A3.1 Meta

So! Some news:

I gave birth to our fifth child 3 weeks ago. Yaay!

And almost immediately after, my brain started craving studying Czech again.

In January I would like to enroll in ÚJOP's B1 class. Which is kind of hilarious, to think of myself as being at a B1 level. That is...uh...not where I would put myself. I did pass their A2 test. But having studied foreign language assessments in college, I would not exactly rate their test as...conclusive. It was severely lacking in the skills which I most need, which involve spontaneous production.

Basically, it's much easier to recall something from a list than from long term memory (if it even made it that far!).

Fortunately, I have been pleasantly surprised all week to notice that quite a lot of my Czech studying did make it to long term memory, especially vocabulary. Especially when it's something I just need to recall and not produce.

Unfortunately, vzory were not one of those things. LeSigh.

I came up with a new strategy to attack my language learning which I hope will address some of the bigger problems with how I had been doing it. Also, I am trying really, really, really hard not to let scope creep take over everything and cause me to explode with anxiety. That's super hard for me, by the way.

This space of time from September to the new year is what I am going to call "A3." Something in between the space of A2 and B1 (or "B1" as it were). I have just enough time to read the entire first Harry Potter book in Czech if I am diligent and read 1 chapter each week, 2 chapters only twice. I am reading along with the audio book, picking out some words, and doing some stuff with those words with some really nice collaborators. I have several feedback loops which I have thought about and designed which I hope will work without causing me too much undue performance anxiety. So far it's been great; I've felt really, really, really happy. Honestly, I've really missed this.

I need an oral part, but I don't have a ton of time that I can devote to skyping right now, with this newborn. What I have is LOTS AND LOTS of time sitting in a chair, nursing a baby, using my phone one-handedly. So I have lots of time to practice flashcards, listen to audiobooks, practice reading out loud, and the like. So for the oral section I have decided to just record myself reading a little bit from Harry Potter.

I can sometimes sneak away to a computer (like right now, for example). Of all the crappy Czech textbooks which I have (I guess I have something like 12 now?), there is one which is just full of exercises on the left page, answers on the right page. I worked my way through about 1/8 of this book (partly on the plane to the Czech Republic in 2017, actually, cramming for that A2 test) already, and I'm working through it again. I decided to write out (aka type) the exercises. I can quickly grade myself. I guess I have to do 28/week in order to get through all 370-something of them. That's 4/day. Manageable. Not that that is how I work at all, but it is possible, unlike a lot of my previous plans. I need to create some kind of feedback loop here where after I correct myself, I go back and figure out exactly why and then practice it again. I haven't figured out how to do that without doing a ton of extra work. I think instead of doing that, I will work my way through the book, add reading one (or several?) textbooks - just reading them, to remember what the #*@& is the difference between 3. and 6. cases, for example - and then later when I am doing B1, I will THEN go back and do these dumb exercises again. But I do know that I need to add this bottom-up component to be successful. I can read a book while nursing a baby, even if it's mostly a book of tables to memorize. Sooooo. Many. Tables. Augh.

I will see if I can convince my Czech friends to record themselves saying the words, phrases, and sentences that I want to review in my flashcard app Quizlet (which is great, by the way, and has even improved in the last 9 months). But I really don't want to be a terrible burden on their time. That is really important to me.

Oh yeah, and another ridiculous tool I'm using is google classroom. This is mostly just me being ridiculously silly. I am the teacher of a class of one. It feels good to give myself a grade, even if it's mostly for participation. I know it's arbitrary and stupid. It is still effective at motivating me. I really strongly need that kind of dumb cheer-leader-esque, "You've got this!" and "Great job!" type of feedback. We'll see if supplying it myself makes a difference or not.

I've also been taking several MOOCs (ugh what a dumb word) and discovered about how much work they give per week, and trying to base my "class" off of that a little bit more, with mixed results let's say. Again, I am really struggling to not let scope creep rear its nasty little head in my brain and destroy all my language learning hopes and dreams by causing me to take on way more than I can handle and vaulting me into a desperate, pathetic, lonely, miserable cycle of self-afflicting stress. This is not the goal in any way. The goal is to learn Czech. To really learn it, and to speak it well. To read it well. This is and always has been a deeply rooted dream that is very important to me.

And I'm really happy so far with my progress in A3. So let's keep it that way!

I'm going to label these weeks as A3 1, A3 2...I'm also going to continue with this metablogging tradition because it's cathartic.

Oh yeah, speaking of cathartic, I started a document where I could vent about all the things that I find really difficult about Czech. I am trying to keep the tone of that document more academic than casual. It will be interesting to see where that kind of an exercise takes me. It feels really good to be able to "complain" about my struggles. I don't even feel bad because the truth is this exercise is actually somewhat helpful, in that I can articulate exactly what part of the language learning is difficult. I guess identifying the problem is the first step in solving it.