My prior language targets right now are basically two: to broaden my vocabulary and to improve my listening skills. I really feel the need to learn new words, especially informal ones. What I don't like about the university teaching system is that you acquire a lot of formal vocabulary because you mainly study on books written by academics and researchers. In other words, you don't learn to speak or write in the same way as people usually do in their everyday life. By dealing with native speakers I have realised that my tendency is to always resort to the same words when I want to express a particularly tricky concept. It's not a matter of fluency, it's all about word variety.
My second language target concerns listening skills. I've improved quite a lot in the past few months because I was in Ireland for 4 months, and I often went mental to understand what Irish people said. But still, I believe I need to do a lot of work. A lot of it, again, has already been done in Ireland (in relation to vocabulary as well). My aim now is to watch a movie once a week (I'll try without subtitles), and to read newspaper articles or English books on a monthly basis!
Well, wish me good luck!
Serena Zorzi
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