June Language Challenge Update Ivans Update

June Language Challenge Update Ivans Update The italki June 2015 language challenge has not gone smoothly for me, and that in itself has taught me a great deal about achieving my goals and learning a language. It was an exciting, difficult, but ultimately rewarding journey. There are many things that I have re-asserted to myself throughout the process of the challenge: taking notes, importance of review, fundamental advantages of speaking with a person to learn language. Still, I want to make the emphasis on sharing some of the more unusual insights from the experience: Ivan who is on our #marketing #team is struggling taking the #languagechallenge #learningchinese. His goal was to learn #HSK level 4 #chinese and hes almost there! #worklifebalance #scheduling #pressure #goalsetting A photo posted by Italki (@italki) on Jun 28, 2015 at 11:45pm PDT Lesson 1: My main struggle was caused by poorly picking my goal The way I formulated my goal was simple: cover HSK 4 Level vocabulary (This is somewhere around C1 level, and combined with the previous levels of the test covers approximately 1200 Chinese words). Since starting the challenge I have realized that this was definitely too ambitious. What’s worse, I have procrastinated for two weeks before finally starting classes. I have managed to compress my language challenge into a 2-week battery of lessons with several teachers. The goal wasn’t granular enough. I was lazy, and decided to attach my goal to a testable standard. Though, I imagine that instinctual decision was not a bad one, it did lull me into a false sense of security. I didn’t break my goal down into quantifiable pieces. What’s worse, I didn’t design my goal give me any feedback of my progress. By this I mean that my goal didn’t give me any feedback about my performance. In the future, I plan to make smaller sub-goals. I also plan to phrase the goals in terms of proving an ability instead of consuming material: “Discuss social change in context of education using a set list of vocabulary” “Be able to read through this passage naturally with correct tones” “Be able to provide three example sentences for each of the vocabulary words in today’s vocabulary set” Lesson 2:  â€œLe mieux est l’ennemi du bien” There seems to be a natural tendency in us to avoid action, when the embarrassment of being unprepared is expected. I imagined myself striving into the challenge in control, relaxed, confident, and breezing through the month. A week passed, and I haven’t scheduled any lessons. Every day something seemed to come up, I haven’t looked at the vocabulary independently, I haven’t made the right flash cards, I haven’t reviewed the Anki deck, and ultimately, I had 3 more weeks to make sure that I will do my studying according to the perception of a well-planned experience in my head. The second week passed with touches of panic, though I still held onto my mental model of how I will study language. By the time I took my first lesson, this fantasy has been shattered and evaporated. I realized that I would have to take lessons almost daily to complete the challenge. I went on a lesson-requesting binge, requesting lessons with teachers primarily based on their time availability and willingness to teach lessons specialized for HSK. I have wound up with a schedule that had me take a class almost daily, with a team of teachers and the rest of my week booked. There was no going back, I was going to finish the challenge, even if it meant I would drag myself through the hours kicking and screaming. I took my first lesson, worked through some vocabulary with my teacher, some basic conversation (the necessary “Who are you and where are you from?”) and I started feeling good about the class. Half an hour into actually doing the challenge, my level of panic and anxiety subsided, and then disappeared. Somehow in the process of imagining doing the challenge I had managed to create a mental model that actually got in my way of actually learning. Over the course of two weeks I had reinforced that feeling. Lack of preparation, not being mentally in the mind-set to study, not finding the time to do the review beforehand all these are barriers to entry, not reasons not to attend the class. Once I started actually doing the work, speaking with the teacher and taking notes, I have noticed not only the improvement in my feelings about the learning process, I started noticing progress in my ability to recall the vocabulary, use it topically, and actually finding it easier to engage in Chinese conversation outside of the study sessions, spontaneously. I think this is a great take-away to find in this challenge: Having a perfect lesson is less important than just having lessons, consistently, without abandoning the process or or letting self-doubt creep in. Lesson 3: Try different teachers I had scheduled many classes, primarily orienting myself towards the pace of lesson-taking rather than trying to concentrate on any specific facet of content. This turned out to be a great idea. My assumption has always been that sticking with the same teacher will limit my exposure to variety of styles, or even individual peculiarities of pronunciation. Still, I noticed a bit of psychological friction when scheduling lessons with multiple teachers. This seemed uncomfortable primarily