TIPS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING
For year 11’s and 12’s {next year tips}
NB. These Tips can apply to learning ANY language, but I’ll be focusing more specifically on German
Also just a heads up, I’m no where near as smart as some of the people on this website… But hopefully you can get something out of this.
Let’s say that you have a language reading/listening/writing test tomorrow. Most of you would probably be like „meh I can’t study for this, I’ll just wing it.“ (I was guilty of this at times) but the truth is, although you can’t do last min cramming like most other subjects, you CAN still study for languages. Studying for a language is just like any skill training (i.e. sport); you have to gradually build up your skills over time.
So how can you do this?
Plan out your week so that you cover the skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking. Spend more time on the the areas you’re least comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be a lot - just a little but each day, and you’ll be surprised how much you can improve by the time you reach your final exams!
Here are my tips:
Set the moon goal of becoming fluent in German by final exam time. (Crazy I know but it means that you will try and expose yourself to the language as much as possible=improvement!)
Some ideas:
- Change the language in your phone/laptop to German
- organize a monthly Friday movie night with your class where you watch the movie in German together and only talk to each other in the language (Eg. Watch Tatort TV show in German online; it’s a popular, crime show, or you can watch German dubbed movies )
- listen to language podcasts or CDs in the car
For example: Slow German, Deutsche Welle, katzensprung (just google search some)
- etc etc etc
-
1. IMPROVING VOCAB
I would suggest that you only spend 15-20 min per day learning vocab. If you focus, you could learn anywhere from 15 to about 50 words in that time. You HAVE TO use this app/website called Quizlet. You can make your own flash cards or use other people’s for free. It even pronounces the words in the accent out loud! Seriously, just use it! You can thank me later.
-any new words you find during reading etc, add these to your vocab flashcard lists
2. WRITING
Pretty sure everyone knows this:
All you do is write stuff, hand it to your teacher/anyone fluent in the language, then you will undoubtably improve. The trick is to consistently write and not get lazy. (Maybe 1-3 times a week? Or even daily haha)
3. SPEAKING/ORAL
Find an oral buddy and schedule in times to meet.
-write out your oral answers. Hand to teacher. Transfer corrected answers to flash cards (eg. Quizlet). Quizlet automatically records the answers in the accent.
-listen to them before bed/car/shower/when bored
4. LISTENING
Again, be consistent. Find youtube vids/clips/movies/podcasts. Write stuff down while listening. Also, don’t make the mistake of doing listening prac exams too early like I did…Save them for your finals.
EG. type in German Listening in youtube with „annik rubens“
5. READING
Find interesting articles online that relate to to the topics in the syllabus, or ask your teacher for resources. Practice translating these outlaid. Prac exams.
There’s heaps more that you can do! But that’s all I got for now.
Good luck for next year.
P.S Feel free to message or email me your German answers or questions etc
P.P.S I’m actually writing this post on the plane to Germany right now (bored af) so if you want, I could find you a German pen pal later on