Do you know Lýdia Machová ?
She’s a polyglot (She speaks 9+ languages) and organize the Polyglot Gathering, a really cool event inviting a lot of polyglot and they share their experiences!
One of the talk of Lýdia is this one : The Power of Setting Priorities in Language Learning that you can watch on YouTube for free where she delivers her “way” to learn language. (I really recommend you to watch all those videos they are fantastic ;) )
A brief summary of it:
There are 4 pillars in Language learning
- Fun (your learning should be fun to keep you motivated)
- Quantity (You should provide enough work to reach your goal)
- Frequency (Frequency is key … work a bit everyday to train your brain and memory)
- System (We will detail it later)
The system: Priorities
She exposes a really nice system which is the following:
For a chunk of time (say 2 or 3 months) you set priority on 3 skills that you are going to focus on. After the first chunk of time, you set new priorities (3 different skills, or use all the same skills, or one same and 2 different, whatever ;) )
The skills are the following, but I’m sure we can find some others
- Listening
- Reading
- Writing
- Speaking
- Vocabulary
- Pronunciation
- Grammar
So, as an example, for the first two months; you select to focus on Listening, pronunciation and vocabulary. That does not mean that you are not going to do some grammar or speaking, but your main focus is going to be on those 3 skills.
Set SMART goals
Next to the priority, it’s important to set SMART goal (Specific - Measurable - Ambitious - Realistic - Time-bound).
This concept is quite known so I won’t develop it; there are a ton of articles written about it (ex : Article 1 - Article 2 )
Ok ok cool … but what’s the correlation with the app?
The title ! The v2 is approaching ;)
I currently consider the app as a ressource to learn Thai focusing on reading, listening, vocabulary and speaking. It’s a material which is created by the team here and proposed to you. I want to evolve to propose you all the skills seen upper and more
Where I want to go?
I want the app to be more a “coach-ressource-tool” application where you go everyday to practice or encode what you did or find any ressource that suit you the best for your learning.
I want a flow like the following:
- Set your main goal (ex: Being able to read comic book in Thai for the next year)
- Configure your first chunk of time priorities (Listening - Reading - Vocabulary)
Depending on what you’ve selected as priority, the app is going to propose you ressource but also games and many other activities which will let you work on your priorities.
Each action in the app will let you earn point (Reading x sentences = 15 pts) to measure your work - but also a “free entry” section (I speak with a Thai friend for 15 min - 50 pts)
A screen will shows you your weekly/monthly effort on learning the language as a kind of tracker, depending on the skill.
When?
Well, this blogpost is the premise of the development … nothing has been developed yet because I’m still in the analyse phases gathering information about technical issues, etc.
I don’t have an ETA date yet as this is a side project for me I work on it when I get time.
Can I participate ?
I accept any kind of help ;) Your feedback about this blogpost is already something!
Any idea which will improve the next concept, a resource that you create that you think should be in the app, feel free to contact me ^^