Language gym or how to hack German when you’re busy

When Peter asked me to join a pilot project to learn German, I found this interesting. It was not only about learning it, but being a part of something new, disruptive and challenging the same time.

We started right away with a few lessons for beginners (yeah, that’s me). What was really catchy? The smart approach to the language. Tricks to easy learn stuff, Youtube videos (good idea), homeworks, you know, the stuff teachers use to stress their students :P

I admit, I am a lazy guy. Somebody needs to push me or give me deadlines to deliver things. Too much freedom, would make me abandon the process. Too much control would stress me. Being a teacher is an art and few people are artists in education. I think Peter is but let’s see, I might change my mind :) So far I’m feeling blind in this project but this is kinda normal for a pilot one. I feel like in a mystery movie, you know nothing about the journey ahead of you, how will be the knowledge transfered, the feedback channel, some tests maybe and so on. This is fun for me but probably not for everyone’s plate.

If there is something I would change to this, I would probably do the following:

• give clear tasks and deadlines.
• make tasks agile: small and easy to solve
• show the progress. How much do we have left or done so far?
• every lesson should have a quiz
• don’t make me record videos. For online learning this feels uncomfortable, at least for me.

Conclusion? Interesting journey so far but still too early for decent feedback.

Keep it up Peter!