2021 Language Learning Goals
English

2021 Language Learning Goals

by

language learning
lifestyle

Hi everyone! Since the new year is upon us, I would like to take the time to set some goals for myself for this coming year.

2020 assessment

The goals I set for myself in 2020 were purely progress-based goals. That is, I estimated my level in each language I wanted to study and decided which level I would want to achieve by the end of the year. The languages I intended to study were Spanish, French, Dutch, American Sign Language, Irish, and Cantonese, the last three being new additions. I also ended up having the opportunity to learn a little Spanish Sign Language during the time I was studying in Spain.

2020 was the first year where I decided to study so many languages because in the past, I had been very casual with my language learning and was not doing very much to improve. Because of this, I thought that having progress-based goals would be effective for me because I would be able to have a bit more tangible measure of how close I was to achieving those goals. Well, long story short, I failed terribly. I made a video talking about why that is and the lesson that I learned from it, which you can watch if you are interested: https://youtu.be/dTHohXRXCBs

2021 goals

The goals I would like to make for myself for 2021 will be habit-based. Of course, I would like to improve my levels, but I have learned that that is not the best motivator for myself. I saw in 2020 that I made the most progress in my languages when I had good routines with plenty of opportunities for varied types of practice. So, I will break this year into smaller chunks and choose a focus for each chunk of 3-4 months, and I will try to turn language study into a part of my daily routine.

For the first few months of 2021, my main focus will be on improving my Dutch. I would estimate that right now, I am around a B1 level overall. However, much of how I learned Dutch was through media consumption, such as YouTube videos, films, and music, which means that I can speak and understand far better than I can read or write, particularly in an academic sense. Because I have never particularly studied grammar and vocabulary consistently for Dutch, I want to try to make that a daily habit and use this time to learn the most effective ways for me to learn and which ways are not so effective. For example, I know that I struggle with rote memorization in any language, so I am going to try instead to read articles and books and transcribe songs, and then I will make vocabulary lists from there. I think that having context for all of these words will make the learning easier for me and will be in such a way that I actually remember the words later. In my previous post, you can see that I have already started this process with a song called "Weg van jou" by Fource, which I transcribed and compared with the actual lyrics.

A secondary focus I would like to have is to continue improving my vocabulary in American Sign Language. I have been studying for about 6 months now, and I took accelerated classes for ASL 1, 2, and 3. I will be taking an ASL 4 class that will be over a period twice as long, which I chose to do so that I have more time to refamiliarize myself with the vocabulary from previous levels and so that I have more time to watch native signers on YouTube to improve my comprehension.

For now, I will have to allow my other languages to take a back seat so that I have the chance to create new habits for my language learning and not be overwhelmed by trying to balance too much at once. I will consider the first part of this year a success if, after the first 3-4 months, Dutch grammar and vocabulary study has become a daily habit, I am watching ASL videos a few times a week, and signing has become more natural to me. I will be using Journaly as a way to help maintain my other languages, as well as to respond to any articles or other media that I find particularly interesting during my studies.

I am excited to hear any feedback on my plan for habit-based goals in 2021, and I would also love to see how other people did on their 2020 goal and their new goals for 2021!

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