35 Great Posts from 2011 for Language Learners and a Bit More

As 2011 draws to a close, I find myself – as always – in a reflective mood.  Part of growing old is the joy in learning better who you are as an individual.  I am only 38, but each year it feels as if I have a better handle on knowing who I am and how I best function in life.  I am better able to anticipate my response to life’s hurdles and plan more effectively for the year to come.

One aspect of my personality that I have come to recognize is that I tend to mentally wind down every December.  It is as if the long year past has finally eaten up my reserves of creative energy leaving me depleted to function well in any new projects or tasks I may need to complete.  But I also love January 1st and the chance to start over.  It is as if a reset button gets pushed and I begin again with the energy of a little kid on the first day of summer.  Recognizing both of these pieces of who I am has allowed me this year to plan ahead for this.  I wrote several extra blog posts back in October and November and was graced with three fantastic guest posts by Duke, Ian and Nate to bring the year to a close.

And now I have spent the last week reflecting on 2011.  I’ve been looking at my personal life, my language learning journey and at the growing business that is The Everyday Language Learner.  Much of course went well in all arenas and as I get honest with myself, I realize that there is much that could have gone better.  For the next week I will be enjoying Christmas with my wife and kids and friends here in Turkey. But I will also be thinking and planning for 2012.  I am really excited to be entering my second year with a lot of great momentum and have a lot of new ideas already for making The Everyday Language Learner blog a better place for language learners.  I would love to hear your ideas as well.  Please take a moment to leave a comment or send me an email with some ways that you think EDLL could be improved.

The First Big Change

The first thing I am going to do moving into 2012 – starting today – is to lower the price of The Everyday Language Learner guides.  These have all been receiving great reviews from those who have read them and I’d like to see more of you get one of these great resources.  You can read a recent review from The Mezzofanti Guild HERE.

• The Combo Pack Plus EDLL Guide to Getting Started (First Class) $30.00  - $20.00
• The EDLL Guide to Getting Started (Economy Class)  $10.00  -  $8.00
• The EDLL Guide to Getting Started (Audio Only)  $8.00  -  $4.00
• The EDLL Guide to Self-Assessment  $10.00  -  $8.00

My hope is that this price reduction will help more of you get one of these comprehensive guides.  You can make your purchase with confidence as I have a one year, no hassle guarantee.  If you’re not happy, I want to get your money back to you!  Remember as well that until January 1st, 2012,  50% of your purchase will be donated to Blood:Water Mission to help  fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. (Read More)

For Now

Over the next week I hope to think about what I would like to see happen in 2012 at The Everyday Language Learner.  I love the reflective process and relate to what Annie Dillard writes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

It is winter proper; the cold weather, such as it is, has come to stay.  I bloom indoors in the winter like a forced forsythia; I come in to come out.  At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year’s planting.

While I cannot yet write as Annie Dillard writes,  I do hope that in the next few weeks I will indeed reap a harvest of the rest of the year’s planting.  And so I will take a week off from posting here at the blog to nestle down and breath a bit, to spend good time with my wife and kids, and to think about the future.  I really would appreciate your ideas so please feel free to share them.  I am but one man with one mind and that said would greatly appreciate your thoughts and ideas for the blog.

I won’t be posting again until the first week of January. Subscribers will receive the Monthly Mailer Newsletter on the second and in it I’ll share some of my ideas for 2012.  Until then, I’d like to share with you some of my favorite posts and articles from other writers about language learning from 2011.  I hope you find some great encouragement and inspiration from them.

Hoping you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

35 Great Posts from 2011

1. Learning With Purpose - The Mezzofanti Guild
2. Not Nothing - AJATT
3. Taking Advantage Of Your Foreign Language Class – Keep Fluency
4. Project Based Learning – David Mansaray
5. The 7 Secrets of Successful Language Leaarning: Do What You Like – The Linguist
6. Why Adults are Better Learners than Kids (So No, You’re Not too Old) – Fluent in 3 Months
7. Discovering a New Language From Afar – Yearlyglot
8. How To Overcome Your Fear Of Speaking – Lingua Trek
9. The Secret to Learning a Language in Ten Days – Foriegn Language Mastery
10. The Anchors – AJATT
11. The Manly Alpha-Male’s Guide to L2 Panic Rooms and Upper Chest Strength – Spanish Only
12. Multi-Literate Endeavors – Sunny Earth Academy
13. Don’t Forget The Forgetting Curve – Creativity and Languages
14. Top Ten Tricks To Language Learning - Keep Fluency
15. The Seven Most Common Mental Mistakes in Language Learning (and how to avoid them) – Leaky Grammar
16. 7 Tips to Rally Your Loved Ones Around Your Change – Man vs. Debt
17. SMART Goals For My 1000 Word Challenge – Understanding How We Learn
18. The Google Hangout Language Experiment – Look Out Knock Head
19. Suzuki Method: Similar To Language Learning – Create Your World Books
20. Stay At Home Spanish Immersion – The Road to Fluency
21. The RIGHT way (brain) to Learn Foreign Languages, Christophe Clugston – Czech Experiment
22. How Can You Learn When All You Do Is Study – Yearlyglot
23. Ten Things You Should Never Say To Your Bilingual Child – Multi-Lingual Living
24. You Don’t Need To Live In A Foreign Country To Learn – Lingua Trek
25. All Batting All the Time: Ted Williams Teaches Us How To Learn – AJATT
26. Language Learning Is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle – The Linguist
27. Dealing With Anxiety With Learning – David Mansary
28. The Power of Reading – Informal Language
29. Connecting With Foreign Language Communities At Home – The Mezzofanti Guild
30. Stopping the Study Abroad Fail Train – Street Smart Language Learning
31. Don’t Plan Your Day, Plan Your Environment - AJATT
32. 7 Habits That Will Help Your Child Become Bilingual - Early Languages
33. Habit Hack: How to Form a Habit - Productivity Bits (my guest post)
34. A Story of a Man Who Wrote and Sent Letters to His Future Self – Get Busy Living (my guest post)
35. Handcrafted Audio for Remembering What You Learn – Fluent in 3 Months (my guest post)

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