shaunna crossing

I just wanted to post which language resources I use. If there are any you are curious about, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help.

Goals 15.04.20

Email school.

Student finance.

Study German.

Study Romanian.

Duolingo.

Read.

Goals 28.03.20

Duolingo.

Complete pages 14 & 15 of Erkundungen.

Complete pages 13, 14 & 15 of Grammatik aktiv.

Reading.

Work on resources for students.

Submit personal tutorial.

Goals 27/03/2020

Admin.

Duolingo.

Shopping.

Write up French phrases to Quizlet.

Reading.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, referred to as simply CEFR, is an essential means of understanding and grading one’s competency in foreign language and the levels are as follows; A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. The levels start at beginner and go right up to fluency. Has the Langblr community become too focused on the framework and forgotten the hardships of language learning? In short, yes.

Saying to yourself that in 6 months to a year, you will go from A1 to A2 level does nothing but perpetuate the belief that languages aren’t constantly evolving and can be learned from a textbook. I am not saying that you will never be able to reach B2 level because German has decided to add a 30-letter word to the dictionary, or you are unable to move to the target country. The CEFR is only 6 tiers and will not reflect your fluency down to a T. Focusing too heavily on the level blinds us from seeing the gaps in our knowledge. It also re-introduces grades back into our hobbies and self-study sessions. You are worth more than to reduce years of hard work to a letter and a number. If we replaced the CEFR with grades A*-U, I guarantee you that we’d be having a different conversation entirely.

Rather than saying, “I’ll reach B2 level in 2020”, why don’t you instead say, “I’ll have a conversation with a native speaker about ____ topic” or “I’ll start a journal in the target language”. You are never going to want to continue to progress if you believe that you have already reached the finish line.

This does not mean that CEFR is useless. It is completely healthy to, for arguments sake, refer to your linguistic ability as C1 in a job application. It acts as the perfect outline to a wide topic. But that is all it should be, a simple overview.

Just remember that a language needs to be lived, experienced. It cannot be learned in depth sat at a desk listening to lo-fi study beats. And also, everybody learns at their own pace and not everyone has a problem with grammar.

As we are nearing the end of 2019, I wanted to use this time to reflect on my progress made this year in order to establish language goals for 2020. This is also a work in progress and I will most likely update it beyond the new year. Personally, it doesn’t make sense for me to leave languages out completely and the thought of not studying certain languages for most of the year isn’t something I support (for myself). If I don’t work at it, I will just lose all my progress so the languages that I will be focusing on this year are the ones that I think I already have a decent understanding in and also the ones that I am passionate enough about.

My language goals for 2020

German

Become more confident when talking to native speakers.

Focus on grammar (chapters - 88).

Read an entire book in German.

Work through the textbook (chapters -).

Finish German stories on Duolingo.

Japanese

Learn 200 new Kanji.

Watch more anime.

Master writing Hiragana and Katakana (NO romaji).

Romanian

Finish complete Romanian.

Complete Duolingo tree.

Discover more Romanian music.

Korean

Learn Hangul.

Use Drops to learn new vocabulary every day.

Watch more K-dramas.

Spanish

Complete Duolingo tree.

Practice speaking more.

French

Revise old grammar.

Practice with a native speaker.

General goals

Read more books.

Spend less time procrastinating.

Less screen time.

Consistently document progress.

Focus on myself and my health more.

More experiences.