because I could already feel the awkwardness of speaking with a stranger for the first time. I had to distance myself from the process and followed a simple algorithm: Pick the time, filter by price and willingness to teach HSK, send lesson request, schedule the next class. Quickly my schedule filled up and I was on-track to finish the challenge. Whatever awkwardness I felt about meeting half a dozen new teachers in the span of two weeks I had made a commitment to it, which seemed to help somehow. After finishing hour 4 or 5, I realized how helpful it is to have multiple teachers in a short period of time. Each one had a different approach, and a natural propensity to concentrate on a specific aspect. After a particularly intense hour concentrating on tones, I realized how useful it is to have a team of teachers, rather than picking one and sticking to them only. I’ve realized that I want to take more classes with each one of the teachers I’ve tried, and I’m designing my future class schedule with purpose: reading a grammar with one teacher, casual conversation and organic use of vocabulary with another, intensive tones and pronunciation practice with a third. I can’t recommend trying this enough, as it seems like such a counterintuitive approach. So, did I reach my goal? No, I wouldn’t say that I have, and that is actually a good thing. I have learned to create a plan better, and opened myself up to more diverse experiences in terms of language-learning. I’ve realized the importance of making achievable, feedback-oriented goals, which is crucial if I plan to stay motivated in my language-learning. Above all, though, I have discovered several great teachers that can help me practice specific skills in my quest not just to pass a test, but to gain a comprehensive and deep understanding of Mandarin. June Language Challenge Update Ivans Update The italki June 2015 language challenge has not gone smoothly for me, and that in itself has taught me a great deal about achieving my goals and learning a language. It was an exciting, difficult, but ultimately rewarding journey. There are many things that I have re-asserted to myself throughout the process of the challenge: taking notes, importance of review, fundamental advantages of speaking with a person to learn language. Still, I want to make the emphasis on sharing some of the more unusual insights from the experience: Ivan who is on our #marketing #team is struggling taking the #languagechallenge #learningchinese. His goal was to learn #HSK level 4 #chinese and hes almost there! #worklifebalance #scheduling #pressure #goalsetting A photo posted by Italki (@italki) on Jun 28, 2015 at 11:45pm PDT Lesson 1: My main struggle was caused by poorly picking my goal The way I formulated my goal was simple: cover HSK 4 Level vocabulary (This is somewhere around C1 level, and combined with the previous levels of the test covers approximately 1200 Chinese words). Since starting the challenge I have realized that this was definitely too ambitious. What’s worse, I have procrastinated for two weeks before finally starting classes. I have managed to compress my language challenge into a 2-week battery of lessons with several teachers. The goal wasn’t granular enough. I was lazy, and decided to attach my goal to a testable standard. Though, I imagine that instinctual decision was not a bad one, it did lull me into a false sense of security. I didn’t break my goal down into quantifiable pieces. What’s worse, I didn’t design my goal give me any feedback of my progress. By this I mean that my goal didn’t give me any feedback about my performance. In the future, I plan to make smaller sub-goals. I also plan to phrase the goals in terms of proving an ability instead of consuming material: “Discuss social change in context of education using a set list of vocabulary” “Be able to read through this passage naturally with correct tones” “Be able to provide three example sentences for each of the vocabulary words in today’s vocabulary set” Lesson 2:  â€œLe mieux est l’ennemi du bien” There seems to be a natural tendency in us to avoid action, when the embarrassment of being unprepared is expected. I imagined myself striving into the challenge in control, relaxed, confident, and breezing through the month. A week passed, and I haven’t scheduled any lessons. Every day something seemed to come up, I haven’t looked at the vocabulary independently, I haven’t made the right flash cards, I haven’t reviewed the Anki deck, and ultimately, I had 3 more weeks to make sure that I will do my studying according to the perception of a well-planned experience in my head. The second week passed with touches of panic, though I still held onto my mental model of how I will study language. By the time I took my first lesson, this fantasy has been shattered and evaporated. I realized that I would have to take lessons almost daily to complete the challenge. I went on a lesson-requesting binge, requesting lessons with teachers primarily based on their time availability and willingness to teach lessons specialized for HSK. I have wound up with a schedule that had me take a class almost daily, with a team of teachers and the rest of my week booked. There was no going back, I was going to finish the challenge, even if it meant I would drag myself through the hours kicking and screaming. I took my