jeffers wrote:I thought about writing something at your last update, because you wrote something about eating better and sleeping less and it seemed that you were surprised it didn't work out.
Hey Jeffers,
No, not that surprised. Frustrated, more so. However, I'm past that now.
jeffers wrote:We often think of sleep as an annoyance that gets in the way but it is one of the most fundamental of human needs for staying alive, as well as being one of the things you need for learning. If you rank our basic needs according to how long you can live without them, the first three would be: air, then water, then sleep. You can't rob Peter to pay Paul. Eating better will probably help you sleep better, but it's not going to make a difference of hours in your sleep requirements.
I completely agree. It's essential. Where I don't agree is on the amount of sleep. I have found that if I follow a diet with cleaner foods, I am not tired and even wake earlier. There is a difference, but it's not as big as I'd like it to be - that is the amount of sleep required if eating a diet with some processed foods and refined sugars compared to a diet free of additives and processed foods. Of course, much of this is subjective and what works for one doesn't work for another. The problem was that while I was eating better and therefore not needing quite as much sleep, I was cutting into my sleep even further. Basically, I might need 8 hours if following a standard diet, 7 to 7.5 hours if eating super clean. I was sleeping between 6 and 7.5... eventually it catches up with you. The key is to listen to your body and not ignore, as you have rightly pointed out, something so essential to survival and optimal function. Additionally, transitioning to such a diet can in fact require the body to have more rest, at least, so it has been said once or twice (I might have been one of those people, but it was before I was a person, when I was a turtle).
jeffers wrote:Sleep is one of those things that is barely understood and yet loads of people talk like experts. So I was skeptical when the top of my Kwiziq dashboad said something like: get plenty of sleep because sleep is when your brain lays down memory (or something). However, I found an article from Harvard Medical School which says:Sleep, learning, and memory are complex phenomena that are not entirely understood. However, animal and human studies suggest that the quantity and quality of sleep have a profound impact on learning and memory. Research suggests that sleep helps learning and memory in two distinct ways. First, a sleep-deprived person cannot focus attention optimally and therefore cannot learn efficiently. Second, sleep itself has a role in the consolidation of memory, which is essential for learning new information.
https://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory
One of the key points in the article is that a good night sleep doesn't only help us focus better on our learning (which I think most of us know), but is also essential for memory consolidation.
Thanks for sharing. This is a good reminder.
jeffers wrote:In addition, I wonder if you should keep your focus on the small goals for the time being.
Sounds reasonable.
jeffers wrote:Your post of 11 June shows a clear plan of what to study but also vaguely mentions "C-level exams" and then your most recent post unambiguously mentions C2. It seems to me at some point in June the spectre of C2, the realization that C2 is a monumental undertaking, got to you and you decided to go from reasonably fanatical study (over two hours per day in June), which you could just about manage, to the unfeasible.
I think you're taking a little too much creative liberty here, Jeffers. I appreciate your assessment and desire to help, and you have some good suggestions, but not all is what you think. I'm very keen to study like crazy, to pursue C2, however as iguanamon has often pointed out, life happens. As I said in an earlier post, there are outside elements here that I don't wish to discuss that are influencing my progress. To some extent I let them be problems, but on the other hand some things need to be dealt with otherwise luxuries like learning languages suddenly disappear if I don't focus on things that matter, that ensure I have an income, a roof over my head etc. I'd prefer some of my personal life remain out of my log. That's not to say something drastic is going on and I'm about to lose everything or go through a divorce. No, that's not the case, but the challenges of reaching C2 within the language learning sphere itself (materials, motivation, chosen focus) is not the main issue here, as I have those ingredients, but things are going on around me that are influencing the ability to sit down and study with C2 as the target and to stay the course.
jeffers wrote:It shouldn't be a surprise that it didn't go as well as you had hoped. Remember when you had a list of courses and you could strike them through as you finished them? Perhaps you would enjoy making a list of the current resources you are working on so that you could cross them off one by one. (Maybe you already have, I only recently got back into the forum).
From my recent experience, my materials, routine and method of approach are great. I'm happy with it. The problem is, I am struggling to find the time, due to outside pressures. Hence why I attempted to drop some sleep. That didn't go so well, as we know. For the moment I need to go into maintenance mode while I deal with some other things for a while. It is my desire to pass C2 some day, and to go on a full very lengthy mission to achieve that. For the moment I have to bide my time until I can potentially see an opportunity to attack this once again.
jeffers wrote:Regarding your pattern of "Mission, quit mission, mission, quit mission..." etc, that's actually pretty reasonable and normal.
Agreed. I think it's useful to be humble and this was my attempt at being humble with a bit of humour. I wasn't beating myself up altogether.
jeffers wrote:I can't remember who it was, but someone on these forums (leosmith I believe) described language learning like a bow wave on a boat. As a boat goes faster a bow wave can build up in front which slows the boat down, so the boat needs to slow down to allow the wave to reduce to allow the boat to proceed. In terms of boating, it's a bit rubbish (instead of slowing down you build a boat with a better bow). But in terms of learning the idea is that you study hard for a period and then take a break. This would be quite a shift in your methodology, but maybe you would benefit from alternate weeks in your study plan: a study week and a native content week. So, for all of your sit-down study time for one week you focus on grammar and vocuabulary (your coursebooks), as well as your creative writing. This is about the "formal study time", so you could use native materials when you are listening on your commute or reading to your children. On the alternate week you would spend your study time reading Bien Dire and watching Buffy (ugh). One result is that the time wouldn't seem so short. In addition, theoretically the week off grammar and vocab would give your brain time to bed down what you learned the week before. Finally, I think at the end of each week you would be looking forward to the next week's activities. It's just a suggestion, and not one that I'm following for my study, but it seems to me it could be a suitable fit for the way you work given the pattern you describe. Basically, turn what you may have previously considered a weakness into a virtue.
There are some good suggestions here for reflection. Thank you, Jeffers. Still, I think I have some pretty good strategies now and a good mix of content in diverse settings. I do use native children's books with my kids. I do listen to native podcasts on commutes. My contact with French is more adaptable to various settings than it ever has been. I've had no choice. I've had less time and just as much drive to want to succeed, so I've had to get creative. However, even doing all that there have still been more constraints. From here on I will do what I can day in day out and consider when my next mission shall begin. If that never arrives, then I'll chip away and maybe some day pass C2, eventually. Thanks again, Jeffers.