S5E8: What could be right for you?- Place

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Wednesday and welcome to the LCP, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway.

Yesterday, I asked you to come up with a list of the absolute worst, least suitable language experiences you could think of. All the things all the activities all the feature that would make up A Language Course You Would Truly Hate, that you know some people would absolutely love, and would actively seek out, but for you, would be the ultimate nightmare. And today, we’re starting a conversation about what might be right for us.

So, for a lot of us, when we take on a big learning project as an adult, whether that’s a language, a degree, we decide we’re going to write that book, our first thought is where we last did a whole lot of learning, and that was at school. So we set about recreating a tiny little micro classroom for ourselves, with a desk, nice pen pots, maybe even some study posters and we get ourselves a textbook. We have well and truly activated Learning Mode. And for some people, that’s exactly what they need. They flourished at school, they love the process, and all those things bring them back to a place of focus, of achieving, of feeling supported.

But if that’s not you, today, we’re starting to look at what we could do instead to make your language learning more intentional, more fun, more you. So if you want to escape the classroom, physically or psychologically, these next three episodes are going to be perfect for you. And today, we’re going to turn our attention to our language learning space, and I’m popping in with a few questions to get you started on that.  

1)    What would your ideal space look like?

If you could have a Pinterest board of perfect study spaces, what would they look like? And I don’t just mean in terms of size and aesthetic style of furniture and things like that. What would it feel like? Creative? Colourful? Restful? Encouraging? Minimal?

Would you find it easier to focus, or more practical, to have one primary study space, or would you move around a lot and go to different cafes and libraries and coworking spaces?

And as we talked about at the send of s4, do you even need to be indoors to do the kind of studying you’re doing right now? If you’re still enjoying good weather where you are, could be taking your language learning outside more?  

2)    What would you want to put in it?

If you do decide you’d like one primary study space, and it’s in your own house, what would you like to put in it? House plants?  Music? Fidget toys to fiddle with? What would make this space inviting for you, and also a space where you’re the mlost able to concentrate, to do your best work and think your best thoughts? A place you want to come to, but also a place you want to stay in? 

3)    And finally, is there anything today that you could do to make your learning space just a little bit more fun, a bit comfortable, or just a bit better in whatever way matters the most to you right now? It doesn’t need to be a big job, it doesn’t need to be expensive or to cost anything at all, it just needs to make your space 1% more you!

It might be bringing something in that you thought about in the last question, like lights, candles, artwork, a chair cushion, or nice penpots for your desk. It might be giving yourself the gift of space by clearing away some of the old projects and things you don’t need right now. It might be putting up some post-its with notes to cheer on Future You. It might be as simple and quick and as practical as bringing an extension lead in so you don’t have to unplug one thing when you want to charge something else.

You might not be able to create your perfect language learning environment right now, but knowing what you want and how it could help you is a huge step in the right direction. You can carve your own path on this, language learners. Even if you’re in classes for most of the day, once you go home, or you go to the library to study, you get to make the space that will help you the most.

And if you want to really dive into being your own best teacher and making your own personal classroom a place you want to be this autumn, I would love to invite you to check out the Be Your Own Best Teacher group programme which starts on Monday September 25th and runs all the way through til December 15th.  We'll be mixing workshops, journaling, coworking and group accountability calls to help us sift through our schoolday experiences, work out what we want to keep in our present day language learning, and how to leave all the less useful stuff behind. We’ll be diving into everything from creating our ideal learning environments, getting intentional about what kinds of tasks and activities we plan, exploring our ideas about reward and punishment, success and failure, and how our inner teacher talks us through confusion and frustration. You’ll leave bursting with ideas about how to make learning a productivity more compassionate, more relevant to your adult life, and more importantly, with a much clearer idea of what you need to learn a language, and what you’re doing just because someone, somewhere, told you you should. And if you’re curious, but you’re not sure yet, it’s not too late to sign up to the two week taster fortnight which started yesterday, where you can try everything out, it’s completely free, and there’s no pressure to sign up for the full programme at the end. If you want to join, send me a DM at @teawithemily or email emily@languageconfidenceproject.com, and I can’t wait to see you there!

Have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.