first lesson, worked through some vocabulary with my teacher, some basic conversation (the necessary “Who are you and where are you from?”) and I started feeling good about the class. Half an hour into actually doing the challenge, my level of panic and anxiety subsided, and then disappeared. Somehow in the process of imagining doing the challenge I had managed to create a mental model that actually got in my way of actually learning. Over the course of two weeks I had reinforced that feeling. Lack of preparation, not being mentally in the mind-set to study, not finding the time to do the review beforehand all these are barriers to entry, not reasons not to attend the class. Once I started actually doing the work, speaking with the teacher and taking notes, I have noticed not only the improvement in my feelings about the learning process, I started noticing progress in my ability to recall the vocabulary, use it topically, and actually finding it easier to engage in Chinese conversation outside of the study sessions, spontaneously. I think this is a great take-away to find in this challenge: Having a perfect lesson is less important than just having lessons, consistently, without abandoning the process or or letting self-doubt creep in. Lesson 3: Try different teachers I had scheduled many classes, primarily orienting myself towards the pace of lesson-taking rather than trying to concentrate on any specific facet of content. This turned out to be a great idea. My assumption has always been that sticking with the same teacher will limit my exposure to variety of styles, or even individual peculiarities of pronunciation. Still, I noticed a bit of psychological friction when scheduling lessons with multiple teachers. This seemed uncomfortable primarily because I could already feel the awkwardness of speaking with a stranger for the first time. I had to distance myself from the process and followed a simple algorithm: Pick the time, filter by price and willingness to teach HSK, send lesson request, schedule the next class. Quickly my schedule filled up and I was on-track to finish the challenge. Whatever awkwardness I felt about meeting half a dozen new teachers in the span of two weeks I had made a commitment to it, which seemed to help somehow. After finishing hour 4 or 5, I realized how helpful it is to have multiple teachers in a short period of time. Each one had a different approach, and a natural propensity to concentrate on a specific aspect. After a particularly intense hour concentrating on tones, I realized how useful it is to have a team of teachers, rather than picking one and sticking to them only. I’ve realized that I want to take more classes with each one of the teachers I’ve tried, and I’m designing my future class schedule with purpose: reading a grammar with one teacher, casual conversation and organic use of vocabulary with another, intensive tones and pronunciation practice with a third. I can’t recommend trying this enough, as it seems like such a counterintuitive approach. So, did I reach my goal? No, I wouldn’t say that I have, and that is actually a good thing. I have learned to create a plan better, and opened myself up to more diverse experiences in terms of language-learning. I’ve realized the importance of making achievable, feedback-oriented goals, which is crucial if I plan to stay motivated in my language-learning. Above all, though, I have discovered several great teachers that can help me practice specific skills in my quest not just to pass a test, but to gain a comprehensive and deep understanding of Mandarin. June Language Challenge Update Ivans Update The italki June 2015 language challenge has not gone smoothly for me, and that in itself has taught me a great deal about achieving my goals and learning a language. It was an exciting, difficult, but ultimately rewarding journey. There are many things that I have re-asserted to myself throughout the process of the challenge: taking notes, importance of review, fundamental advantages of speaking with a person to learn language. Still, I want to make the emphasis on sharing some of the more unusual insights from the experience: Ivan who is on our #marketing #team is struggling taking the #languagechallenge #learningchinese. His goal was to learn #HSK level 4 #chinese and hes almost there! #worklifebalance #scheduling #pressure #goalsetting A photo posted by Italki (@italki) on Jun 28, 2015 at 11:45pm PDT Lesson 1: My main struggle was caused by poorly picking my goal The way I formulated my goal was simple: cover HSK 4 Level vocabulary (This is somewhere around C1 level, and combined with the previous levels of the test covers approximately 1200 Chinese words). Since starting the challenge I have realized that this was definitely too ambitious. What’s worse, I have procrastinated for two weeks before finally starting classes. I have managed to compress my language challenge into a 2-week battery of lessons with several teachers. The goal wasn’t granular enough. I was lazy, and decided to attach my goal to a testable standard. Though, I imagine that instinctual decision was not a bad one, it did lull me into a false sense of security. I didn’t break my goal down into quantifiable pieces. What’s worse, I didn’t design my goal give me any feedback of my progress. By this I mean that my goal didn’t give me any