Photo Credit: Cottonbro Studio @Pexels.com

As with learning anything - the guitar, calligraphy, yoga, cooking - a new language takes time to acquire. If you’re going to be a good guitarist, writer, yogi, cook or foreign language speaker, you need many hours of practice over a long period of time. Many people feel motivated to start learning a language in the beginning, but that motivation often falls away as time goes on. What are some simple ways to keep motivation up?

At the beginning, habitualise your language learning. Embed it in your day. Set your alarm in the morning to play a new English song every day. Prepare an alert on your smartphone every morning to read that day’s news or weather in English. Listen to regular English podcasts on your commute into school. These are three technology-based ways to bring language learning into your daily routine in a simple, regular, automatic way.

Further to this, reward yourself if you do these three things in any one day. Keep a record of it in your smartphone calendar or ‘notes’ app. At the end of the month, if you have done these listening / reading tasks every day of that month, buy yourself a prize like an English magazine or book. Rewarding yourself on a regular basis for your language learning efforts is a smart way to keep up your motivation.

Lastly, set a tangible goal. Download the next year’s calendar for the EIKEN or TOEIC tests in your area. Pencil in a few target test dates over the course of the year - for example, EIKEN in January; TOEIC in June; TOEFL iBt in November. Many of the most popular language proficiency tests are spread at different dates throughout the year. Having a few concrete test dates and a sensible target level will give you sufficient motivation to keep up your language learning all through the year. Measure your progress by taking practice tests along the way too.

Questions:

Q1. An action that you ‘habitualise’ is something you do…

a: At your own pace

b: On a regular basis

c: Only in your free time

d: Sometimes

Q2. True or False? Rewards enhance motivation.

Q3. A goal is ‘tangible’ when it is…

a: Sensible, achievable, measurable

b: Ambitious, difficult, expensive

c: Clever, motivating, impossible.

Scroll↓down for answers

A1. On a regular basis (B)

B2. True

C3. Sensible, achievable, measurable (A)

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I grew up in the southeastern part of the United States. While there is a lot that comes as a result of being from that part of the country, lately it has involved natural disasters. The state where I’m from was horribly affected by Hurricane Helene (hurricanes are Atlantic Ocean-equivalents to typhoons in the Pacific Ocean). It should always be sad to see the effects of disasters around the world, but it’s different when the location is your hometown.

For me, I’ve been away from my hometown almost all of my adult life, and only really have an address there for citizenship purposes. With family and friends moving on in their lives, I had felt the connection weaken recently, but the effects of the hurricane have challenged that some for me. Even if there is less of what connects you to a place, there are still memories of what was.

It is hard to see so much of what used to be in my hometown either be totally flooded, uprooted from its foundations, or simply washed or blown away. Images and videos I saw almost seemed like they were from another place, but then I’d see a familiar storefront, a very particular street name in a headline, or adjacent towns or counties being mentioned. Then, the feeling just sinks in that it both is and isn’t the place I used to know.

Over time, places that we know will change their meanings for us. Sometimes a positive will become a negative, a negative will turn positive, or they’ll stay the same but we’ll find something new to maintain that feeling. Buildings and people will come and go, and, in the case of me with Hurricane Helene, entire towns practically disappear. It is a part of life you cannot always predict.

Change will happen, and the reasons for it do not have to be bad, though they sometimes are. The main thing to remember is changes to where you were do not suddenly change who you are. The people and places you have and had known will always hold their place in your memory, but what you do with them now determines their weight.

Do not let circumstances decide what you know to be true in yourself. You know what has made you the person you are today.

Questions:

Q1. What recent event has happened in the author’s hometown?

Q2. How long has the author been away from their hometown?

Q3. For the author, what should NOT have final say in what influences our lives?

Scroll down↓for answers

A1. Hurricane Helene

A2. Almost all of his adult life

A3. Circumstances

Photo Credit: Roman Ska @pexels.com 

Imagine you are a fresh university student who decides to live by yourself. What kind of home would you like to live in? There is quite an interesting housing option in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which is easy on the wallet. Can you guess what it is like? They are container homes. I once found an article about these unique houses, and I would like to introduce them to you.

First of all, why were container homes born in Amsterdam? The biggest reason is that housing in the city is quite expensive, similar to living in Tokyo, and it is very challenging for students to find low-cost apartments. Therefore, there is a shortage of reasonable housing for students. The next question would be, “Where did the idea of building houses made of containers come from?” The answer is that there are thousands of unused shipping containers in ports around the world. Although steel companies recycle some of the old containers, they cannot recycle all of them. That’s why there are just so many containers left behind. Therefore, the idea to reuse the shipping containers as student housing came up. Actually, the materials are suitable for creating houses.

First of all, shipping containers are basically all the same size, so it is quite easy to build up and it does not take a lot of space to make a new residential area. Also, it takes very little energy to reuse the containers for housing because there is no need to create a house from scratch. Next, containers are made of steel and the steel is strong. Strength is quite an essential factor when building a house. Finally, the containers are so widely available that they are quite cheap to buy. That can lead to offering students affordable housing.

How affordable is it, by the way? According to the article, the monthly rent is about €400, which is around \65,000. (Note: it was in 2015 when this container housing project started) It is about half the price of the average rental fee of a so-called studio apartment in the Netherlands. That is a brief background that shows why the container houses were born and why they are suitable for housing.

What is the inside of the container houses actually like? Do you think it is attractive enough for university students that they would want to live there? According to students who have actually lived in the container houses, each apartment is quite spacious. It has a kitchen, a bedroom with a study area, and a bathroom. Some students say that it is bright, and it also has its own balcony. It is warm and quiet. In addition, it has a high-speed Internet connection, too. Therefore, it seems like a comfortable environment for university students.

Nowadays, shipping containers are not only used for homes but also for a huge container shopping mall, container offices, restaurants, coffee shops, and mobile health clinics, for example. Would you like to live in a container house?

Questions:

Q1. In which city are the container homes the author talks about located?

a. The Netherlands

b. Amsterdam

c. Tokyo

Q2. Which of these is NOT an advantage of container homes?

a. They are strong

b. They look beautiful

c. They are affordable

Q3. How do you think the author feels about container homes is?

a. They are a good idea.

b. They are over-priced.

c. The author would prefer a normal apartment

Scroll down ↓ for the answers

Answers:

1. b

2. b

3. a