Language Tracking Insider: How To Move Steadily Towards Your Next Breakthrough
You love learning languages, but sometimes you're wondering if all that work will ever really add up to anything? Then look no further and start building a powerful tracking routine today. Tracking doesn't have to be complicated, and with these 4 cool tips you'll quickly get into a true language habit!
Language tracking is so important. It allows you to stay on top of your studies, master busy periods and see your own progress towards fluency. It’s not just an exercise in discipline or productivity.
When you find smart ways to track, it will enhance all the work you’re doing and become one of the greatest motivators out there. And since I recently built and shared my own best practice templates for tracking in the Language Habit Toolkit learners, I’ve been hearing back from students who have some incredible ideas for making this even more effective.
Check out the following creative tracking tweaks and see if they can transform your language learning, too.
1) Track Life Events That Affect Your Study Routine
We all know that rules are made to be broken, and this is true for study routines too! Big and small events such as trips, conferences, and birthdays can knock you off your routine and even break habits.
Look out for these types of events at the start of the week and make a note in your tracker. Give yourself permission to drop off the routine and pay attention to getting back on track in the days after your event. For example, you could schedule 20 minutes of writing for the day after your birthday.
How To Add This To Your Tracker
My favourite trick comes from Catrin, one of my expert testers.
As Catrin started tracking her studies every day, she made little notes of what’s going on in her life.
Remember that it is okay if you are just too busy to study sometimes.
Developing a language habit is not about perfect records of focused study every day. It’s about more than that: Making language feel natural, building structure, and helping you go further simply by coming back to the project every week.
2) Code In Your Activities
The next trick is from Mark, another expert tester. Mark used to be a runner, and found that regular tracking was a key to his training regime. Taking the method into language learning, he built on his tracking expertise by adding little extras to show what he did during those sessions.
Here are a few easy ways of enhancing your Habit Tracker:
- Use different colours to track which skill you trained that day (vocab, grammar, listening, speaking, reading and writing..)
- Use numbers or letters to shorten descriptions of your resources, for example 1 for Duolingo, 2 for Glossika, 3 for your vocab notebook, 4 for a video chat, and so on.
- If you are studying more than one language, highlight which languages you were studying on which day. On the right, you can see how I reserve every Thursday for training French instead of Welsh (using the Language Habit Toolkit, printed at 50% and pasted into my Moleskine notebook).
3) Add A Review Box to Your Habit Tracker
The next tip was shared by Toolkit user Colette. She shared a tweak she uses to make sure she stays on top of what she’s learnt so far.
When you are just finishing a lesson with your tutor or a timed study session, the temptation to close the app/book and do something else is at its highest. You have earned your break! But with just one or two words of new vocabulary, you can hugely increase the benefit of what you just learnt.
Colette’s idea takes this review system one step further, as she decided to write down one word to review from her vocab routine right on the Habit Tracker every day. Just think: If you review just one vocabulary word extra every single day, you save yourself 365 reviews a year. Your Memrise buddies will be very impressed!
How To Add This To Your Tracker
In the Language Habit Toolkit, your Study Tracker sheet also comes with a “What I Learnt” section that prompts you to make a quick note of exactly what you added to your knowledge on this occasion.
Making a note while it is fresh in your mind will help you realise that even just a few minutes spent on a flashcard review can take you further towards becoming fluent.
4) Log in Advance
The final trick in today’s round-up comes from me, and it’s my classic way of kick-starting any activity when I feel like I’m procrastinating a bit too much. I’m a person who can struggle with overwhelm, and sometimes I get nothing at all done because I don’t even know where to start.
One thing I’ve learnt is that I can usually get myself unstuck by creating dedicated times in my week. It doesn’t work if I say “I will study every Monday from 6 to 7”, but it does work when I look just a few days ahead and decide where important work will fit in.
The most effective way to “advance log” is to become extremely specific. Don’t just write “read in Welsh” - it has to be “spend 8 minutes reading MADRON comic”. Instead of saying “do Memrise”, make a specific note of the level you want to complete or the mini-goal you have.
Related article: How to Learn a Language With Smart and Useful Goals
Want To Get Ready-Made Language Tracking Templates?
You’ll find two in-depth tracking worksheets to print and use in the Language Habit Toolkit. These trackers are professionally designed, developed with language learning experts, and will give you an instant set-up for effective tracking.
Find the Language Habit Toolkit in Fluent’s Learning Section.
Do you keep track of your language learning sessions in detail, or do you prefer to sail along and set big goals only? If you’ve got a tip to share, let me know in the comments below!
Learning Languages at Intermediate Level: My Language Goals, Routine, and Progress in Detail
Feeling stuck on that plateau of "invisible progress"? Here's how to keep going! Here's a snapshot of how I make progress in my target language step-by-step, even after 18 months of study. 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.
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.
