This morning I interviewed my roommate, Gordy, about his mission. I wasn't going to find anybody to interview about the history of the church in Irapuato, Mexico, so I figured that because he served in Samara, Russia, that was the next best thing... right?
Luckily I did find some correlation to my project. While I was learning about missionary work in Russia, Gordy brought up language study, which is something that I didn't have to do on my mission. In response to my questions he explained the difference between a good language study plan and a bad one.
A bad language study plan errs very close to not having a language study plan at all. For a little while on his mission he said he would just read the scriptures in Russian and, though it helped a little, there is only so much you can learn from this approach. It is important to try lots of different approaches. As he taught me, "you are going to speak the language about 5,000 more times than you will read or write it," so it is very important to incorporate that usage of speech into your language study plan.
Some of the things that he found effective, that I want to try not only while in the field but as I study the language before hand, include activities that he would do throughout the day. For instance, if he was talking with someone and he heard a word he didn't understand, he would write it down to look up later. Also, if he was trying to communicate something but didn't have the right vocabulary or grammar structure in the moment, then he would be sure to make note of that and learn how to correctly say that at a later time.
As language acquisition is one of the main focuses of my field study, I am very grateful for these methodological insights into language study plans. I feel that this interview/methods practice proved more helpful than I originally thought it would be.
¡Chido!
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