Understanding resolutions: Setting your language goals for success

Students sitting outside a building chatting and smiling together
Reading time: 3 minutes

Millions of people make resolutions every New Year (or any significant milestone). Many learners set inspiring goals to acquire new skills, explore new academic fields, or develop better study habits. But how often do these resolutions stick? And how can you turn your learning-related goals into lasting habits? This post dives into the science of resolutions and practical strategies to make your learning commitments stick.

Why do learning resolutions fail?

that the majority of New Year’s resolutions fail by February. When it comes to learning, the reasons often include overly ambitious goals, lack of clear plans and failure to sustain motivation over time.

One main reason resolutions fail is that they are not specific enough. Goals like "get fit" or "learn a language" are too vague and don’t include steps to take. Without a clear plan, it’s easy to feel lost and lose motivation.

For example, it’s one thing to decide, “I’m going to learn French this year,” but without a structured plan, consistent practice and measurable benchmarks, the resolve often fizzles out.

Another factor is having unrealistic expectations. While it's good to be ambitious, setting too high goals can cause frustration and burnout. For example, trying to master a skill in just a few weeks ignores the time and effort needed to improve.

Distractions and other priorities can slow down progress. Life demands, like work or family, can easily push resolutions aside if they aren't included in everyday routines.

How long does it take to form a habit?

One key to sticking to a learning resolution is habit formation. Popular belief often quotes the “21-day rule,” but research says differently. A 2009 study published in the found that it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit.

However, this number varies based on personal factors, the difficulty of the habit and the surroundings. For instance, if your goal is to study for 20 minutes each day, it may feel more comfortable after a few weeks of practice. In contrast, picking up a harder learning habit, like spending two hours a day studying Mandarin grammar, could take much longer to become a regular part of your routine.

Strategies for making resolutions stick

1. Start small and specific

Instead of setting a big goal like “become fluent in Spanish," set smaller, easy-to-reach goals. For example, try "learn 10 new Spanish words each day" or “listen to one Spanish podcast each week.” This makes your goal seem less overwhelming and helps you feel accomplished over time.

that mixing big-picture goals with small, specific ones can be a useful way to stay on track when working toward long-term objectives.

2. Use the power of routine

Connect your new learning habit with one you already do. This is called “habit stacking.” For example, if you have coffee every morning, decide to study for 15 minutes as you finish your drink. Linking the new habit to a routine you already have makes it more likely to stick.

3. Track your progress

Keeping track of your learning helps motivate you and shows where you can improve. Whether you check off lessons in a language learning app like Mondly by app or write notes in a journal, seeing what you’ve accomplished keeps you interested.

4. Build accountability

Tell your friends, family, or study groups about your learning goals. When someone else knows your goal, it can help you stay on track. It’s even better to join a community of others who want to learn, like on social media or in online classes.

People who do well often set clear, achievable goals and share them with friends for support.

5. Reward yourself

Small rewards can go a long way toward maintaining motivation. Celebrate milestones with meaningful perks, such as a favorite treat, an afternoon off, or buying yourself a book on the subject you're learning.

6. Anticipate and plan for setbacks

Life happens—sometimes work is stressful or things go wrong. Remember that missing a day or getting behind doesn’t mean you've failed. Keep going by recognizing challenges and getting back to your study plan with fresh motivation.

7. Don’t fear failure

Mistakes are part of progress. Every mispronounced word or awkward conversation is a step closer to fluency.

8. Reassess and adjust goals

If your language learning plan isn’t working, change it. If weekly goals seem too much, try monthly goals instead. The key is flexibility.

The reward of resolutions

Keeping resolutions can be tough, but the benefits are great. Picture yourself reading a book in your target language, traveling more easily, or making stronger friendships with people from different cultures. With determination and these tips, you can achieve your language learning goals.

Start today -Whether it's January or June, it's never too late to set new goals. Draft a language learning plan, break it into small steps, and watch as each day brings you closer to your destination.

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  • Children sat down on the floor reading books, with some looking up at their teacher who is sat with a book

    How to improve literacy in the classroom

    By Katharine Scott
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Katharine Scott is a teacher trainer and educational materials developer with over 20 years’ experience writing English language textbooks. She’s co-author of the app Primary course - English Code and is based in Spain. Katharine outlines a number of practical ways you can help English language learners develop key literacy skills.

