Frannie's Neverending Spanish Journey Part Deux

[FrannieB]

Well I felt it was time to start a New log.

2017 was a year of confusion when it came to my language studies and somehow I managed to move myself forward to about a B1 level.

Quick update on my Language Journey
I started this all in 2016 when I decided to go to Panama for a month and study Spanish. I was incredibly naive at the time and thought in one month I would get to a B2.
Didn't happen.
My Spanish studies were mostly unfocused for a year and then I got serious and studied really hard before going to Guatemala for a week.
I have done lots of studying and discovered what I like and dislike. I have also gone from incredibly unfocused and to focused with the materials that work for me.

What does not work:
Doulingo - life is too short and I feel the words and sentences are random
Buying workbooks and not using them - for a while I spent more time researching the perfect system then studying.
To many resources at one time
I don't watch TV in English so watching TV in Spansih is painful for me - I know this works for people
Anki decks built by other people

What worked and then stopped working:
Pimslaur - loved it then hated it - life is to short so I moved on
Notes in Spanish - I tried and tried and tried but really not my thing

What is working for me
Keep it focused on minimal resources.
I am a verbal learner so I need to talk, talk, talk
Set a goal - I need to be working towards something
The right podcasts work great for me
Anki decks built by me based on my weekly work

What I'm working on
Letting go of thinking I will find the perfect resource
Letting go of wanting to sound perfect when I talk.

The goal for 2018
A. I will take the B2 test on April 6th (in just shy of 100 days - this is going to be a push)
B. After test maintain my Spanish and begin to play with French or Italian
C. Begin working towards C1 Spanish

How I plan to study for the DELE - First and foremost I will use no more then 5 resources at a time
A. Continue twice a week tutoring with my Spanish Tutor on Italki
We are using Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Conversation, Easy Step by Step Spanish and a DELE B1 book

B. Continue with Coffee break Spanish level 3 on my commute to work and complete level 4 before April

C. Use Baselang - I used it for 2 months before Guatemala and it fits my need to talk talk talk. I am going to use it for the three months leading up to the DELE and will use the DELE exam prep part of the site. I will take lessons 3 to 4 times a week

So that taps me out on resources - that is 5 resources
in addition I will
D. read literature trying for 15 minutes a day
E. Continue to add cards to Anki from my resources and practice

and that is the plan for the first part of 2018

[FrannieB]

The accountability of a language log is amazing.

For a hot second I was going to completely switch my plan up and head to Ecuador for a week in April ditching my previous plans. And then honest to goodness I didn't want to come back here and say I had changed my plans after such a thoughtful post. Ecuador will wait and I'm going moving forward with my plan. Tonight is my first night of Spanish class on Baselang again. Significantly less teachers to choose from for the DELE classes and you have to take a 1 hour class. From what I can see the curriculum is significantly harder then the read wold class as they call it.

Goals for the Rest of this week
Thurs - Baselang class - Read- Anki - coffee break Spanish
Fri - Baselang class - Read - Anki - Coffe break Spanish
Sat - Prep for class with my Italki tutor - Anki - Read
Sun - Italki class with tutor - Anki - Read

This should get me back on track - being on vacation and then promptly getting sick from to much fun on vacation got me out of my routine. Time to get back at it and get serious - April 6th is not that far away - 92 days to be precise about it

[FrannieB]

Holly cats - What have I gotten myself into.

Just finished Baselang class and it was incredibly hard.
A. I had a hard time understanding the tutor, I have gotten so used to my italki tutor
B. She used no English - If I asked what a word meant the would explain it with a synonym in Spanish
C. I can't write in Spanish to save my life - I swear I'm like an A0 when it comes to writing
D. I completely froze up when it was time to talk on a topic and made stupid mistakes - I'm mean I can talk on a topic of my own choosing for hours but a forced topic choice and I just stared at her.

Really I'm not sure how I'm feeling about the whole thing right now.

I am all for cognitive dissonance to make the brain grow, but this was cognitive pain.

I have one month to get my act together and decide if I will take the B1 or the B2 in April.

[FrannieB]

Okay - doing my update a day early to check in where I am

So my goals were
Thurs - Baselang class yes - Read yes- Anki no - coffee break Spanish - NO
Fri - Baselang class no- Read yes Anki yes Coffe break Spanish No
Sat - Prep for class with my Italki tutor yes- Anki yes - Read yes plus did a baselang class
Sun - Italki class with tutor will get done/ scheduled - Anki - Read

Added a ton of new cards to Anki got rid of some and have found a format I like for adding cards.

So here is where I am I'm liking my plan and not liking the original plan.

As mentioned above Baselang is not my jam. I have done two courses and I'm not liking it, at all. I don't like doing the exercised on the computer without the books in front of me and I guess I just adore my tutor. We are going on almost 2 years now. So Baselang is out and I will add in an extra 2 hours a week with my tutor.

