Hello my fellow writers and students! I have an etsy shop where I make writing, teaching and studying resources. After an incident at work earlier this year I made the big decision to go part time and start studying my masters degree - it was always something I've wanted to do and after how bad my mental health got this year, I needed to go and do something that made me happy. But this means a cut in my wages as well. I started an Etsy shop as something to focus on and keep me going and now also as a little extra income for whilst I am studying. So if you're interested, please check it out. Or if you could support just by favouriting some items or sharing this post that would be a massive help too because I don't expect everyone to go and buy things, life is expensive. Thank you all for your support! Here are just some of my products!

Check out my Etsy 'Spilled Ink Workshop' for writing, teaching and study materials - sale now on!

spilledinkworkshop.etsy.com

Since I've seen a lot of Czech learners on this site, I realized I could share with more people!

So, here's the link to my Google drive folder:

Hope it helps!

I have gone through all of these topics before, in this post on Language Learning Terms. Please peruse my #study plan and #study method tags if you'd like to read more about how to use these kinds of study materials in depth.

In this post I'd like to explain how to quickly gauge how a learning material is intending to teach you, and what skill it is helping you improve the most.

To identify if a learning material is going to help listening, reading, speaking, or writing: just identify what type the learning material falls under, and what type of activities it recommends you do. Many learning materials will have some overlap, and if you're creative you can find a way to practice all 4 skills with a well made material.

If it's a listening material - it will help with listening. So podcasts, youtube videos, dialogue recordings from a textbook, classroom instruction where the teacher speaks, etc. If it's a reading material - it will help with reading. So textbooks with text in the language, podcast transcripts, graded reader texts, videos with subtitles you are reading, classes with reading material, etc. If the material includes speaking exercises then it will help with speaking - shadowing a dialogue or podcast by trying to repeat right after what you hear out loud, practice dialogue exercises in textbooks and websites where you say sentences you make up based on the vocabulary and examples, apps/podcasts like Glossika and Pimsleur and Coffee Break Spanish where you repeat after the speaker, classes where you are required to speak with students/teacher, tutoring sessions that involve talking with another person. If the material includes writing exercises then it will help with writing - so textbook grammar drills where you are given vocabulary and grammar points then asked to answer questions by writing sentences in the language, classes that require writing assignments, writing down a transcript of audio you listen to (trying to transcribe what you hear), text conversations between you and others on a language exchange app, writing journal prompts, etc.

To identify how a learning material is going to teach you the information: check if the learning material is made to be intensively or extensively used.

Intensive learning materials will give you vocabulary lists and explanations for everything you'll need to know to understand the material (or at least everything they expect you won't know yet). Intensive learning materials expect you to read the explanations, translations, and other aids provided in the material in order to understand what's being taught.

Intensive learning materials are useful for people who prefer explanations, and learning by preparing with an explanation and then later seeing examples of those things being used in context. Intensive learning materials tend to be the easiest to use, since they're designed to provide you with all necessary tools. But they may require some initial review of what's explained BEFORE attempting to use the material as listening, speaking, reading, or writing practice.

Some intensive study materials will have reference sections you may read for explanations before/after as needed (such as grammar references and textbooks), some will have built in explanations constantly (such as parallel texts, words defined on the same page as they pop up, immediate translation of a new word in podcast).

Examples of intensive study materials include: many textbooks with vocabulary lists and grammar explanations, Glossika and Pimsleur (which translate/explain each sentence as it's provided), many learner podcasts that are dialogue focused (such as Coffee Break French), many Youtube lessons (where each new word and grammar point is explained that the lessons thinks you need to know to understand the lesson).

You can also decide to intensively read/listen to ANY material you find, regardless of how the material was designed to be used, by deciding on your own to look up any unknown words and unknown grammar you encounter. So you could theoretically watch a show, or read a novel, or talk with a person, and purposefully intensively study it by looking up every unknown word and grammar point you'd need to understand it. So you can turn extensive study materials INTO intensive study materials, by simply studying them intensively.