    What is literacy?

    Teachers at all stages of education often complain about their students’ reading skills. The students are literate. In other words, they can interpret the graphemes, or letters on the page, into words. But they struggle to identify the purpose of a text or to analyze it in a meaningful way. We could say that the students have poor literacy skills.

    Literacy is a term used to describe an active, critical form of reading. Some of the skills of a critical reader include:

    Checking new information

    A crucial literacy skill involves discerning whether a text is factually true or not. A critical reader always checks new information against existing knowledge. As we read, we have an internal dialogue: Where does that information come from? That’s impossible because ….

    Separating fact from opinion

    This skill is essential for understanding many different types of texts from newspaper articles to scientific research.

    Understanding the purpose of a text

    All pieces of text have a main purpose. This may be entertainment, in the case of a story or persuasion, in the case of advertising. A critical reader will know how to identify the purpose of the text.

    In the classroom, different types of text require different responses from the students. It’s important, as students grow older, that they know how to read and respond appropriately to a piece of written information.

    Identifying key information in a text

    This is an essential skill for summarizing information or following instructions. It is also important when we transform written information into something else, like a chart.

    In many ways, literacy is the key skill that underpins learning at all stages. This may seem like an exaggeration, but consider the importance of the four skills outlined above.

    Strategies to promote literacy

    Many teachers and parents of early learners instinctively develop literacy skills before the children can even read.

    When we read a story out loud to a child, we often ask questions about the narrative as we turn the pages: What is going to happen next? How do you think …. feels? Why is …?

    These questions set the foundations for literacy.

    Working with a reading text

    Too often, the comprehension questions that teachers ask about a text are mechanical. They ask the student to “lift” the information out of the text.

    A tale of two dragons

    "Once upon a time, there was an island in the sea. One day, people were working in the fields. The sun was shining and there was one cloud in the sky. The cloud was a strange shape and moving towards the island. Soon the cloud was very big. Then a small boy looked up."

    Taken from English Code, Unit 4, p. 62

    Typical comprehension questions based on the text would be:

    • Where were the people working?
    • How many clouds were in the sky?

    These questions do not really reflect on the meaning of the text and do not lead to a critical analysis. While these simple questions are a good checking mechanism, they don’t help develop literacy skills.

    If we want to develop critical readers, we need to incorporate a critical analysis of reading texts into class work through a deep reading comprehension. We can organize the comprehension into three types.

    1. Text level

    Comprehension at “text level” is about exploring the meaning of individual words and phrases in a text. Examples for the text above could be:

    • Find words that show the story is a fairy tale.
    • Underline a sentence about the weather.

    Other text-level activities include:

    • Finding words in the text from a definition
    • Identifying opinions in the text
    • Finding verbs of speech
    • Finding and classifying words or phrases

    2. Between the lines

    Comprehension “between the lines” means speculating and making guesses with the information we already have from the text. This type of literacy activity often involves lots of questions and discussions with the students. You should encourage students to give good reasons for their opinions. An example for the text above could be:

    • What do you think the cloud really is?

    Other “Between the lines” activities include:

    • Discussing how characters in a story feel and why
    • Discussing characters’ motivation
    • Identifying the most important moments in a story
    • Speculating about what is going to happen next
    • Identifying possible events from fantasy events

    Literacy activities are not only based on fiction. We need to help students be critical readers of all sorts of texts. The text below is factual and informative:

    What skills do you need for ice hockey?

    "Ice hockey players should be very good skaters. They always have good balance. They change direction very quickly and they shouldn't fall over. Players should also have fast reactions because the puck moves very quickly."

    Taken from English Code, Level 4, p. 96

    “Between the lines” activities for this text could be:

    • What equipment do you need to play ice hockey?
    • What is the purpose of this piece of text?

    3. Behind the lines

    Comprehension “behind the lines” is about the information we, the readers, already have. Our previous knowledge, our age, our social background and many other aspects change the way we understand and interpret a text.

    An example for the text above could be:

    • What countries do you think are famous for ice hockey?

    Sometimes a lack of socio-cultural knowledge can lead to misunderstanding. Look at the text below.

    Is the relationship between Ms Turner and Jack Roberts formal or informal?

