So the common theme I seem to be coming across among all the other language learning blogs is that if you want to reach the skies you can't just start building and hope to get there. You need plans and mini goals in order to keep yourself motivated and on track.
Although I know that I have come very far in my Chinese studies (Although not as quickly as I should) I'm at a level now where it's becoming progressively harder to notice progress. Before I could learn a new word or phrase, walk out into the street and use it with someone. The path from study to successful application in real life was immediate and there was instant positive reinforcement letting me know I had been successful.
Now, in most circumstances I am above 90% comprehension of novels, TV shows etc. This means that I have successfully learnt all of the common use everyday language which actually makes up a small amount of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Now just to understand the final 10% that will bring me close to 100% comprehension and a native speaker like level.
However this final 10% makes up a huge amount of vocabulary and language. So in short the returns will be ever increasingly diminishing.
In order to keep myself motivated and moving forward I need to set goals and methods to achieve them.
As of this moment I don't have a specific level I want to be at. I'm not even sure where I am currently.
So first step is to take the Chinese Test of Proficiency to determine my current level. After the first test I will have a benchmark and will be able to set a further goal of how much I need to improve.
My deadline is probably sometime before February next year when my current contract expires and I will go back to Australia to study.
Some looser goals:
Improve my speaking level, currently although my speaking is quite good in some areas I often find myself struggling to say what I want when I enter into deeper waters. I also still have times when I talk to people and they pull a blank face and don't understand what I am trying to say. I want to eliminate this entirely. Ultimately I would like to speak at a level able to operate in a professional environment in Chinese. I believe teaching, especially English teaching is my career calling at this point in time. I would like to be able to succinctly and accurately talk about and explain English grammar and vocabulary at a high level.
Reading novels is getting easier and easier for me, however I have to ignore quite a lot of vocabulary and characters that I don't yet understand. Also my reading speed is quite slow. I would like to bring my reading comprehension of contemporary novels close to 99% and also to bring up my reading speed so as to make reading easy and not a burden.
My listening is actually worse than my reading, I believe. Mainly because I don't expose myself to as much audio with TV and radio than I do reading. I would like to bring up my listening comprehension especially when listening to fast paced audio.
Although hand writing is not really important for me at the moment I would like to be able to type correspondence e-mails with few errors and with relative speed.
My plan:
I am currently using a combination of intensive and extensive reading quite a few English novels that have been translated into Chinese such as The Catcher in the Rye, Fight Club, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Animal Farm. I have 1984, On the Road, The Great Gatsby and The Hobbit in store for later too.
Although I feel that the intensive reading program I am using with The Catcher in the Rye at the moment is really beneficial I find it a little hard to maintain. I think I will cut down the amount I am reading each sentence five times to three or four. My aim is to cover one chapter every day. Aloud using this method Read each page twice straight in a row and then re read the chapter once more from the beginning. When I finish the end of the book I shall re read the entire book out loud from beginning to end.
Aside from this I shall be maintaining an extensive reading program. Silently reading, no reviewing and looking up as little as possible. I think one chapter every day using this method is not too taxing.
Listening I shall aim to do 1 hour of listening everyday. Half an hour watching some kind of Chinese television show such as 康熙來了, or 王子的約會 or perhaps even something from Fusion. The other half an hour using my iPod and trying to shadow the audio. Probably something from the PAVC series.
Speaking I am currently doing two language exchanges, one online and one in person each week which yield about 1.5 each. I am also planning to have a weekly one hour conversation with a tutor every Thursday. This will bring my intentional practice of talking to about 2.5 hours each week. Not including everyday conversations with friends and Phoebe or people on the street. By intentional practice I mean that I hope to utilize my time and link my output to my input. Discuss the books that I have been reading and give myself a chance to practice the vocabulary and structures that I have come across. This is to avoid meandering chats that although enjoyable don't really allow me lock in the vocabulary I have recently learnt.
