Welcome to October! This month I am going to study Spanish every day. I was on the fence about what language I wanted to tackle up to the very last moment. In fact, as I am typing this, part of me wants to go back and change “Spanish” to “Swedish” or “Turkish.”
Why Spanish, Swedish, or Turkish? I have started packing up some stuff I want to put into storage, and those three languages are the only ones I still have unpacked books for. I chose Spanish because I would like to take the ACTFL to demonstrate my proficiency so that I might be able to teach it in the future. It is also the language that is easiest for me to find free resources for, since it is so commonly spoken in the US and around the world. And I will be regaining skills instead of starting from scratch.
This is not to say that it is going to be easy for me or that I will be anywhere near ACTFL-ready on the first of November. Language learning takes time and effort, even if you have talent. I don’t even have much talent for it. I just have interest. Under the circumstances, my goal is to improve my skill in reading, writing, speaking, and understanding spoken Spanish. I will have to decide in the next few days how I am going to measure that.
Of those skills, my listening skill is probably the strongest. My speaking skill is probably the weakest. In any case, I have forgotten tons of stuff, and there are a few things I never internalized completely. There are also some gaps I would like to fill, especially when it comes to European Spanish. My education was 100% Latin American Spanish, which I love, but if I ever make it to Spain, I’d like to be prepared.
I have prepared a PDF below you can download if you want to use it to play along at home, studying whichever language makes the most sense for you. Or you can use any planner you’ve already collected with good intentions. I have so many of those.
The Mia Experiment 