    73 Highlands Road Oxbo, Wisconsin 54552
    April 11th

    Dear Ms. Tamer,
    Some people want to destroy the forest and build an airport. This forest is a habitat for many wolves. If they destroy the forest, the wolves will leave the forest. If the wolves leave the forest, there will be more rabbits. This won't be good for our forest.
    Please build the airport in a different place. Please don't destroy the forest.

    Kind regards, Jack Robers

    Taken from English code, Level 4, unit 5, Writing Lab

    If your students are unaware of the convention of using Dear to start a letter in English, they may not answer this question correctly.

    Other “Behind the lines” literacy activities include:

    • Identifying the type of text
    • Imagining extra information based on the readers’ experiences
    • Using existing knowledge to check a factual account
    • Identifying false information

    Examples:

    • What job do you think Ms Turner has?
    • Do you think Jack lives in a village or a city?
    • Do wolves live in forests?

    Literacy is more than reading

    From the activities above, it’s clear that a literacy scheme develops more than reading skills. As students speculate and give their opinions, they talk and listen to each other.

    A literacy scheme can also develop writing skills. The text analysis gives students a model to follow in their writing. In addition, a literacy scheme works on higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, deduction and summary.

    Developing literacy skills so that students become active, critical readers should be a key part of educational programs at all ages. Literacy activities based on a reading text can be especially useful for the foreign language class.

    With literacy activities, we can encourage students:

    • To use the text as a springboard for communicating ideas and opinions
    • To analyze the text as a model for writing activities
    • To see how language is used in context
    • To explore the meanings of words

    More crucially, we are developing critical readers for the future.

  • A teacher sat in a classroom with a child, sharing crayons with eachother and smiling

    Four ways to keep kindergarten ESL students focused all day

    By Heath Pulliam
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Heath Pulliam is an independent education writer with a focus on the language learning space. He’s taught English in South Korea and various subjects in the United States to a variety of ages. He’s also a language learning enthusiast and studies Spanish in his free time.

    Those who have taught children anywhere between the ages of 4 and 8 know that one of the biggest challenges of getting through to them is keeping your presentation style interesting. As someone who taught ESL in South Korea to kindergarteners, there are a few factors that make keeping students engaged a challenge. In countries where students learn English, students often have a heavy courseload and high expectations. As a first-year teacher, I learned a lot about what worked and what didn’t through trial and error. These are four methods that I consistently used to keep my students interested and engaged all day.

    Students are quick to lose focus at such a young age. You’re not speaking their mother tongue and some parts of an ESL curriculum are less than exciting. With young students, you can’t lecture your way through the material all day. Kindergarteners have a small window of focus and it must be capitalized on. The following methods are ones that worked for me and can be modified to cover any topic you’ll run into in an ESL curriculum.

  • A teacher standing next to a student who is sat down, he has a pen and is gesturing to her work on the table.

    Assessing listening skills with the GSE

    By
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    In today’s interconnected world, effective communication in English is more crucial than ever. As educators and language learners seek to measure and improve English proficiency, a resource like the Global Scale of English (GSE) offers a valuable framework for assessment. This blog post will explore how the GSE can be used to assess listening skills, providing insights into how it also helps tailor instruction and support language development.

    For listening skills, the GSE focuses on how well learners can understand spoken English in different contexts. It assesses comprehension at varying levels of complexity:

    Understanding simple information: At lower levels, learners are expected to understand basic information, such as simple instructions or everyday topics. The GSE provides learning objectives for how well learners can grasp essential details.

    Understanding main ideas: As proficiency grows, learners should be able to identify main ideas and key points in more complex spoken texts, such as conversations and broadcasts. The GSE outlines how well learners can extract important information from various sources.

    Understanding detailed information: At advanced levels, learners are expected to comprehend detailed and nuanced information, including implicit meaning and speaker intent. The GSE describes the level of detail and depth of understanding required at these stages.

    The GSE also shows how students engage in different operations of listening, from global comprehension, recognizing information and identifying specific information to extracting information. By taking this into account, teachers can monitor students’ progress and assess their listening skills. An example will show this in action.

    Let’s consider a level, say GSE 30-35 (equivalent to low A2 on the CEFR) and focus on how students process information. When checking a listening activity, rather than simply focusing on whether the answers are correct or incorrect, we can analyze our learners using the GSE and see what progress they are making and what we need to do as teachers to help them move on. Heres how: