Episode 51: Set Yourself Up For Seeing Your Progress
Aug 28, 2023
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Discover practical ways to track your language learning progress and boost motivation. Learn about creating benchmarks, note-taking, and selecting specific topics for practice. Discover techniques for tracking growth, such as recording, dictation exercises, and word count tracking.
Creating dynamic systems to track word usage and interaction can provide tangible evidence of language growth.
Journaling dedicated to language learning helps establish a record of progress and allows for reflection and celebration of achievements.
Deep dives
Track Progress through Words
One practical advice for tracking language progress is to create a dynamic system that focuses on tracking not just the number of words learned, but also the interaction and usage of those words. This can be done by keeping a list of words learned and using columns or checkboxes to mark them off as they are used in writing, speaking, reading, or listening. By tracking the usage and understanding of words, learners can set benchmarks for progress and see concrete evidence of their language growth.
Journaling for Progress Recognition
Journaling can be an effective tool for recognizing progress in language learning. By keeping a journal specifically dedicated to language learning, learners can make notes about what they can do, what they struggle with, common mistakes, and areas of improvement. This helps to establish a record of the journey and provides tangible evidence of progress over time. Through periodic journal entries, learners can reflect on their growth, celebrate achievements, and stay grounded in their language learning reality.
Creating Benchmarks with Specific Topics
Choosing a specific topic or story and periodically writing or speaking about it can serve as a benchmark for progress. By repeatedly revisiting the same topic and documenting language growth with it, learners can observe how their ability to discuss the topic expands over time. This process allows them to witness their progress firsthand, as they go from basic descriptions to expressing more complex thoughts and opinions. The gradual improvement in fluency and depth of discussion serves as a measurable demonstration of language progress.
Traffic Light Reading for Reading and Listening Progress
The traffic light reading technique can be used to track reading progress and, to some extent, listening progress. Using different colored writing utensils, learners can highlight words they know, words they recognize, and words they don't understand. This exercise provides an instant visual representation of the ratio between known and unknown words. By periodically revisiting the same text and highlighting the words again, learners can observe the growth in their understanding and see tangible proof of reading progress. This concept can be extended to dictation exercises for measuring listening progress as well.
In today's episode I share 4 (or 4.5) tips for creating benchmarks along your language journey to guarantee that your future self will recognize and believe that you're making progress. In language learning, it's really easy to be so down in the weeds and the details of studying and practicing that progress feels slow or even stagnant. Yet, every single word we learn is a tiny bit of growth, and the more progress we see, the more we keep coming back for more. But it can be difficult to recognize that progress, especially if we don’t work toward a particular measure of progress like taking a level exam or counting the number of words we learn or something like that.
But why wait for those big measures of progress to happen? At any point in your language journey, you can intentionally create meaningful bencharks that will set you up for future moments of progress recognition. I hope today's episode allows you to brainstorm some creative ideas that bring a little extra excitement, motivation, and pride into your language life.
If you like the idea of making sure you see the language progress that you're making (because you are making progress), check out episode 22 here, where I talk about the role mindfulness also plays in seeing and believing our language progress.
Links to other resources for getting ideas on how to realize and measure your language progress and growth:
