hello everybody something i wish i did
all these years ago when i started
learning languages
was to consistently track my progress so
that i could see how far i've come
and improve on my language learning
methods as i go
so today we're discussing how to track
your progress
in languages
[Music]
hello if you are new here my name is
lindy and i make videos about language
learning productivity and
mindset we can look at tracking your
language process
in two ways the first one is your actual
progression
from beginner to advanced onwards
and the second aspect of tracking
language learning is
actually what are you doing to study
this language what kind of immersion
are you incorporating into your language
learning what kind of tools are you
using
tracking your language learning
activities and progress why is this
important well for one it gives you a
visual representation of how much time
or effort you've actually been spending
on your languages
if you are creating a plan to study for
an exam for instance
it's a nice way to see how far you still
have to go and to look back
on how much you've done for the whole of
last year i was tracking which languages
i was learning every single day
and i really got to see maybe i'm not
spending enough time
on certain languages or maybe i'm
spending too much time on another
language
now it's up to you whether you want to
track the amount of hours you spend
there are people who have
excel spreadsheets where they log
exactly how many up to the minutes
they've spent on language learning if
this works for you great
i don't really see the benefit in
tracking minutes because
it puts a lot of pressure on my language
learning otherwise if you just want to
see what activities you're doing
you can use a general calendar view
which i will show you in a minute
so let's jump into different methods of
how you can track your language learning
progress and activities
the first one is a language activity
journal or
notebook or calendar if you watch my
language learning goals for the year
video you'll see i touched on this
notebook
and it is over here so i can show you
a little bit more of how i use this
notebook it's just a calendar a small
um year planner for muji but you can use
a blank notebook
so i have a monthly view here where i
track
what lessons i have in which language i
also track my books
uh in general like what books i'm
reading when
and i have also set a goal for myself to
write diary entries
in my two focused languages every sunday
so i just indicate those with these uh
with these three lines
i have an indicator on the side here for
the languages i'm learning
uh and i just add them in once i do them
so i'm not writing
all my list of languages but just korean
because i've done something in korean
i watched a movie spanish is this red
dot so these are when i'm taking spanish
lessons
or using busu and i've got my diary
entries here
i write them on sundays sometimes i'm a
little late so this one's on tuesday
so this just gives me a nice visual
overview on a month of how much time i
dedicate to certain languages
now if we jump to my weekly view
originally i intended to have one column
for
everything i'm doing in tagalog and one
column
over here for everything i'm doing in
hungarian but that felt very stifled
so as i move along i kind of just keep
it open
so that i can write whatever i'm doing
in any language regardless
i've just indicated what i've did when i
don't do something i put it in there as
well
and then my little essays i do get
corrections and i write them in my
journal
i write it in my language learning
notebook i mean i also just indicate
what languages i've actually
um touched on this week so this was a
really bad week uh if you understand
korean it just says you know this week
was really bad and i didn't want to
write anything so i didn't do anything
but that's okay we move on we feel
better here i'm just doing a little bit
of journal entries in tagalog and
hungarian
and you'll see my format of my journal
kind of changes every week and that's
what i really like about
tracking my activities in progress um
because i don't have a plan for the
whole year i just let
myself change and adapt as i go along
so it's it's nice to look back on this
calendar and see how i felt and how my
mood or my hormones impact my language
learning as well
and that helps me plan better if i know
that i'm feeling really down
for one week every month i can scale
down my activities and just do
fun things like immersion rather than
forcing myself to
work through textbooks for instance and
here we are on this week
so i still have to write my journal
entries because it's not sunday yet and
then i just have a backlog of tasks that
i'd still like to do
so that is my language learning calendar
journal progress and i'm sure this will
evolve
as we go through the year so i'll be
sure to update you guys on that
the second method this one is more for
tracking your actual progress from
beginner to advanced
is to keep video or audio logs you can
also just write diary entries and see
how you are able like how much are you
able to express in a language
at the start of the year and at the end
of the year how much can you express
yourself it can just be for yourself to
look back on and be like hey i've
actually progressed or
oh i'm not really progressing let me put
in a little more work
for many years i was keeping a journal
in japanese and chinese every single day
and it is so amazing to look back and
see how my handwriting has changed how
my
vocabulary has increased and it's really
these
everyday little habits that help you
progress in a language so keeping a
journal just forcing yourself
every day to write something or to
record something can keep you
accountable to your goals
and help you see an actual progression