I shall keep track of these tasks and hopefully sticking to this regime will allow me to improve my Chinese considerably. I'll try to come up with some ways to monitor my skills and see if they have or haven't improved.
Although I know that I have come very far in my Chinese studies (Although not as quickly as I should) I'm at a level now where it's becoming progressively harder to notice progress. Before I could learn a new word or phrase, walk out into the street and use it with someone. The path from study to successful application in real life was immediate and there was instant positive reinforcement letting me know I had been successful.
Now, in most circumstances I am above 90% comprehension of novels, TV shows etc. This means that I have successfully learnt all of the common use everyday language which actually makes up a small amount of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Now just to understand the final 10% that will bring me close to 100% comprehension and a native speaker like level.
However this final 10% makes up a huge amount of vocabulary and language. So in short the returns will be ever increasingly diminishing.
In order to keep myself motivated and moving forward I need to set goals and methods to achieve them.
As of this moment I don't have a specific level I want to be at. I'm not even sure where I am currently.
So first step is to take the Chinese Test of Proficiency to determine my current level. After the first test I will have a benchmark and will be able to set a further goal of how much I need to improve.
My deadline is probably sometime before February next year when my current contract expires and I will go back to Australia to study.
Some looser goals:
Improve my speaking level, currently although my speaking is quite good in some areas I often find myself struggling to say what I want when I enter into deeper waters. I also still have times when I talk to people and they pull a blank face and don't understand what I am trying to say. I want to eliminate this entirely. Ultimately I would like to speak at a level able to operate in a professional environment in Chinese. I believe teaching, especially English teaching is my career calling at this point in time. I would like to be able to succinctly and accurately talk about and explain English grammar and vocabulary at a high level.
Reading novels is getting easier and easier for me, however I have to ignore quite a lot of vocabulary and characters that I don't yet understand. Also my reading speed is quite slow. I would like to bring my reading comprehension of contemporary novels close to 99% and also to bring up my reading speed so as to make reading easy and not a burden.
My listening is actually worse than my reading, I believe. Mainly because I don't expose myself to as much audio with TV and radio than I do reading. I would like to bring up my listening comprehension especially when listening to fast paced audio.
Although hand writing is not really important for me at the moment I would like to be able to type correspondence e-mails with few errors and with relative speed.
My plan:
I am currently using a combination of intensive and extensive reading quite a few English novels that have been translated into Chinese such as The Catcher in the Rye, Fight Club, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Animal Farm. I have 1984, On the Road, The Great Gatsby and The Hobbit in store for later too.
Although I feel that the intensive reading program I am using with The Catcher in the Rye at the moment is really beneficial I find it a little hard to maintain. I think I will cut down the amount I am reading each sentence five times to three or four. My aim is to cover one chapter every day. Aloud using this method Read each page twice straight in a row and then re read the chapter once more from the beginning. When I finish the end of the book I shall re read the entire book out loud from beginning to end.
Aside from this I shall be maintaining an extensive reading program. Silently reading, no reviewing and looking up as little as possible. I think one chapter every day using this method is not too taxing.
Listening I shall aim to do 1 hour of listening everyday. Half an hour watching some kind of Chinese television show such as 康熙來了, or 王子的約會 or perhaps even something from Fusion. The other half an hour using my iPod and trying to shadow the audio. Probably something from the PAVC series.
Speaking I am currently doing two language exchanges, one online and one in person each week which yield about 1.5 each. I am also planning to have a weekly one hour conversation with a tutor every Thursday. This will bring my intentional practice of talking to about 2.5 hours each week. Not including everyday conversations with friends and Phoebe or people on the street. By intentional practice I mean that I hope to utilize my time and link my output to my input. Discuss the books that I have been reading and give myself a chance to practice the vocabulary and structures that I have come across. This is to avoid meandering chats that although enjoyable don't really allow me lock in the vocabulary I have recently learnt.
I shall keep track of these tasks and hopefully sticking to this regime will allow me to improve my Chinese considerably. I'll try to come up with some ways to monitor my skills and see if they have or haven't improved.