feedback about my performance. In the future, I plan to make smaller sub-goals. I also plan to phrase the goals in terms of proving an ability instead of consuming material: “Discuss social change in context of education using a set list of vocabulary” “Be able to read through this passage naturally with correct tones” “Be able to provide three example sentences for each of the vocabulary words in today’s vocabulary set” Lesson 2:  â€œLe mieux est l’ennemi du bien” There seems to be a natural tendency in us to avoid action, when the embarrassment of being unprepared is expected. I imagined myself striving into the challenge in control, relaxed, confident, and breezing through the month. A week passed, and I haven’t scheduled any lessons. Every day something seemed to come up, I haven’t looked at the vocabulary independently, I haven’t made the right flash cards, I haven’t reviewed the Anki deck, and ultimately, I had 3 more weeks to make sure that I will do my studying according to the perception of a well-planned experience in my head. The second week passed with touches of panic, though I still held onto my mental model of how I will study language. By the time I took my first lesson, this fantasy has been shattered and evaporated. I realized that I would have to take lessons almost daily to complete the challenge. I went on a lesson-requesting binge, requesting lessons with teachers primarily based on their time availability and willingness to teach lessons specialized for HSK. I have wound up with a schedule that had me take a class almost daily, with a team of teachers and the rest of my week booked. There was no going back, I was going to finish the challenge, even if it meant I would drag myself through the hours kicking and screaming. I took my first lesson, worked through some vocabulary with my teacher, some basic conversation (the necessary “Who are you and where are you from?”) and I started feeling good about the class. Half an hour into actually doing the challenge, my level of panic and anxiety subsided, and then disappeared. Somehow in the process of imagining doing the challenge I had managed to create a mental model that actually got in my way of actually learning. Over the course of two weeks I had reinforced that feeling. Lack of preparation, not being mentally in the mind-set to study, not finding the time to do the review beforehand all these are barriers to entry, not reasons not to attend the class. Once I started actually doing the work, speaking with the teacher and taking notes, I have noticed not only the improvement in my feelings about the learning process, I started noticing progress in my ability to recall the vocabulary, use it topically, and actually finding it easier to engage in Chinese conversation outside of the study sessions, spontaneously. I think this is a great take-away to find in this challenge: Having a perfect lesson is less important than just having lessons, consistently, without abandoning the process or or letting self-doubt creep in. Lesson 3: Try different teachers I had scheduled many classes, primarily orienting myself towards the pace of lesson-taking rather than trying to concentrate on any specific facet of content. This turned out to be a great idea. My assumption has always been that sticking with the same teacher will limit my exposure to variety of styles, or even individual peculiarities of pronunciation. Still, I noticed a bit of psychological friction when scheduling lessons with multiple teachers. This seemed uncomfortable primarily because I could already feel the awkwardness of speaking with a stranger for the first time. I had to distance myself from the process and followed a simple algorithm: Pick the time, filter by price and willingness to teach HSK, send lesson request, schedule the next class. Quickly my schedule filled up and I was on-track to finish the challenge. Whatever awkwardness I felt about meeting half a dozen new teachers in the span of two weeks I had made a commitment to it, which seemed to help somehow. After finishing hour 4 or 5, I realized how helpful it is to have multiple teachers in a short period of time. Each one had a different approach, and a natural propensity to concentrate on a specific aspect. After a particularly intense hour concentrating on tones, I realized how useful it is to have a team of teachers, rather than picking one and sticking to them only. I’ve realized that I want to take more classes with each one of the teachers I’ve tried, and I’m designing my future class schedule with purpose: reading a grammar with one teacher, casual conversation and organic use of vocabulary with another, intensive tones and pronunciation practice with a third. I can’t recommend trying this enough, as it seems like such a counterintuitive approach. So, did I reach my goal? No, I wouldn’t say that I have, and that is actually a good thing. I have learned to create a plan better, and opened myself up to more diverse experiences in terms of language-learning. I’ve realized the importance of making achievable, feedback-oriented goals, which is crucial if I plan to stay motivated in my language-learning. Above all, though, I have discovered several great teachers that can help me practice specific skills in my quest not just to pass a test, but to gain a comprehensive and deep understanding of Mandarin.