How to Focus on One Language-Learning Goal

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Shortly after I started blogging on Fi3M, I came across Scott Young’s site about learning and self-education. A few months later, Scott and I met while I was passing through Paris. He took the photo of me in front of the Eiffel Tower that appears in that article.

Scott had been learning French for six months, and it was his first foreign language. The first time we met in person, we spent the afternoon speaking French together, even though we had never made that plan by email.

I later interviewed him for an earlier Fi3M audio package about how he approached the project. One theme kept coming up: focus. He had given one clear learning goal his sustained attention.

Scott then set himself a much larger project: the MIT Challenge. Using MIT’s publicly available materials, he aimed to complete the exams and programming projects for 33 class equivalents from its computer science curriculum in about a year.

He finished the challenge in September 2012 and published his work and results. It was a self-directed learning project, not enrolment at MIT or an MIT degree. Its scale was unusual, but the planning lesson is useful for smaller projects too: a specific commitment is easier to organise than a collection of vague ambitions.

In this guest post, Scott explains how he used that distinction in the MIT Challenge and in his French learning. Over to you, Scott.

A note from the Fluent in 3 Months team before we get started: You can chat away with a native speaker for at least 15 minutes with the “Fluent in 3 Months” method. All it takes is 90 days. Tap this link to find out more.

The MIT Challenge

It was class number 18, and if I had ever wanted to quit, it was then. The class had no recorded lectures or textbook. All I had to work from was a set of old slides filled with cryptic acronyms and bulleted lists.

Despite this, I knew I would need to finish all six projects over the next seven days to keep to my schedule. The final project involved building a CPU from scratch by specifying how wires were connected in a simulator.

This was month six of my attempt to complete the exams and programming projects for 33 class equivalents from MIT’s four-year computer science curriculum in about one year. What started as an interesting, and perhaps slightly arrogant, project had become an all-consuming quest.

Eventually, I finished that class along with the other 32. During the process, I learned a lot about computer science, but I also learned what helped me see a demanding learning project through to completion.

Why Context Matters More Than Labels

After completing several projects, I noticed that people often make their self-education goals harder than they need to be.

Then, when the plan breaks down, they blame themselves: “I was too lazy. I’ll try harder next time.” The label changes nothing about the plan.

Another reaction is to look at someone like Benny and assume his language ability comes from an inherent gift. Even if you accept that he was not born with a special “language gene”, you might decide he has an unusual amount of discipline.

Psychologists call a related tendency the fundamental attribution error: when explaining someone else’s behaviour, we may overemphasise personal traits and underestimate the situation. The simple story becomes “Benny succeeds because he is disciplined; I fail because I am lazy.”

But the situation matters. Benny brings focus to his missions, and their structure helps too. A defined time frame, one main target and public accountability can make it easier to decide what to do next. Those supports do not remove every setback, but they reduce some avoidable ones.

One useful place to start is the shape of the project itself. A narrower commitment can make a new language, subject or qualification easier to plan and review.

The Key Is Focus

One feature of many of Benny’s challenges is that they focus on one main language. Even his occasional maintenance challenges have usually been organised around a single theme.

His goals are also specific. Each mission has a time frame and a stated outcome. My challenge was clear too: complete the projects and exams for 33 classes. A vague mission can keep expanding as you add more material, methods and side goals.

Several “easy” learning commitments can compete for the same limited time. Choosing one main project lets you direct more of your study sessions towards the same outcome. The important step is reining in your ambitions long enough to decide what matters now.

Focus becomes more useful when the project is specific.

When I was first learning French, I thought in vague terms: I wanted to be fluent. That was difficult to plan, so I chose smaller projects instead, such as holding a one-to-one conversation, following a film or reading a novel like Le Comte de Monte-Cristo or Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Breaking the language into shorter projects made the process feel less daunting. I later used the same principle when I divided computer science into 33 individual classes.

What if I Have a Lot of Interests?

I understand the reluctance to focus when there is so much you want to learn. My formal education was in business, but I have also studied psychology, nutrition, computer science, mathematics, physics, economics and French.

My solution has two parts. First, I distinguish commitments from interests. Second, I take on major interests sequentially instead of turning all of them into active projects at once.

Commitments and Interests

Focus does not mean I have to wilfully avoid everything outside my main project. When I was learning French, I could still pick up a little German in Berlin or a couple of Spanish phrases while passing through Barcelona.

The distinction was that I had not committed to a German or Spanish project. I could follow my curiosity without requiring myself to study either language on a schedule.

Keeping commitments minimal leaves room for other interests. You can explore them when you have the energy without treating every interest as another obligation you have failed to maintain.

Sequential and Parallel Commitments

Another way to handle multiple projects is to work on them sequentially rather than in parallel. When I was studying computer science, my interest in a new language or subject did not disappear. I noted it as something I could pursue after that particular project.

Many of Benny’s intensive commitments ran for about three months. Working on one main language at a time let him give it sustained attention, then move to another language later. That is different from trying to make equal progress in every language at once.

What if You Can’t Focus?

This idea applies to the time and energy you can choose how to spend. I was fortunate enough to devote most of my working time to the MIT Challenge. Other learners may have far less flexibility because work, family, health or formal study comes first.

Focus does not create extra hours. It can, however, help you use the study time that remains. If work or other responsibilities limit your schedule, choose a project that fits the time you can reliably give it.

Sometimes there genuinely is not enough free time for a major project. In that case, make the commitment smaller: one weekly conversation, ten minutes of reading on three days, or one short lesson at a time.

Pick one main learning project, define an outcome you can recognise and decide when you will work on it. Keep your other interests optional or save them for later. That is the practical value of focus: it gives your next study session a clear job.

This guest article was written by Scott Young. You can see the class list, rules and published results in his MIT Challenge archive.