At the Indendent Learning Association’s conference in Auckland last September, a keynote address was given by Marina Mozzon-McPherson, an Italian who has lived in the UK for many years and is a teacher of Italian (and autonomous language-learning and advising) at Hull University, UK. She referred to an email list that was created (by her?) with the aim of helping her Italian students communicate in Italian with Italian native speakers (Marina herself and others she located and roped in). However, she found it slowly changed its purpose: firstly it kept going even after the Italian course was finished, and it now includes several “generations” of Hull Uni Italian language students; secondly, Marina discovered it was a useful resource for HER, as an expat Italian - she was able to brush up her Italian, discover new words and expressions coined since she left that country, etc., thanks to being in contact with native-speaking Italians living in Italy. Other expat Italians that Marina brought in discovered the same thing, and it became a very lively and vibrant community with genuine communication going on between British students of Italian, Italian native speakers (both expat and those living in Italy) and other students of Italian from other countries now living in Italy for various reasons.

This gave me the idea of doing what Aaron has done, to help me develop my Japanese skills, and perhaps also to brush up other languages I once spoke but have no opportunity to use now. I got distracted, however, by a major personal project that has given my Japanese language skills a quantum boost, but which I can’t recommend to everyone due to the huge expense: building a house in Japan!

John: Thanks for the encouragement. I wonder if you are still keeping up with your Japanese?

I need to get more discipline and regularly motivate myself.