Looking-back my recent English study

Long time no see. I am still working as a mobile engineer.

Money Forward, Inc., to which I currently belong, has been promoting anglicization in recent years, and I am engaged in daily study as a company member.

Actually, there have been several times in the past when I have needed to communicate in English in the course of my work, and each time, I have tried to study English, but it has been difficult to keep my motivation, and I have failed as many times as I have tried.

However, this time, I have been able to continue my English study for more than a year. I was curious about this for myself, so I would like to take this opportunity to list three things that I have done that I think have been effective.

Please feel free to read it as reading material, though it is in poor English.

Looking-back my habits when learning a new programming language

I love Kotlin so much, and I've been using Kotlin for over seven years. But English and programming languages are both languages, so I wonder if my approach to learning Kotlin might be a reference for continuing to learn English I sometimes think lately. And I began to think about the following: "How did I catch up, and what did I learn to develop in a new programming language, library, and environment?" In my case, I considered the following characteristics.

• Increase the opportunity exposing to English

• Spreading the range of interest

• Try to deepen my understanding

Increase the opportunity exposing to English

Since the beginning when our company started promoting the English language, I have been conscious of having many opportunities to come into contact with English, such as by trying to communicate in Slack and the pull-request reviews in English and by working the initiative myself on the parts of documents such as the specs that need to be translated into English.

By using the precedent set by my previous mastery of Kotlin, I am working on this project with the belief that I can make progress in my English skills also little by little if I am exposed to a lot of it. Lately, communication with the members whose mother tongue is not Japanese has become ordinary, but I try to actively take on that role whenever I can create an opportunity to communicate with them.

Spreading the range of interest

As we increase our exposure, the number of times we think we don't understand will increase. At the same time, the number of things that interest us will also increase.

By posting questions or concerns to members studying English together in the public channel in Slack, you can learn new things from the responses you get back and increase your opportunities to output English.
I may ask very grammar or English vocabulary questions here, or I may post casual questions. For example, I once asked the question "Is 生ビール a uniquely Japanese expression?".

Looking back, the key to continuous learning is to expand one's area of interest so that one does not become bored or negative about what one learns.

Try to deepen my understanding

I can often read unknown kanji by analyzing the components of the kanji, and I believe this is a result of my deepening interpretation of the kanji characters.

Rather than memorizing a formulaic "this is how it is," I thought that taking action to deepen understanding by thinking, "Why is that?" would tend to keep learning. I'm more likely to continue learning by taking actions to deepen my understanding. I think the example of Kanji characters also shows this characteristic. I try to keep this characteristic in mind when learning English vocabulary and grammar.

I mentioned these thoughts to my team members, and one of them introduced me to a book that breaks down and explains English vocabulary. It is very interesting, and I recommend it.

英語解剖図鑑

Expose to the information source of English and English learning tools that catch one’s interest.

Since I started learning English within our company, I have been exposed to various English learning tools and methods.
I'm not an English study expert to say which study method is better or which tool is more effective, but there were at least some that I found user-friendly or complicated.

In particular, English vocabulary learning apps often did not fit well. Sometimes, it was hard to see progress and growth, and sometimes, the pace of learning did not match the app's behavior. So, even if you cannot study well, you should not give up and say that English learning is not for you, but rather switch to a different tool because you may not have found a study method that works for you.

Lately, I have been using Santa, and it seems to work for me, because it gives me a predicted TOEIC score so I can easily feel my progress, and I have been using it the longest for private study.

Santaアルク − TOEIC®テスト対策アプリ / 無料スコア診断

In addition, if we try to collect information about English little by little, we will naturally gather such information by Google Discovery, social networking timelines, YouTube, etc. This action is also similar to what I do when learning new technology, but it is recommended for expanding your interests because you can passively receive various information.

Share your concerns, issues, and interests related to English

I guess there is one of the concerns we have when studying English in a group is "Am I falling behind the others?" I try to share my concerns and issues with various people in addition to my interests.

Our team has a Slack channel for learning English, where we discuss and share what we don't understand and what we find interesting. And I talk about that in our regular 1-on-1 meetings with our supervisors and leaders.

By doing so, I have been able to learn that the members around me also have the same anxieties and surroundings, to a greater or lesser extent. It is difficult to get rid of all the anxieties just by sharing them, but I think I was able to accept them by realizing that the anxieties I was feeling were not unidentified ones that only I felt but were felt by many others.

Being able to feel anxiety on an appropriate scale for me, rather than overreacting to it, was one of the reasons I was able to think positively about English, and I believe it was a very important point in my continued learning.

Conclusion

Looking-back on my recent English study, I summarize the following points.

• Looking-back at my habits when learning a new programming language.

• Expose to the information source of English and English learning tools that catch one’s interest.

• Share your concerns, issues, and interests related to English.

I will continue to try to use English in some way in the future, so please come back and take a read if you like.