Practice makes perfect. The truth behind that statement is impossible to deny. More important than practice, though, is the value of planning and preparation so that you practice sessions becomes more than happenstance.
Some people call it deliberate practice. By that, they refer to carefully thought-out practice activities, designed to improve your skills in a systematic manner. This is in contrast to the just-dive-in approach to practice, where results may be more uneven.
With deliberate practice, you specifically go out to hone an aspect of your language skills that need to be worked on. Say, you’ve got survival phrases down pat, but would now like to be able to interact with people in the market on the fly. Ask yourself then: what kinds of speaking activities should I focus on to improve in this area?
Notice that you will start out all deliberate practice sessions being incompetent in that particular skill. As such, you need not worry about falling flat on your face and all that jazz — you can rest assured that they will happen. Because of its deliberate nature, though, you can be sure that you’ll see improvements if you stick to it.
The practice sessions available in many language software are designed with such types of gradual skill acquisition in mind. Think of it like basketball. If you go down to the park everyday for a year to play pick up games with other kids, you might or might not get better. If you work with a coach who will drill you step-by-step for six months, you’re almost always guaranteed to be a much-improved player at the end of that.
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