Xairete! Zao! Nihao! Welcome!

This week's newsletter arrives at the real beginning of Spring as the flowers are now in bloom, the weather has warmed up, and we're finally in a good routine with the new work schedule.

If you're new here, welcome aboard and thank you for joining in. This newsletter runs parallel to our growing YouTube channel @stevenslanguagevlog which shows what its like to live overseas in China, learn Mandarin Chinese, and teach English along the way. Please do have a look and if there's anything you'd like to know more about, you can always respond directly to this email and we'll do our best to answer it.

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This Week’s Videos

1. ⏳ How Do You Use Your Spare Time? – Reflections on time, tech, and staying productive. Watch here
2. 🗣️ Quick Tip for Practicing Speaking – A throwback to a simple method to build fluency with minimal time. Watch here
3. ⏰ What time do you get up? – They say the champs get up at 5:45am, but is that too early or too late?

How Do You Use Your Spare Time?

A week or so ago I posted about how studious the students are in China as I often find them in the classroom at all hours of the day. Be it in between classes or once classes have finished for the day, the classrooms offer the students an escape from their often crowded dorms, the wait line for the library, and a focused study area away from home (and the nervously curious parents).

Now, as a teacher with several hours between classes, what am I to do? Well, as technology has developed, I'm able to bring fewer things with me yet still get a lot done. In between classes I spend the vast majority of my time editing videos and cutting up clips to distribute to the various socials... in addition to admin work and grading, of course.

However, going forward, one thing I'd like to do is work in some more language studies as I have let those languish in the last few weeks. My change of schedule has had me running around quite a bit and not always able to follow the routine I once had. (Not to mention a brief fight with food poisoning at the beginning of last week!)

What do you do with your long stretches between tasks or appointments?

📹 Watch here: YouTube Link

Quick Tip for Practicing Speaking

A throwback to one of the early YouTube Shorts I posted to the channel was a quick tip for speaking. This is something that I've often suggested students and language learners use as an easy way to practice speaking: read a text out loud.

It doesn't have to be a big, fancy text, nor does this have to be very long, but it does have to be something you can read. You might even do speaking "sprints" while reading. That is, you read one sentence silently, then the next one out loud, and repeat that a few times.

This method isn't a replacement for communicating in your target language, but it is a method to get your mouth moving and moving from the sound of the words in your head to the sound of your voice speaking those words out loud.

This method isn't very good for fluency, rhythm or phrasing, since you will probably be very stilted in your reading. That's okay. Focus on individual sounds and seeing and hearing the word in front of you.

Let us know how it goes.

📹 Watch here: YouTube Link

What time do you get up?

"The early bird gets the worm."

"You gotta get up earlier!"

"Four thirty 'n' get dirty, or just sleep in already."

K, I made the last one up, but these are all types of sayings and encouragements people say when responding to the comment "I don't have enough time!"

While it's true that getting up earlier will help you get a jump on the day, that all depends on what type of rest you had the night before. What time did you go to bed? How did you sleep? Were you drinking? And, more importantly, what time do you normally get up?

It's all fun and games to think that you can just set your alarm clock earlier and you'll start a new routine.

That hasn't been my experience.

Nay. Rather, it's been a slow process of inching that clock earlier and earlier over the years not because I necessarily WANT to get up, but because, if I want to get everything in that I NEED to get in, then I HAVE TO get up earlier.

Want to learn Russian? Do twenty minutes in the morning.

Want to practice reading Chinese? Twenty minutes in the morning.

Need to get some exercise? Twenty minutes in the morning.

Want to have some time to yourself? Twenty minutes in the morning.

The great thing about these little chunks of time is that you can mount them on top of each other: Read Chinese while on the bike at the gym or walking outside or listen to a podcast while stretching. And so on.

What time do you get up? How did you train yourself to do it? And what do you want to accomplish in that new found trove of time?

Let us know!

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For questions or suggestions, reply to this email or leave a comment on YouTube.

Need help with your studies? Reach out anytime at stevenslanguagechannel@gmail.com

Best,

Steve