HOW TO EAT THE LANGUAGE LEARNING ELEPHANT WITHOUT GETTING INDIGESTION

At 2 hours a week it will take you about 12 to 15 years to reach a high level of effective business communication, if at all (sorry about that). Do the math, each level (A1, A2, B1 etc) are estimated at around 200 to 300 hours of English.

So how do you stay the course? How do you speed it up? Firstly, nothing succeeds like success, nothing motivates more than visible, tangible progress. When you see that there is some return on the time, effort and money that goes into learning a language, that's when the magic happens. Making progress then reinforces your belief in yourself and your identity as a successful language learner. You create a positive feedback loop of progress–increased effort with feel good factor–even more progress. We must therefore do all we can to make progress visible to ourselves.

There are many ways to do so. Getting good actionable feedback from a language learning professional is one very effective mirror, both what went well and what to do differently the next time. Seeing yourself getting things done in the language and taking note of the successes is another, so it's important to focus on real communication skills. Setting meaningful, measurable goals is another. I once taught an auditor and management consultant who, while I taught him English, taught me about performance tracking and metrics (Thanks Juan Carlos!) He taught me to measure consistent effort (Vocabulary learned, series watched, articles read, minutes of successful discussion and debate in the class...), rather than fixating on change of level. The results come if you do the work.

Secondly, intensity matters too simply because you have less time to forget and what you frequently use is deemed important by the brain and retained. If you combine dedicated regular study, high impact classes, trips abroad and/or regular contact with native speakers, plus integrating the new language as part of your everyday life, interests and hobbies, you can maybe reduce the whole process from beginner to high proficiency in about 5 to 7 years. That would be an incredible achievement for a busy adult learner who understandably has other more pressing issues to address in their daily lives. And then of course, if you stop practising, your level starts to decrease. Remind me, please, why do we want to learn languages?

When figuring out how to stay motivated it makes sense to know yourself (this is generally a good idea for most things). Broadly speaking it's useful to think of motivational profiles from three perspectives: extrinsic, intrinsic and transcendent. I will explain. The first one is what you get, the extrinsic motivators. You get money, a pay rise, a promotion, public recognition, a certificate, a boost in status. All these things come from the outside. The second group of factors are internal, the intrinsic motivators: the joy of learning, personal satisfaction from overcoming challenges, the feeling of transformation and growth. The third group is to do with other people, the transcendent motivators, because you transcend yourself, it's not about you, it's for your company, for your team, for a cause, for your family, for something bigger than you. I find that my profile is a combination of all three to different degrees and changes over time. I like to do things that give me a reward, that make me feel smarter and competent, and I also like to belong to something and help others on their journey to success. These are powerful forces hard wired into what it means to be human. Understanding ourselves can help to tweak our environment and foster motivation.

A useful formula would therefore be: a clear idea of the value of the goal multiplied by a progress induced belief in yourself that you can actually reach that goal multiplied by consistence over time. Easy!

If you're looking for someone to get you up to speed in your business English communication skills, contact me for a free 10 minute language audit.