Benchmarking progres to stay motivated

[Olle Linge]

One problem I've come across and have heard other learners talk about is that when we leave the beginner stages, it becomes increasingly difficult to actually feel that we're making progress. The first two years I studied Chinese, I could feel that I improved a lot everyday and that was a huge boost to my motivation to keep studying. Feedback was almost instantaneous.

However, the more I learnt, the less I could feel that each new thing made a difference. Relatively speaking, it felt like I had stopped learning. In the beginning, one hour of listening practise would make a noticeable difference, but now I would probably need a hundred hours to get the same kind of feeling. A while back, I started to measure my progress, to benchmark my own Chinese to measure against myself in the future. For me, this has proved a powerful way to keep motivated. I doesn't feel like my speaking has improved very much this year, but when I compare my level now with my level then, I'm surprised how big the difference is.

Since this worked quite well for me, I decided to write an article about it:

Benchmarking progress to stay motivated

Put briefly, I try to record my Chinese ability (listening/reading/writing/speaking) with regular intervals (once a year, at least) in order to see clearly that I am actually learning something, even though I don't always feel like that. Now over to some questions I have for you guys:

• Does anyone here do something similar?
  
• If yes, can you share any of your valuable insights?
  
• How do you stay motivated if you don't feel you're making progress?
  

I guess some people don't consider this a problem at all, but even if that's the case, it would be interesting to hear what you have to say. For me, this is a problem sometimes and benchmarking really helps me. If you have something else that works, perhaps I should try that.

[Silent]

I guess motivation is only an issue in the beginning, depending on your progress, up to several years. The beginning contains the hurdles, it's hard to start and keep up until you get in a study rythm. Then you hit the point where progress seems to decline which makes it hard to stay motivated and to continue. Then you reach the point where you can actually do something usefull with the gained language skills. At this point you basicly reached your goal. You can have a decent conversation, you can read a book etc. The importance of study declines and learning through utilization becomes the rule. If you can read a native book and have a decent conversation there's no real need for study anymore. Sure, you can still improve by study, but the main focus is utilization. What else did you learn it for?

[Hugh]

I think it depends how much chance you're getting to put the language into use. If you need it to communicate with people day to day, you'll rapidly notice the benefits of progress, so I think explicit benchmarking would be less necessary.

[Olle Linge]

I guess motivation is only an issue in the beginning, depending on your progress, up to several years. The beginning contains the hurdles, it's hard to start and keep up until you get in a study rythm.

I'm not sure I agree with you. I never thought motivation was very difficult in the beginning, but I do think it's harder now. For instance, having a conversation in Chinese or reading novels aren't big problems, but just because I can do that doesn't mean that I have achieved my goals. If I want to learn Chinese to some kind of native adult level, it requires much more than that. However, I've (sometimes) found it hard to put in the effort needed. It's not enough to read a novel now and then or speak with my Chinese friends. However, this might be connected to what I'm going to say below:

I think it depends how much chance you're getting to put the language into use. If you need it to communicate with people day to day, you'll rapidly notice the benefits of progress, so I think explicit benchmarking would be less necessary.

True. I'm currently living in Sweden, so even if I do have quite a lot of opportunities to speak Chinese, I'm not required to do so. However, if I studied or worked in China, it would be different, especially if the environment required a higher level than what I have now. This is a kind of benchmarking, too. If work requires a certain level and I can feel that I can manage that level with more and more ease, I know I'm making progress. So yes, I absolutely agree with you.