When I started this journey, I knew that this would take a lot of work. I knew that I had to put the hours in to be able to learn darija. I told myself last year that I will be studying everyday and should be at least at an immediate level within a year. This did not happen and I am having frustrations with my journey. I do know a lot more words and can understand simple sentences but there is a lot of room for improvement. I know that the frustrations are based on something i’m not doing efficiently in my learning. I tried to research what is wrong with my learning strategy and I found some points that might be the reason.
- Consistent learning – My intention to learn everyday but I seem to not study on Fridays and Saturdays. Maybe it is just trying to relax on the weekends but missing these days for months ends of being a lot of missed days.
- Emotional learning – I found myself not studying when I feel tired or not motivated. There is no way that I can be motivated everyday so I have to try to study even if I don’t feel like it
- Listening to easy sentences – The main goal I have in 2018 is to be able to listen to a conversation and understand it. My strategy was to watch Moroccan television. This is not helping me. I think that listening to videos with easier sentences is a better approach.
- Making excuses – The first time I was sick this year, I did not even try to study. I thought that when I feel better I will start again. This one excuse turned into another excuse and another excuse and another excuse. The excuses have to stop.
Sometimes criticisms are a hard pill to swallow. I want to think that I am doing everything I can to learn but taking a self assessment of myself there are a lot of improvements that can be done. I hope that I am able to address the points listed above and gain some momentum towards my listening goal for 2018.
