Stepping Up: Language Update

-

I know I haven’t been writing much about how the languages are going, but they are going. I’m still working out the kinks, but summer is coming and daylight is arriving earlier, so I have added in a listening component to my walking. Hearing a language outside language drills and set texts is important.

What languages am I working on?

As anyone who knows me, knows, I like languages, so it was hard for me to shrink what I do down to three to start with: Russian, Chinese and Indonesian. Also, because I didn’t want to give up the others, I kept my DuoLingo languages, but made a few rules.

Right now, my language program looks a bit like this:

DuoLingo: Do a minimum of 5 individual language lessons each day on each of the chosen languages BUT do not stop if a language block is incomplete unless it is the first time working through that lesson block. This takes between 1-2 hours a day. Flexibility: If real-life commitments are particularly, then do one individual lesson in each language, and you are allowed to stop if the language block is not complete – just do one. I find this last thing hard to do, but it does stop me from killing myself on heavy days when other commitments must be given a higher priority. DuoLingo languages are as follows: Russian, Norwegian, French, Portuguese, German, Danish, Ukrainian, Spanish and Turkish. I will add Indonesian to these when the course comes on line; it’s currently in development.

Listening: While walking, have headphones in and be listening to Russian, Chinese or Indonesian, depending on which language is the focus language for the day.

Book Work: This involves using a text book, language cds, translating on-line articles for the focus language of the day.

Progress: I’m still establishing the routine, but I’ve managed to maintain the DuoLingo target since Monday, and to add the listening component in, with a new walking component. Book work has been sporadic with only 2 days managed. I will work on this. Regular study is quite difficult to make time for, but it can be done. I want to add in a language activity design component, where I work up lesson plans and work sheets to go with the focus languages, but that’s a little ways off. I’m qualified to teach Indonesian, but only have a minor in Chinese, and not even that in Russian, so I have a little bit more to do with those.

And that’s that – except for the point that Fridays will be my language update day, starting with progress reports, and later linking to lesson plans, or activity sheets aimed at different age groups. Baby steps.
Location: Canberra ACT, Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Australian Insects: An Unknown Caterpillar eating Grevillea flower buds

-
Image
So, this little guy nearly bought it when I caught it eating the still-forming buds on my Robyn grevillea, but then I thought I might like to see which particular butterfly was responsible, so I took some pictures and decided to keep an eye on it, so I knew when it pupated. The first shot - caterpillar happily nibbling on flower buds:  Yup - definitely nibbling: And here's another view. Note the little yellow lumps near its back end. Same day, but it was one of those cloudy days with variegated light. And it kept nibbling for quite some time: Stretching out to get the more tasty tidbits, and using its hind feet to keep a firm grip on the branch. Eventually it looped back on itself... ...and headed into denser foliage. It didn't always move in a straight line... How come caterpillars have more feet than butterflies? Eventually, it got into some much thicker growth (well, for a young grevillea, anyway), meaning it was somewhat prot
Read more

PokemonGo Tips - Earning the Berry Master Medal

-
Image
Another relatively easy one to earn, but it takes time. Main tip? Feed Them All. Well, okay, it's a bit more like this: Only the berries you feed to a pokemon in a gym count. You can only feed berries to pokemon in a gym that belongs to your team. You can feed up to a maximum of 10 berries to each pokemon. You can feed any pokemon that belongs to a team member, as well as your own. You can feed your team's pokemon from home, as long as you have a pokemon in the same gym - as last week's post showed. It's interesting, but really annoying if you accidentally feed a golden razzberry to a pokemon in a gym... just sayin'. Sometimes, not having a berry on hand to help catch a pokemon is also annoying - especially when you've just fed all yours to your team's pokemon - so think about that before you go all out stuffing their faces; the medal is pretty, but catching stuff is cool, too. Also, pokemon are little piggies when it comes to berries. And that&
Read more

NEW RELEASE: AUTUMNAL THREAT

-
Image
An alien autumn. An unseen predator. Deadly burrowers and an oncoming winter. And bugs big enough to ride. Joaquin only wants to warn his daughter of a new danger. To keep her safe. To make her understand her mother isn’t coming back, while keeping her alive. But what if he’s wrong? What if Mariam really did survive? What if, when everything looks like it’s going wrong, it’s really going right? Autumnal Threat is Joaquin's story. It is a father's story...and the story of a husband who misses his wife, and wants to keep his daughter safe from a new threat on their frontier world. It's a story of hope, and not giving up, and of family, as well as an exploration of what an alien eco-system might look like. It was a lot of fun to write. You can find links to this newly released, stand-alone, science-fiction short story on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/mgyopK or read an earlier version in A Collection of Lost Ships and Colonies .  
Read more