Summer 2016 Plans - French In Action Challenge

If you take a look at the archives of this blog you will see that there are posts from 2013 and only from 2013. When I first started this blog I have no idea what the real purpose was. I guess that is why my motivation to post things fizzled so quickly.

This summer, however, I plan to give 'Bajan Language Lover' a fresh new start. I created a cheesy new banner and put down my plans for the blog on paper. Well not really on paper - in the About section. People say that when you write down your plans and let other people know about them, you are a lot more likely to stick to them and so that is what I did. We will see how well this works out. I aim to put up a blog post at least once every two weeks. I won't make any unrealistic plans.

Also, I plan to give my French studying a new start as well. Over the semester I was not able to study any languages so this summer I plan to get my fill. I was contemplating for a long time which language I should study. I knew I wasn't going to study Korean because I give most of my time to Korean. Even if I am not deliberately studying it, there is no doubt about it that I will watch some sort of Korean TV show. It was therefore a toss up then between Chinese and French. I felt that I neglected French for too long and so French it is.

I plan to take on what I call the "French In Action Challenge"(FIA). French in Action is a 52 part series created by Pierre Capretz which is mainly used at Yale University. Initially it was an audio program but it was also turned into a video series which can be found online. I started the series before but only made it to part 13 or so. I always had it in mind to finish the series, so I plan to use it to study this summer. I had to think for a while about what the challenge should entail because I didn't want to simply watch the videos. This is what I came up with.

The FIA Challenge Details

Since each part is around 30 minutes long,  each week I will cover three parts. My week will go like this :

Monday- Part 1
Tuesday-  Part 2
Wednesday-  Part 3
Thursday-  Part 1
Friday-  Part 2
Saturday - Part 3

Simple right? Each day I will watch the video twice in the morning , listening only, and twice again at night, this time trying to repeat what the actors say. In addition to watching the videos, during the day I plan to do related grammar exercises from this textbook that I own. From the looks of it, I would spend around 3 hours a day. Each week I also will (try to) post a short update on what I learned in the previous week.

By the end of the summer I should complete at least 33 of the parts.

I think that this is enough of a challenge. I think that it is going to be more of a determination and motivation challenge than an actual learning challenge.