【英语随笔】How to Make Time for Language Learning with a Full-Time Job

🍒 原文内容

If you have big dreams   for learning a new language but have   very limited time for studying and often find   that your job or busy schedule   gets in the way of achieving those dreams then this is the video for you.

Learning a new language   takes constant time and effort and it can be really easy to feel overwhelmed or like there's no time to   squeeze it   in .

Today I’m going to talk about how I can most effectly self-study a new language around a busy lifestyle. If you're new here my name is lzzy and I’m a Cambridge graduate and a doctor working in London and on the side I learn Mandarin Chinese in any freee time I can get.

Making space for language learning is something that I have spend a lot of time and energy figuring out how to do.

For more than a year I’v been struggling in studying Mandarin Chinese while also being a full-time medical student   at Cambridge and now a doctor working full-time in London.

Whether you’re working/stduying or busy with anything else at all, in this video I’ll   break down the main steps that I use in order to schedule my language learning to continue to make progress with my Mandarin Chinese.

In this video we talk about understanding your learner   profile ,finding   magnifying and protecting any time you have for stduying a language   around your busy schedule, and finally we’ll talk about study efficiency and how we can   maximize this as we're   short on time already so we've really got to make the most of any minutes that we can get.

The first step is to understand your personal learner profile. So this essentially means (that)   understandding how you learn best. We’re all defferent and we all learn in defferent ways. The best way to figure this out is by trying a few different learning styles out and seeing what feels best to you. This ties is very   in closely with energy management.

Monitoring when you feel the most energy in a day and what kinds of study sessions suit you. So here I would think about whether you’re morning person or   more of a night owl, also think about the duration of study sessions that were best to you.

For me generally I prefer to study in shorter   bursts of half an hour to maybe an hour. But some people like to sit down for maybe a few hours of really deep focus.

Also   bear in mind what helps give you energy and give you motivation to actully study a language. A lot of this is about discipline rather than motivation, but at the end of the day is way more enjoyable if we're having fun with our learning journey.

So figuring out learning strategies that you actually enjoy and suit you is going to make everything so much smoother. This   includes having some fun options as part of your language learning   portfolio . So let’s say you get home from work and your're feeling absolutely   knackered instead of just completely canceling your study session that you'd scheduled. You can take a slightly more Middle Ground approach understand and recognize that you're feeling tired but still chose to do something that is going to help your language learning   overall ,such as watching a movie in your target language.

The second thing is to honestly evaluate your schedule and then   block out time for your studying. This means looking for any time gaps in your schedule and being a very   realistic about what you can actually achieve. I personally use Google calendar for scheduling pretty much erverything in my life. So whatever kind of calendar scheduling you use. Scheduling your language learning time ahead of time and make sure you protect it. It’s easy to just cancle your language learning slot if you want to meet a friend for coffee or you're just feeling a little bit tire. But remember that this is   precious time that you want to dedicate to your language goals or dreams. Don’t let yourself down.

I do this on a week by week basis, so every single Sunday I will sit down with my calendar and block out a few hours of language learning throughout the week.

This is also a really good time to plan slots for any online tutoring such as on italki or if you have a language buddy scheduling sessions with them give you fixed slots where you're   held accountable to actually   showing up for your language learning.

For me, if I do I have a language learning session book but then I do have a change of plan and I want to meet a friend. I will make a point of moving that slots (to) somewhere else in my calendar ranther than just canceling it   outright .

If possible at all I want to try to make sure that I get five hours of language learning time a week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be easy,but it is going to be worth it. I promise you.

The third step is looking for anywhere that you can have   at stack , so you can   multitask while doing something else you should have to to, and also you’re learning a language a at the same time.

For example I   commute to the hospital every day which takes 1 hour each way. In this time I like to do my Chinese Anki flashcards or listen to a Chinese podcast. Another example of this is in morning routine, whenever I do my morning routine and brush my teeth do my morning skincare, I just turn on a Chinese podcast in the background an listen to that. That means essentially if done my morning routine and if I done my commute then I   stacked the habit of learning Chinese on top of those existing habits that I already have. This helps   to make the most of the any dead time that you have in a day where you can actually be multitasking and working on your language at the same time.

The fourth step is having a game plan, this means planing the actual content you’re going to study ahead of time for maxinmum efficiency when you actually to do arrive at your study session. So you've already   decided when you want to study and put that into your Google calendar. Now you just need to decided what to study. So if you decided all of these ahead of time when you plan out your week, let’s say for me   on Sunday, it’s all already planed out for you so you can just get straight into it and start excuting on your language learning plan.

This   serves two main functions, firstly it helps me just get started with my language learning session. There’s less mental   friction with getting started, Because I already know what I suppose to be doing.

And secondly, I make sure that I’m focusing my study and energy where it's really needed the most when we make out weekly plan we can make sure that our stduy seesions have a good balance of working on different language skill, including speaking,reading,writing,listening. In order to create   holistic improvement in our language ability.

This brings me on to my last point which is study efficiency. Study efficiency is the   Crux of all this, because while studying with very limited time we want to make sure that we're maximizing the impact that time has using affective studying techniques. For language learning using thhing like   space repetition software such Anki is realy helpful,listening to podcasts,having   speaking sessions and also praticing reading with extentive reading and grade readers are all realy efficient way to learn, and also there serveral books I   would recommend on this including called fluent Forever by Gabriel weiner. I hope this video   was helpful or interesting in some way. If you enjoy this video you might this one over here   where I talk about my part-time language learning strategy for   optimizing efficiency wishing you all   the very best with your language learing Journey. If you have any other tips for learning a language around a   busy schedule then please leave them in the comements below and help each other out. Otherwise, thank you so much for watching   as always take care of yourself and I will see you in the next video bye.

🍅 简介

Today I’ll   go over how to design a language learning strategy   that you can fit in   alongside a busy schedule. I   work full-time   as a doctor in London, and on the side I learn Mandrin in any free time I can get - I know how hard it can be to make time for goals   beyond around full-time studies/work. I’ll share my top tips   on how to   juggle the two and make the most of any spare time you have for language learning.

🍄 评论

As a   fellow self   study Mandarin-chinese   who hv full time job, thank you for this kind of content!   Boost my confidence and faith   in learning. I also found some good pocasts   thanks to your video and   have been listening to them during my morning routine too.. 加油🙌