At the time of writing this article, I am living in Indonesia, a country located in Southeast Asia. The majority of us speak Bahasa Indonesia as our primary language.
As a non-native English speaker born and raised in Indonesia, it was difficult for me to learn this language initially. I wanted to understand my favorite childhood TV shows spoken in English. That was when I started to have an interest in learning it. I wanted to know more words and be able to speak the language.
I first learned English as an additional subject in 6th grade. However, the teacher’s teaching method was tedious, repetitive, and only textbook-based. We had to follow the formula of tenses and answer the questions in the back of the book. The experience did not help me much since I felt confused with many tenses, plural-singular forms, and idioms. Lastly, it did not give me enough time to learn English, so I lost the initial motivation to understand my favourite English TV shows.
During my university years, I already knew learning English had many benefits. It took me several years to decide to continue learning English with a strong motivation and the right mindset. I made this move after doing self-reflection. This reflection acted as an evaluation method for seeing the overall progress and what made me stop learning. It also made me realize that I often met fear and failures that could break my motivation as a learner. I should not have felt embarrassed about making mistakes; instead, I had to accept mistakes as valuable experiences for future improvement, so I took notes on my mistakes as lessons learned.
Here are my lessons learned:
1. Unknown level of proficiency
I was clueless about my present English proficiency level. There was a time I considered myself a beginner, then another time I thought I was on an intermediate level. I only studied without checking my English ability.
Knowing your level will be helpful as a starting point. Taking the test is beneficial to indicate what English level you are in before setting appropriate goals.
These are websites you can use to test your level of English:
2. No realistic goals
My goal was only to learn English and be fluent. This goal was too general and unrealistic, so it was not attainable or measurable.
Setting goals when learning a new language is essential to plan the actions you will take. There is a method called SMART when setting goals.
S: Specific — Ask yourself what your aim is. Make it clear and specific so you can set smaller goals.
Example: I want to be able to write proficient articles in English on my blog.
M: Measurable — You have to specify goals with a list of activities to track your progress. Having a record of your learning activities will keep you motivated.
Example: I will start by writing 300 words at a minimum every day in my diary. I will also begin to read one book per month to gain vocabulary.
A: Achievable — You have specific goals but do not forget to review them. You must take this part seriously. Are the goals reasonably achievable for you?
R: Relevant — Relevance is essential because your goals should align with your learning needs and broader purpose.
T: Time-based — Having a time frame will keep you on track, motivated, and prioritized.
Example: By the end of this month, I will have new vocabulary by reading one book. I will also have a collection of 30-day stories in my diary.
3. No dedicated time leads to inconsistency
I was learning English, but I did it inconsistently. I sometimes made excuses because I did other things. I could learn for two hours a day, but I skipped the lesson the next day. I thought learning in long hours would produce excellent results, but it did not work that way.
Being consistent is very important to reaching a high level. The way to have consistency is by dedicating time to learning. Having a schedule and study time will make you adapt and achieve your goals. Focus on determining the time and length of duration that you are willing to dedicate in a day to maintain the learning activities. A little bit of English daily is better than one textbook once a week.
4. Not paying attention to the trap
Learning a new language at first might be fun. The emotion of being fluent makes English learners excited to study. However, we must be aware of the learning trap. We do not realize that we spend too much time learning one area excessively and not taking what we learned into practice.
Pursuing perfection
I was worried about making mistakes. I felt nervous about grammar structures and tried to pronounce words perfectly. This way of learning prevented me from practising because I feared making mistakes. I wanted my grammar to be perfect, which frustrated me whenever I learned English since there were many grammar rules. I cannot remember all of them.
I also remember when I tried so hard to have a good accent and pronounce everything correctly when speaking. I misunderstood the purpose of communication.
Mastering a language does not happen overnight. Focus on learning and not worry about making mistakes because they are part of progress. Besides that, communication is a tool for people to talk and understand each other’s message, so you can still communicate even though your accent is imperfect.
It would be best if you changed your mindset on perfectionism and instead had the opportunity to express your opinions or communicate your message. That is how you can keep learning and moving forward.
Using a dictionary to memorize new words
I tend to translate English into my native language. This word-by-word translation was tiring and made me struggle to understand the complete sentence. I also memorized new words to help me enrich my vocabulary, but it was ineffective because I did not use them with context.
Forcing myself too hard
When I learned English, I felt frustrated when I thought I was not progressing enough.
There will always be obstacles during the journey, which will test our motivation. So, enjoying the learning sessions is better than forcing ourselves too hard and losing motivation.
After spending a certain amount of time putting effort into making progress, do not forget to give yourself a small reward as an appreciation. Giving a self-reward will also encourage you to commit to learning for a longer time.
5. No evaluation
I used to learn English for a week without looking back at the notes to evaluate what I had learned. I never assessed my lessons until I realized I had to start them over. Evaluation is essential to see how far I have progressed. I could see what works well and what is not working for me.
By taking an evaluation, you can see areas where you do not see improvements. So, besides spending time learning, do not forget to set up a time for evaluation. It could be once a month or any time that works for your needs.
These are some questions you can use to assess yourself:
- Do your goals sound realistic?
- How does the scheduled time work for you?
- Is your study time easy to follow? If not, what are the obstacles?
- Do you learn new vocabulary?
- What is your favourite part of the learning session?
- Which area of learning is challenging for you?
- Have you taken an evaluation test?
Ask an English-proficient friend, teacher, or mentor for feedback. The results will provide you with an overview of what works and does not work for you so you can adjust your goals as needed.
Finally, as mentioned above, the way to evaluate is by taking the free test. Use the websites I wrote earlier to recheck your level.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. “ — Samuel Beckett
There will be mistakes here and there on the journey of learning English, so let them be! Thanks for reading!
