chance to practice speaking, but your big sessions might involve working through a textbook chapter or listening and summarising a piece of audio.

Remember: You are Building a Habit

Habits have to be built over time, little by little. Just like you don’t train for a marathon by running one marathon once a month, your brain will adjust to your new language learning practice and help you get better with time.

Try to banish perfectionism, especially when you are working with the perspective of setting a weekly goal. You don’t have to be the best in order to be good.

For me, it’s rare to find time and focus for more than three big sessions in an average week. When I’m in a phase where I work on more languages, I may vary the contact days or determine that Thursdays are for French, for example. You can read more about learning more than one language in this article.

Finally, remember that you can do this! Every day spent in contact with your target language is helping you learn it.

Want to learn more about creating a productive language learning plan for yourself? Don't miss my free video training! You can sign up to watch it right here

Learning Languages at Intermediate Level: My Language Goals, Routine, and Progress in Detail

Unlike some learners who love to schedule a set routine, my study approach is a little more flexible. I have a variety of resources on the go and work with them all on a regular basis, but my routine currently doesn't contain large daily sessions or check-ins at a specific time.

In today’s article, I am going to show you how I make progress in my target language even without committing to daily routines. You’ll learn about my goals for April 2017, and how I fit in learning 2 languages at the same time.

I use the Language Habit Toolkit, a study system I created for learners like me who are self-guided and want to track flexibly.

Planning My Goals (But Not My Schedule)

I'm not the best with schedules and don't stick to them unless I must. This flexibility is a part of my habits personality, so it really shows up in almost anything I do. For example, I struggle take medicines at a set time each day and often forget the time once I am immersed in a task. Don’t get me wrong…I do schedule things a lot. I just don’t always keep my own appointments.

But even so, I don't want that to stop me from finding focus and progress in language learning. In the Toolkit, my focus is on the content of what I'm learning rather than how regular I am or how many sessions I complete each week.

If I know what I want to get done, I find that I automatically start finding the time to work on it. So rather than thinking "I will complete 4 hours of study this week", I focus on my goals and set myself many very small goals that I want to get done throughout the month.

The daily check-ins in the Language Habit Toolkit are very small. I have seen some learners create their own tracking systems like colour codes and legends, but personally I keep to noting "big session" or "small session. Since I started using the Language Habit Toolkit myself, I definitely have been better about checking in with languages every day and I've finally managed to organise myself enough to learn two languages: Welsh and French.

Example: My Welsh Learning Goals for April 2017

In my routine, I use the Language Habit Toolkit worksheet for setting path goals and getting a quick overview of what I want to achieve in the next month. Here’s what I wrote at the start of April:

“Right Now, I’m Working On…”

• Finishing Level 1 of Say Something in Welsh
• Regular language exchanges on Skype with Gareth from How to Get Fluent, which are increasing the length of time I feel comfortable holding a Welsh conversation
• Getting better at using pronouns and speaking/writing in the past tense

In 30 Days, I want to…

• Be done with Say Something in Welsh Level 1 (I actually wrote challenge 26 - turns out there are only 25! Bonus!)
• Be able to watch 5-10 minutes of TV in Welsh without subtitles
• Grow my vocabulary
• Understand how the one word past tense works

My theme for the month was to become more comfortable listening to Welsh even when I don’t understand everything. These were my larger goals, which I broke down into the four core skills.

My Language Learning Goals and Progress in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing

Since we’re already through the month of April, I’ll tell you what the goals were and how it went:

Listening

• Listen to the Pigion podcast when it comes out (I’d been avoiding this one because it is still a little difficult for me, and as of April 30th I’ve listened to 3 out of 5)
• Watch 4 shows on S4C (I was procrastinating on this until my moment of joy…the show Ffasiwn Mecanic is back and I love it and today I’ll watch 3 and 4)

I even switched the subtitles off on Ffasiwn Mecanic and set a timer for 5 minutes, and I was able to understand 40% of what was said.

Reading

• Do a reading prep session from BBC Bitesize (this was a red herring - there aren’t any!)
• Review the hand-written vocabulary in my notebook and add more words (done! I did this in 2 sessions and added 20-30 new words for my vocabulary routine)

I actually read more outside of these goals, mostly Lingo Newydd magazine and news articles on the BBC Wales website, so for next month’s goals I can be more ambitious here.

Speaking

• Have 3 meetings with language exchange partners (not. a. single. one…we were both very busy, but next month we’re back to it)
• Record myself reading a poem (done)

Even though I didn’t meet any exchange partners, I started sending more voice messages in Tandem so I wasn’t entirely quiet.

Writing

• Put up a larger piece of writing on Reddit or Lang-8 (Reddit has writing prompts every week, and still I didn’t reply to them. Time to kick into gear.)
• Email my tutor and ask her to give me writing feedback (again, I neglected this over the month)

I did actually write in Welsh in April through text messages in Tandem, but I’ve been shy about sharing longer pieces. Another way to write more was to transcribe Say Something in Welsh’s levels, which really helps!

In terms of grammar, I did look up those confusing past tenses and found explanations that really helped in Wikibooks.

My Secondary Language: French

In French, my level is a passive B2/C1 and my main aim is to reactivate all those tired brain cells and speak French with less hesitation. I didn’t set myself any specific goals but scheduled in every Thursday as jour français. I read the French edition of Flow magazine, chatted to a new colleague in French, and followed Glossika Fluency 123 French. While I love the Glossika, I find its level a little low so I’m looking forward to more challenging Glossika content in the future.

It helps me to know that French is currently my “secondary” language, so I don’t scold myself for allocating less time to it. Perhaps in half a year, the languages I focus on are going to change as my Welsh skills become more solid, and I still have a lot of time for focusing on other languages in the future.

Overall, How am I Feeling After 18 Months of Welsh?

I’ve not really checked in in detail with my Welsh language skills for 6 months, but overall it’s feeling pretty great. I’m nearly starting Level 2 of Say Something in Welsh, and my conversation skills are improving a lot! Being at this more advanced level seems to mean that the structured resources are becoming more scarce.

Funnily, I worked so hard on creating the Language Habit Toolkit’s Review worksheet that I had not actually been able to use it myself yet! I’m really looking forward to working through all review questions and getting the next set of goals onto the road.

I’m looking forward to the next awesome events that are coming up, all of which are great chances to speak more in Welsh and French at the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava, at Langfest in Montréal, and of course at the National Eisteddfod in Wales this year!

How Was Your Language Month?

What about you? What were your language goals in April? Are you tracking with the Language Habit Toolkit, or with your own systems? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.