I was planning to visit Spain and live there for a while. That’s why I wanted to learn Spanish. When I made this decision for the first time, I felt extremely motivated to learn. However, with the passage of time I can say that my motivation actually fades. I pondered over it for a while and found 4 options that can help me learning:
- I can enroll for course in Spanish.
- The mere fact that I’ll show up will enable me to keep myself accountable for my learning results. This can provide me with motivation to listen to and to read.
- External motivation is pretty weak by its very nature.
- It can devour the precious time that can be put to much better use (listening and reading).
- Given that I just start to learn Spanish, I don’t want to spend my time speaking or writing or studying grammar. I’d want to listen and read. I deem that the best way to do it is on my own. In this case the course can prevent me from enjoying my learning.
As a generalization, I think it could be a good step if I knew Spanish at the Intermediate level.
- I can create a group of learner is Moscow. In general, the people in such group can motivate each other to learn.
- It can provide a lot of motivation through communication with likeminded people.
- It will take a lot of organizational work. This kind of work has never been my strength.
- I have very vague vision about how this group can work. It is all good to know that such group can motivate its members, but how it can be achieved (may be we have to come up with some kind of games to play)?
I have heard a lot about support groups. I suspect they are very popular in the USA/Canada of Europe (for the latter I’m not sure at all). I haven’t heard about it in Russia (may be I just need to listen more J ). What we can do when we gather for our meeting? We can talk about our activities outside the meeting. We can talk about recourses for learning Spanish. We can invite a native Spanish speakers or a teacher of the Spanish language. We can mere have fun.
So, it can become something like “Spanish courses for beginner, etc” with the passage of time.
The thing is such group isn’t for learning. It is for motivation.
Come to think of it, option 1 almost equal option 2.
- Create a support group at LingQ.
- I can see no minuses in it.
- In this case you don’t have to attend any courses. It is fairly cheap compared to other options.
If you are about to learn Spanish let me know. We can create group for us.
Requirements:
You have to make a point to accomplish all weekly goals. For example, for Beginner 1 – Listening 0.8 hours per week, Reading 80 words per week and so forth.
It is necessary that you are able to write, speak in Russian or English on a decent level. Otherwise, I won’t understand you.
Time
The main question is how much time does it take? I estimate that it will take about 1 year for our purpose. Then it can go on autopilot.
For the year it can go something like this
We have one report per month for the whole group (Right now I don’t know what this report could contain except statistic from LingQ)
We can have something like conference to discuss our progress. And if you are learning English (for instant, this is my case) we can invite English tutors and get reports. I wonder is there a lot to talk about it?
At the end of the year we will have test or discussion in Spanish to estimate our results. Of course, here we have to have some agreeable Spanish tutor who can create this test and provide us with the results.
Results.
It can be the main motivator in this case. After we finished, we can say how LingQ works if you start to learn from scratch. You are interested in finding this out, aren’t you? I can even put our results into research about LingQ if Steve won’t object that.
I want to point out that this group already has two members so far. But in order to make a research we need at least 10 (my guess).
- Use NLP or something like this to motivate myself.
There are a lot of techniques available from NLP to help creating a desire to do something. Other method can be just visit Spain for a week to see how it goes.
The bottom line is that in order to accomplish something that really matters you have to have a lot of discipline. You have to put in your time. You have to put in your energy. It is a long road. Of course, if you learn for yourself, it is very enjoyable, however, when the going gets tough it really good to have someone who can help or something that can help.
Right know I am contemplating about all 4 options I have outlined for myself. I look forward to your comments. I hope it can help me to make up my mind.