of how you are
improving from beginner to advanced the
third thing that i touched on earlier is
actually publicly posting your progress
on
um a nice happy safe language learning
community like twitter for instance
so this is a really simple thing you can
do to see what activities are working
for you and how much you're getting done
you don't need to make a big deal out of
it by posting lofty goals quite public
and i just like the community feeling i
like seeing what other people
are doing in their languages too it
makes me feel like we're all
progressing together and reaching our
goals together another reason why this
is good why i would recommend it is
because it gives you some motivation
when you are feeling down and there will
be those days when you're like
am i even learning am i even progressing
you can look back and celebrate your
small victories so for instance if you
understood a tv show or if you had your
first conversation or if you
finally memorized that word you've been
wanting to learn you can just post it
even if it's just to yourself and say
hey
today i finally managed to have my first
conversation
and you look back and be like oh you
know i'm actually progressing
and it just helps you keep going i did
post my language learning goals for the
first quarter on twitter and i was
really excited to see
how many people in the community adopted
this same format and tagged me in
uh how they post their goals and keep
track on twitter as well
so you can check it out there if you are
interested in joining the language
community on twitter and tracking your
progress with us another
way you can track your language learning
progress is by doing it via an
app there are apps like busu which make
it really easy for you to set up a study
plan
so a huge thank you to busu for being
the sponsor for today's video
i have made a full review video of the
busu language learning app before if you
want to check that out
you can learn a bunch of languages on
there and it is an app that i'm
particularly using for spanish
but today i'm just going to focus on
their study plan and how you can use
that
setting up a study plan on busu is the
perfect way of setting yourself
up for tracking your progress because
you can reach a daily or a weekly goal
that you indicate
let's click on create a study plan you
can indicate what is your main goal for
learning this language
uh for me i would like to learn it for
fun and culture
so i'm just going to say well i'd like
to be
intermediate be b2 that sounds good and
then over here you
uh tell busu when you want to learn and
they will create a plan for you
um around lunchtime sounds good 12 30
yep and let's do 15 minutes a day
all right let's say continue and they
will generate a plan for you
you should be able to reach intermediate
b1 by december 22
2021. that is really exciting so it has
set up a little study plan for me
uh it'll just take me to the next
exercise based on
my current app progress so now i'm on
the b1 course
so tracking your language progress keeps
you accountable to yourself but if
you're struggling a little bit and you
want someone there to help you
boosu recently added a new feature where
you can book individual sessions with
professional tutors online
they help you keep track to achieve your
goals so if you need any extra help
this feature is available to you you can
use the link in the description to
download busu and check it out
and finally a word of caution as
language learners we should not be
caught up in
what we're doing and how much we're
doing and are we sticking to our goals
that's really important but
mental health is important too so if
you're feeling tired and drained
adjust your plan the whole point of
tracking this
is not only to feel better about your
progress and see how much you're doing
but to make incremental changes and
adjustments as you go along
so if you set up a language learning
journal where you're tracking what you
do
you can see that maybe you planned on
watching videos and listening to
podcasts and reading books but you're
actually only
watching videos then you can adjust your
plan going forward it's okay if you're
not doing what you originally intended
to do the point
of tracking your progress is to see
either where you need to be a bit
more strict on yourself or where you
just need to let things go it's okay if
you're not following your original plan
this thinking comes from what uh what i
do at work so i'm a product designer and
we work in the agile methodology
that means we have sprints one sprint is
two weeks
and we have a certain number of sprints
within a quarter
to complete features that lead to an
eventual goal
and it is called agile because you can
go back and change things and say
actually this is taking longer than we
thought or this
we tried it we released it and users
don't like it so we're gonna roll
it back and adjust you don't plan for
the entire year
and do something and then have it fail
at the end so it's okay
to have little failures and learnings
along the way so that you can adjust
every single sprint but what i'm getting
at is that if you are tracking your
progress in little increments you can
make changes accordingly
that is also why i made my language
learning plan in quarters and not for
the entire year
it's more important to get yourself into
an immersive state of language learning
than it is to be spending all your time
planning you need to actually be putting
in the work and not just writing or
thinking about it
well thank you so much for watching i
hope you guys enjoyed it let me know how
you are tracking your language learning
in the comments and please subscribe if
you want to see more language learning
videos
i will see you guys in the next video
have a wonderful rest of your week
bye