Intensive reading/listening is simply: looking up translations and explanations for anything you don't understand and want to understand. Every time you read a textbook in your native language for History or Science or another subject, and the textbook defined terms in the paragraphs and at a little glossary at the end, the textbook was designed to be intensively studied (it expected you would need explanations, and provided them). Every time you listened to a lecture in your native language and the teacher provided definitions on a board or projector screen so you could follow the lecture, that was intensive listening. (These are examples of heavily assisted intensive listening/reading where the learning material provided all you needed, but intensive listening/reading can also be done by YOU determining what you need to look up and looking it up yourself, and in reality a lot of the time you'll need to be the one deciding what you need to look up in order to understand something).

Extensive learning materials are designed to be easily understood based on what the learner is already expected to know. So ideally a learner should not have to look anything up to understand an extensive learning material, and to learn more from context. As long as the learner is using an extensive learning material made for their level of current understanding. Examples of extensive learning materials are: graded readers (particularly any with images and cognates if they're for beginners), Comprehensible Input Lessons (that use visuals to explain anything you might need to know - so stuff like Dreaming Spanish channel videos), Nature Method Textbooks, learner podcasts (if you are the language level the podcast was designed to be understandable for). As you learn more and more, eventually some materials for native speakers will be things you can extensively engage with.

Extensive learning material is more useful for: people who enjoy learning primarily through context, and for when you know MOST of the words/grammar used in the material. You will feel quickly exhausted if you try to extensively listen to/read something that has MANY unknown pieces which are critical to understanding what they're trying to communicate. If the material is a good level for you to extensively read/listen to, then it will feel reasonably easy to engage with the material for significant durations of time.

Extensive reading/listening is simply: reading or listening and understanding the main idea, without needing any explanations. Every time you read a book in your native language and did NOT need to look up any words to understand it, you were extensively reading. Every time you listened to something in your native language, and did not need to look anything up to understand what was communicated, you were extensively listening. (So think about fiction novels where you managed to figure out what 'macabre' meant in context without looking it up, along with other words. Or TV shows/programs where you managed to figure out what 'evidence' meant by them explaining they are looking for 'evidence' at the crime scene, but no one ever defined it formally. Or when you watch a youtube video essay that's about a topic you're already familiar with, and you hear a word like 'intertextual' and guess what it means from context but the video never defines it for you).

Pretty much every study material and study activity you can break down by "does it help listening, reading, speaking, writing?" and "do I engage with it by intensively reading/listening, or extensively reading/listening?" I gauge every study material and study activity I do by these terms.

I use intensive learning materials when I want stuff designed to explain everything I need, and want to read a lot of explanations so I can delve into harder stuff quicker. Or when I'm looking at a material made for native speakers that I can't understand, I decide to intensively read/listen to it - so I look up things as I engage with the material in order to understand it. I use extensive learning materials when I want something that feels fairly easy to me, when I want to primarily learn from context, and practice my reading and listening speed. I determine which study material to use based on what skill I want to improve at that time - reading, listening, speaking, writing - and then decide if I can practice one of those activities with a given study material I'm considering.

✨1/19/2022- Second week of the semester✨

hi! i’m maddie and this is where i keep all of my study materials. i have adhd, so i really struggle with doing literally anything (studying included) unless it’s linked directly to one of my hyperfixations, and right now that’s the owl house.

here’s where i’m going to post links to all of my resources, including notes i’ve made myself! links will go up as things are created. i would be more than happy to write notes for different courses if you request them, but please keep in mind that it’ll probably take me a really long time. i’ll link it before it’s completely done so you have access to whatever i am able to accomplish.

notes

AP biology (12)

AP calculus (12)

AP chemistry (12)

AP english (12)

AP physics (12)

french

chinese

spotify playlists

studying with amity and hunter to please the adults in your life.

study headcanons

alador blight

amity blight

boscha 

caleb wittebane

darius deamonne

eda clawthorne

edric blight

emira blight

gus porter

hunter noceda

luz noceda

matt tholomule

raine whispers

vee noceda

willow park