Step 2: Set your objectives

Whether you’re starting out or whether you’re stuck, you can get moving on your language learning journey via 4 easy steps.

The big picture question in Step 1 was about your motivation.

In Step 2, it’s about your goal: What do you ultimately want or need to be able to do in the language you’re learning?

Do you need or want to:

communicate more confidently at work with clients, patients and colleagues
pass an English exam for professional registration or to obtain a visa
succeed in your university studies
deal with travel tasks like food and accommodation plus make small talk with locals
get to know older or new family members and converse comfortably with them
have everyday conversations with people in the place you’ve moved to
read a book or watch a movie and understand quite a lot of it
complete a language programme or course book

In addition to this goal, do you have a deadline or is this an ongoing project?

In both cases, having some quick wins along the way will make it easier to keep going.

When you have a deadline, work backwards from the end date of your goal and set some short-term objectives.

For an open-ended project, identify an objective that you want to have reached by this time next year and then work backwards and set some short-term ones.

For example, if your goal is to brush up your heritage language so you can have a comfortable ongoing conversation with your older relatives, your stepping stones could be:

In 10 days: know the politeness phrases to address older relatives respectfully

In 1 month: know how to open conversations and make small talk for 5 minutes

In 3 months: know how to close conversations and be able to ask some questions about family history and understand some of the responses

In 6 months: be able to ask more questions about family history and be able to understand most of the responses

In 9 months: be able to converse comfortably for half an hour

Putting in place regular short-term objectives ensures you make steady progress reaching your long-term objective.

Step 2: Set your objectives.

Here are Step 1, Step 3 and Step 4.

Need a hand to set up and stick to your DIY language project? I can help.

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