Time commitment

Checking in with my ISP and time commitment: My Midterm Progress Report http://jessicabruin.blogspot.com/2013/05/midterm-progress-report.html assessed my progress towards meeting my objectives, but did not reveal whether or not I was following through in other areas of my ISP.  The most important element of this ISP is my time commitment.  The best plan in the world is useless without taking action, and action must occur repeatedly for any progress to be made.  Week 1 ISP blog, Time:  Minimum 10 hours/week of study and research that meets objectives; not including additional course readings and time spent journaling.  I had to decide how much time was minimally needed to make reasonable progress towards meeting my objectives.  I initially thought that a minimum of 20 hours would be needed, but after factoring in the time required for other study activities and life, I felt that I needed to be more reasonable with myself.  Even though I reduced this ideal by half, in the first few weeks of study, I found this ‘reasonable’ time commitment to be challenging.  It was not until Week 4 that I felt comfortable with my new learning routine.  In addition, I narrowed the activities of the minimum ten-hour requirement to language learning activities only.  Once I began my studies, I felt that the most important tasks were those spent in actual language learning, and that I needed to be very disciplined about dedicating time and effort towards these activities.  These activities are also the most difficult and tedious, being the most likely to be procrastinated or put at the bottom of the project to-do list.  (Watching You Tube videos about Juchitán culture is much more fun!)  I did not make a minimum time requirement for the other activities involved in this project because I was not worried about doing enough of other things.  I also knew that the language-learning time requirement would prompt other learning activities.

Time management: The most difficult aspect of this endeavor towards self-directed language learning was making the time commitment.  I recall complaining a lot during the first three weeks of this project about feeling pulled from my studies by family and other personal obligations.  One could ask then, how have I gotten this far through college if I have been so conflicted with home life and college life?  The consequences of not succeeding with traditional college coursework make tuning out the rest of the world much easier to do.  I will admit that this project is unique because I am accountable only to myself.  There is no Isthmus Zapotec homework due in class each week (aside from a weekly blog report), there are no IZ quizzes, midterm, or final exam.  I will not receive a poor grade because I did not meet my ISP objectives.  I do not even have other classmates learning this language to compete with or be motivated to keep up with.  Perhaps worst of all, I have selected a language that has virtually no native speakers in California.  I cannot really use this language with anyone at this time in my life.  So how can I be disciplined enough to make difficult personal sacrifices to prioritize the time to learn Isthmus Zapotec?  I had to create a system for personal accountability that would give me discipline, thus maintaining my motivation to learn.  I trained myself to keep a log of the time I spend learning.  This habit began to develop in Week 2 when I took my first steps towards language learning.  I knew that I was going to be blogging about my progress, so I began to write down every learning activity I engaged in.  On my second language-learning day, I thought it would be a good idea to include the time of these activities; not just how much time, but the hour of day. This was important to me because I was trying to decide what time of day was the best for me to study.  I also began to jot down in my notebook the time I did other activities because I was concerned about how I spent my non-study time.  By Week 3, I decided I needed an additional way to track my study time because the pages of my notebook were filled with note-taking and language learning and was not an easy way to see how well I was meeting my time commitment.  I purchased a weekly planner to summarize my learning activities and keep track of my weekly time investment.  Once or twice a week, I transfer salient information from my notebook into my planner.  To help motivate me to keep my planner updated, I told myself that this is part of the learning process and that it ‘counts’ towards time spent on the project.  I have two weekly tallies; the first is of the total time spent on the project, which includes research and cultural learning.  I then add up the time spent on just language-learning activities, such as learning grammar and vocabulary or memorizing a poem.  I receive motivating feedback from easily observing this data in my planner.  This planner has become my strongest study-time motivator.  All of my good intentions and language-learning desires can fade with fatigue, family emergencies, or an invitation to a special event.  But as each day comes to a close, I visualize updating my planner and if I will have anything to record for the day.  If I have not, I do not give myself permission to go to bed until I have done some language learning.  As much as I dislike staying up late, I have fallen into the habit of working at late hours because I have no distractions.       

Study-time totals:  The log of my study time is not always one-hundred-percent accurate, but is always a good estimate of the time I have invested in learning activities.  I have generally underestimated the time whenever in doubt.  Noting my minimum effort tells me much more than creating a wishful effort.  Here are my tallies:  Week 2, time working on whole project 17 hours/actual language learning 3-4 hours; Week 3, 42(crazy amount of time spent transcribing interview)/10+ hours; Week 4, 26.5/12 hours; Week 5, 25/16 hours; Week 6, 18/9 hours; Week 7 28/10 hours; Week 8, 42/8.75 hours (increased hours for research).