Feedback is essential to any form of learning. Without feedback, it becomes impossible to accurately ascertain how well you’re really doing.
That’s why it’s difficult to pick up many skills on your own. While you can, in theory, learn Muay Thai from a DVD training program, you’re probably not going to progress as fast as a guy training at a gym in a rural kickboxing mecca in Thailand with coaches to steer his course and sparring partners to punch him in the face.
Feedback lets you know when you’re doing something right. More importantly, though, it alerts you when you’re doing something wrong, so you can change it. Without feedback, the self-taught kickboxer can be teaching himself all the wrong strikes without ever catching on.
The same is true for language learning. If all you do is take lessons from your language software all day, there’s no objective way for you to check how well you’re progressing. That’s why we stress doing the exercises and putting yourself in situations where you can use the language, as those are the things that can get you feedback.
As you do your language software lessons this week, try to come up with a list of ways that you can get feedback on your progress. Scour your imagination to see what’s possible — getting feedback is worth the trouble.
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