{"id":990,"date":"2011-01-04T12:33:17","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T12:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=990"},"modified":"2011-01-09T21:38:32","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T21:38:32","slug":"new-year-new-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/04\/new-year-new-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year: New Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Happy New Year! Welcome to 2011: The holiday\u2019s over and now is the time to set yourself some language learning goals for the year ahead.<\/p>\n

These goals don\u2019t have to be your typical New Year\u2019s resolutions – let\u2019s face it, those never last anyway. That\u2019s because New Year\u2019s resolutions tend to be fairly general (\u201cI\u2019m going to eat healthier\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m going to learn French\u201d. To make sure you achieve your goal, it needs to be smart.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean your goal has to be clever, SMART<\/a> is an acronym – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Take for example the goal \u201cI\u2019m going to learn French\u201d – this is not specific (it doesn\u2019t state how you will learn or where you will learn). It\u2019s not measurable – what do you mean by \u2018learn French\u2019? It\u2019s possibly achievable – but only when you\u2019ve defined what level of French you want to achieve, making it not realistic. And it\u2019s not timely as there is no specified period in which to learn.<\/p>\n

A better goal would be \u201cI will sign up for beginners Spanish classes<\/a> by the end of January\u201d. This is a specific goal – to enroll in a class. It is measurable – by the end of the month have you signed up for the class? It is achievable – you can find a class that fits around your schedule and sign up for it. It is realistic – aiming to sign up by the end of January gives you time to find a suitable class, which also makes it timely.<\/p>\n

Once this goal has been achieved, you can set further goals for yourself. \u201cI will attend my class every week until the end of the semester\u201d, for example. Or \u201cI will complete my Spanish homework every Saturday afternoon\u201d.<\/p>\n

Give it a try – what are your goals for the year ahead?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2011: The holiday\u2019s over and now is the time to set yourself some language learning goals for the year ahead. These goals don\u2019t have to be your typical New Year\u2019s resolutions – let\u2019s face it, those never last anyway. That\u2019s because New Year\u2019s resolutions tend to be fairly general (\u201cI\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,27,40],"tags":[522,930,929,928],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-hints-and-tips","category-language-acquisition","tag-goal-setting","tag-language-goals","tag-language-learning-goals","tag-smart-goals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":993,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}