Dime Más Journal

Coming soon. Write a little each day, then say the same answer out loud. Miss a day and pick up where you left off.

A 20-week Spanish Journal book: a question to answer, useful expressions and a weekly review.

Writing gives you time the table does not. You can hunt for the word, change it, sit with it. In second language writing this is often called writing-to-learn: the page helps you work the language out, not only show what you already know. The Journal of Second Language Writing has been the home of that conversation for years.

Then you say it aloud. Retrieval practice, sometimes called the testing effect, is the unfancy finding that producing something from memory beats reading it again. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) is the paper people still send around. Saying the same answer out loud is that, in a kitchen.

Studies of dialogue journals, written then spoken, have found people speak a little more fluently afterwards. Not a miracle. A habit you can miss a day of, then pick up again.

A journal, and then a conversation.

Sources

Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.