The improved plan is:
I am going to continue with my tutor for 2 days a week at 2 hour stretches of time, I will continue reading, will take up the writing challenge and write more. My goal will be two 150 word pieces a week corrected by my tutor.

Next weeks goals
Two two hour sessions with my tutor
Read for 15 minutes daily
Write two 150 word essays to be corrected by my tutor
Anki - 7 days and keep adding cards as I feel
Coffee break Spanish 5 days on commute to work

[Brun Ugle]

What kind of things do you do in your lessons with your tutor?

[FrannieB]

We do a lot of different things
Right not we are working through the Spanish Conversation workbook. I do the activities as homework - and then bring him the questions I get stumped on. It is the also bringing up weaknesses I have. We have some other workbooks we use when a weakness is brought up to practice specifically on that workbook.
We have conversations about my life - So I learn to say the words I need to say. I take notes on these and add the to ANKi
I read lots and lots out loud and he corrects my pronunctiation and I translate to make sure I'm getting the gist. This has been invaluable for me because talking is not my favorite

Today, 100th reason I why adore him. I'm kinda sick and was tired for my lesson - 10 minutes in he stated we will reschedule because he needs me to be alert and totally focused and I needed to rest.

So moving forward with our 2 times a week for two hours
It will look like this
A. First 30 minutes review writing I completed and general chit chat
B. 30-45 minutes on Spanish Conversation book
C. The rest of the time working through the DELE B1 book from edelsa - he likes it better then the other popular one

[FrannieB]

Well - last week was a bust.

After a sore throat for two weeks. I finally felt so horrid I went to the Doctors and had strep was down and out for 3 days - I had mono in college and I swear I felt that bad. I got in one two hour session with my tutor on Tuesday night but I wouldn't call it quality I most likely had a fever and was kinda of out of it. That was after cancelling Sundays session because I was so sick.
Really I didn't do much in English let alone Spanish this week

Onward and Upward to another week.

71 days until I suppossedly take the DELE B1 for Spanish - today that seems like it would be a challenge.

[FrannieB]

Back on track - after being sick.

Funny language lesson of the week and why schema and context are important -
Doing a practice test with my tutor and one of the answers was they are Kangaroos - I'm like that is such a random reply and through process of elimination crossed it out because you know in test taking skills I'm thinking that is the completely wrong one. Well I learned Kangaroo is a phrase they use for baby sitters in some countries, and it was the right answer. One wrong because of schema

2nd one wrong because of Schema is a questions about houses. And hard to explain but it is highly common in my state to live in a complex of townhouses or condos with a pool, playground and park. Again applying this schema I got another question wrong. My Tutor thought this type of community living was interesting but not the thought that needed to be applied to the question. So yet another one wrong because of my schema.

So this makes me think - No matter how hard I study I'm just going to get some wrong because my thought process and background knowledge I bring is different. This could begin a whole other conversation about the inherent bias of standardized test.

Days until DELE - 75 days
Level of confidence - scale of 1 to 5 - maybe a 1.5

Changes in what we are doing
A. My Tutor has decided that it will be better to do 1 hour 4 days a week instead of 2 hours twice a week. So for the next two weeks we are trying it out.

This mean Monday - Thursday - I will do one hour of Spanish with my tutor.
I'm kinda inspired by numbers. This means 11 weeks left at 4 hours of Spanish a week - I will have 44 hours of Spanish Speaking practice in.

So say I want to put in 100 hours before the test
Which means every day I need to put in 1.5 hours of Spanish.

Monday through Thursday not a problem - need to figure out how to make that happen Fri/Sat/Sun.
I have more then enough to make it happen I just need to make it happen.

I would hope with 100 hours of study before a test that I could get to a passing level. We shall see.

[FrannieB]

Days until Dele - 72
Level of confidence - a solid 2 today.

3 days of speaking practice with my tutor down this week.
Monday 1 hour
Tuesday -2 hours
Wednesday - 1 hour

I have come to agree with my tutor 2 hours during the work week for me is to much. On Tuesday I completely lost it in the lesson. It could also be because we were working on listening drills and I pretty much suck at them.

Clear as day my Tutor has pointed out I need to be listening to Spanish every single day several times a day. I know this and I think I'm some kind of perfectionist and I hate listening to podcasts or watching movies because I don't understand 100%. I clearly need to get over this issue and just start listening.

Mini- challenge to myself is get out of my comfort zone and start listening - Will try extensive listening for the next four days to push myself over the mental block of not wanting to listen.

[Brun Ugle]

What helped my listening a lot was getting addicted to a cheesy telenovela. It helped me get over the hurdle of not wanting to watch because I didn’t understand every word.