Uncovering Your Language Learning Progress: The Power of Journaling for English Communication

Journaling is a powerful tool for keeping track of your English pronunciation and communication skills.

By writing down your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, you can gain valuable insights into your language learning journey.

I want to highlight the importance of journaling specifically for English pronunciation and communication, and how it can help you to improve your skills over time because it intentionally forces you to consider the circumstances of your English communication.

So Why Journal?

At its roots, journaling is simply a form of documentation - intentional documentation of your feelings, ideas, thoughts, and events that occurred that day.

Some people find journaling to be therapeutic and allow you to delve into the WHY of behaviours or thoughts but at its roots it starts off simply with what happened.

Fact A. Fact B. Feeling C.

Woke up at 9:50am. Ate breakfast. Felt relaxed.

The important aspect though is understanding and documenting the context around the event.

Tried ordering food at a restaurant. Had to repeat myself a couple times. Felt frustrated.

By journaling, you take an active role in being aware and cognizant of your role and responsibilities as an English communicator.

What kind of restaurant was it?

What time of day was it?

Was it a packed restaurant or empty restaurant? Was it noisy or quiet?

What was I ordering? Was it a weird or uncommon word like ‘Foie Gras’ or was it a standard word like ‘Chicken’.

What was my body language like? Was I using gestures as well or not?

These are all considerations that can either improve or hinder your communication. And these are not specific to non-native English speakers. Native English speakers can benefit from these things too (whether they consider themselves to be poor communicators though is another issue).

But the point is, documenting the context of communication breakdowns and miscommunications. That is the power that journaling provides.

Questions To Ask Yourself.

Who are you speaking to?

Family? Friend? Unfamiliar listener? Coworker? Stranger? Boss? How many people are there? Is it a one on one conversation or is it a small group or is it a large group?

What are you talking about?

Work? Casual conversation? Small talk? Debate? Are you making chit-chat or talking about religion/politics/science?

Where are you?

Private quiet space or loud party vibes? Is there good lighting or is it dark and difficult to see?

When are you speaking?

Are you tired or are you refreshed?

Why are you speaking?

Are you trying to prove a point? Are you trying to refute or explain something? Are you asking for help?

How are you feeling?

Are you nervous, excited, frustrated or calm? Are you feeling confident, powerful, and comfortable or are you feeling insecure, small, or confused?

Keep track of it and track your successes and challenges. Use this information to set goals and track your progress.

Maybe you’re the type to quickly forget your wins and focus solely on your losses. This can be a balancing activity to remind you of all your successes.

Maybe you’re the type to lose track of what went wrong during a conversation. This can be an introspective activity to track the problems or signs that someone is not understanding you and you need to spend more time on a subject.

What were the signs they were showing you?

Did they raise their eyebrows?

Did they ask questions that you already addressed earlier that they should have understood?

Did they request clarification or ask you to repeat yourself?

These can all be insightful contexts to understand that your listener did not understand you.

Audit Yourself.

Now, once you’ve got a week’s worth of data, audit yourself for patterns.

Journaling can help you to identify areas of difficulty in your English pronunciation and communication. By writing down the types of errors and communication breakdowns you experience, you can focus on these areas and work to improve them.

You can identify patterns in your mistakes. For example, you may notice that you often mix up similar sounding words or have trouble with certain grammar structures.

By identifying these patterns, you can focus on these areas and work to improve them.

Maybe it’s a specific word that multiple listeners have trouble understanding. This can be a starting point for words that you can practice.

For example, maybe the word is “development”. After auditing, you notice that every time you speak to an unfamiliar listener or stranger, the trend is that you need to repeat yourself.

You can add “development” to your list of words to practice. There are lots of sites like YouTube or Forvo that you can get native English speaker pronunciation of the word for reference.

Maybe it’s a specific phrase that you can express.

For example, maybe the phrase “See you tomorrow”. After auditing, you notice that other native English speakers say, “See ya tuhmorrow” instead of “See YOU TO-morrow”. It doesn’t change how well they understand you, but it’s a difference that you’ve noticed and you want to practice the phrase like a native English speaker.

You can add the phrase to your list to practice.

This lets you personalize your learning. Journaling allows you to personalize your learning by focusing on the areas that are most important to you. By writing down your thoughts and feelings, you can gain a deeper understanding of your own learning style, and use this information to make your language learning experience more effective and relevant.

There are a million resources available for all the English words in the world that non-native English speakers have trouble with, but they aren’t relevant if you, as the practitioner, don’t practice those words or don’t think they apply to your life. Furthermore, there is no point in practicing 100 words that you never use just because they’re English words.

This way you are motivated because you are specifically identifying words, trends, and patterns that are relevant to you. Plus, as you journal and actually observe the positive growth you achieve, it can provide a sense of accomplishment and achievement as the fruits of your labour. By keeping track of your progress, you can see how far you have come, and this can help to motivate you to continue learning.

So, start journaling today, and see the positive impact it can have on your English pronunciation and communication skills!