How you study for your self-access language learning will make a huge difference to your success. Knowing what you want to work on, how much time you have to study and who can help you check your progress are vital elements for effective learning. If you want to learn in a logical and systematic way, it is also essential to plan and review the way you spend your time on different learning activities. This document will show you how to learn logically by introducing 3 different types of practice and thoughts on how to balance your time between them.

Introducing ‘FTG’: three types of practice for logical language learning

To make sure your learning is logical and stays interesting we recommend you to divide your time between the three key practice types. They are: Focused Practice, Transfer Practice and General Practice.

Each practice type is introduced below. Take some time to read through and then find an SAC Adviser to discuss how you can apply them to your language learning.

Focused Practice is what you do to TEACH yourself something specific (new or forgotten) in the language.

If you have identified a weakness in your language ability, such as: a lack of vocabulary or difficulties with some aspect of pronunciation or grammar, you should spend time on those particular areas. Below are a few suggestions on what you could do.

Focused Practice activities

• For vocabulary you can use a number of dictionaries to check, collect and test yourself on words you are unfamiliar with (do quizzes or simply revise the words)
• For pronunciation and grammar you can find explanations and exercises on the problem area in books and on the web; do the exercises and check your progress to see if you need to spend more time or to see if you should move on to something else

Transfer Practice is what you do to USE what you’ve studied in Focused Practice. It’s often the ultimate test of whether you have now improved because you USE what you’ve studied in your chosen context for Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. The idea is to ‘transfer’ your knowledge to a realistic situation to test whether or not you can truly use the language you’ve spent time teaching yourself in your Focused Practice activities. Here are a few ideas on what you could do.

Transfer Practice activities

• For vocabulary you could write out a number of sentences using the words you collected during Focused Practice; you could use the words when you speak in a presentation, a discussion and/or a conversation. Remember to consider how to get your usage checked so you can make sure you are on the right track. You can ask an SAC Adviser and/or a fluent or native English speaker to give you feedback
• For pronunciation you can check your listening and/or your speaking ability. For listening you could identify the problem area in the text/transcript and then listen to see if you were correct; you could do a dictation (thinking carefully about the area of pronunciation you worked on in your Focused Practice activities) to see if you can now catch what’s being said; for speaking you could record yourself giving part of a presentation, a discussion and or a conversation and listen back to see if you have improved in your target area. Make sure again, to check with an SAC Adviser that you are on track and that you really are improving

General Practice is what you do to EXPOSE yourself to the language and have fun!

Without reading, listening, writing and speaking it’s not possible to improve your language. Everyone makes mistakes or struggles to understand but unless you expose yourself constantly to the language, you won’t make much progress no matter how much time and effort you put into the other practice types. The good thing about this practice type is that it’s the least hard work and the most fun because it’s not necessary to check or test yourself at all: it’s simply a matter of exposure and being a little more conscious of the language you’re exposing yourself to. Here are some ideas on what you could do.

General Practice activities

• For vocabulary you could simply read and listen to whatever contains the kinds of words you’d like to know more about (books/websites/movies/songs). Practice your writing by keeping a diary or a blog as well, you’ll be surprised at how easily you start to use words you thought you didn’t know! Keep chatting too, find and create opportunities, everyday, to speak in English – speaking to yourself is a great way to practice (just make sure no-one sees you)!
• For pronunciation you should listen to as much English as you can: watch movies; listen to songs, the radio and podcasts. You should also try to speak as much as you can (follow the advice in the bullet above), and find an SAC Adviser and/or fluent or native English speaker to chat with. Remember, don’t try to test yourself just be more aware of the pronunciation features, enjoy yourself and get exposure as much as you possibly can!

The Importance of Balance and Reflection

Not knowing how you’re progressing can leave you feeling worried about whether you’re doing the right thing or not. We all need to know if we’re on the right track and we all need to feel good about what we’re doing. The way to know is to review what you’ve been doing, reflect and then plan what to do next. There are many ways of looking at progress; the most effective is to keep a detailed diary showing your plans, achievements and reflections. Find an SAC adviser to discuss the best way for you to document your learning so you can review, reflect and plan easily. This will help you use your time in the most logical and effective way.

Beware of illogical learning

If you don’t balance your time between the 3 practice types and reflect on what you’re doing, you can end up feeling bored, challenged and frustrated. Be aware of how you feel and consider what the causes for your feelings are. Experience has shown that if you don’t balance your time well, the following can happen:

90% Focused Practice and very little else will leave you feeling bored because you’re learning out of context

90% Transfer Practice and very little else will leave you feeling too challenged because you’re testing yourself too much

90% General Practice and very little else will leave you feeling frustrated because you’re not addressing the problems

If you start to feel any of these negative emotions, you need to stop, review what you’ve been doing, reflect on what you want and need to do so you can plan more effectively and learn logically.

The best solution is to go and talk to an SAC adviser about how to balance your learning activities to suit your needs and wishes.

Remember, to balance Focused, Transfer and General practice activities so you experience logical, systematic, successful and happy learning.

Examples of Balanced Logical Learning

Here are a few comments from previous self-access language learners who used the three practice types during a 6 week language learning project:

Student A

“The idea of these practice types gave me a better concept to learn new things. I spent 30% of time on Focused practice in order to have more chance to review the things I have learnt. I spent 50% of time on Transfer practice as I found it is most important to me. I spent 20% of time on General practice to give me a better chance to understand more things.”

Student B

“Focused practice helps to expand the vocabulary bank but Transfer practice helps you to be familiar with the usage and General practice gives you context so it’s important to balance between them.”

Student C

“The three practices are useful and a must in my self-access language learning because the practice can guide me to improve my progress. I spent 6 hours on focused practice to find words to learn from in articles about Engineering. I did 10 hours on transfer practice as my objective was to test my recognition of the words in those articles. I did 5 hours of general practice by reading more articles that use the same kinds of vocabulary.”

Student D
‘Although reading articles is a bit boring, I enjoyed learning in the past few weeks to achieve what I have done in focused practice, transfer practice and general practice. I am able to roughly get the ideas of the words through focused practice, after that, through regular transfer practices and review in transfer practice and general practice I can effectively realize the usage of the new vocabulary. I spent 40% on focused to find new words from BBC online news and store them, 40% on transfer to consolidate the understanding of these new words by reviewing them and doing quizzes and reading articles that contain those words, and 20% on general for group discussions about those topics.’

Student E
“I found a very useful way to learn. I used 40% of my time on Focused Practice to find words from the movie and study the information on those words. I used 30% of my time on Transfer Practice to transfer the sound files and test myself on recognizing those words and remembering the meaning and I used 30% of my time on watching movies.