Welcome to the Linguist Dojo - the best place for achieving an exceptionally high level of fluency through a holistic approach to language, education, and life. While the first couple years of learning a language (or how ever long it takes you to learn the foundational grammar & vocabulary) are not necessarily easy, they certainly are when compared to actually developing fluency & crossing the bridge from intermediate to advanced. Turns out, developing proficiency is more challenging because of the shift from memorization & drills, which is enough to struggle through the beginning & intermediate stages of language acquisition, to the application of the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking, & listening.
Fluency through Integration & Application
Mastery of any skill, especially language, comes down to practice & improvement, sounds simple enough, right? Well, it actually is once you’ve developed the core skills & study strategies; once you learn how to learn, you can learn absolutely anything, be it language or any subject that involves reading, writing, speaking, listening, or studying. The skills you learn simply transfer from one language to another or one subject to another.
Okay, cool! But how do you actually develop the skills to achieve proficiency in a language?
That’s the best part: you already have them, at least the basics. You see, it’s less about getting more skills & resources (although I will be sharing all my favorite strategies with you) and more about deeply understanding & utilizing what you already have to the fullest extent. You’ve likely been exposed to some of the concepts and strategies I teach at some point in your formal education, but if you’re anything like me, you were so focused on completing assignments & getting the grades that you didn’t actually learn how to use the strategies in a personalized way based on who you are as a learner.
That all sounds great, but can I actually learn how to speak another language fluently?
Absolutely! As long as you have a desire to learn & are willing to put in the work, you definitely can achieve not only fluency, but an exceptionally high level of it so that you can communicate confidently & easily. Of course, how quickly you get there is going to depend on your current level & how much time & effort you dedicate to your studies, but if you implement each of the lessons, you’ll see progress in your abilities to read, write, speak, & listen in not just your target language, but your native language as well.
Meet Your Linguist Dojo Teacher
By the way, I’m Sarah, the creator the Linguist Dojo & everything else on this site ❤
The Linguist Dojo is a collection of all the strategies I’ve developed as a student of English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Math, & Karate and teacher in non-traditional environments like adult jail, home school, independent study, museums & the zoo. I’ve also taught in traditional classrooms K-12, general education, special education, bilingual education, you name it, I’ve very likely taught it.
The Linguist Dojo school an expression of not only all the skills I’ve learned through my studying and teaching (which I integrated immersion & travel experiences into by living with host families in Australia, Italy, Turkey, Spain, and Costa Rica), but a collection of all the strategies that I had to reteach myself as I struggled through remedial English & Math classes and supplemental instruction in Spanish in college. Those same strategies I needed, I’ve taught to thousands of students as a credentialed teacher. These were students who were more than capable, but yet struggled because they lacked these skills & the ability to apply them to their own learning in a way that works for their individual needs. They now understand the methodology behind how the techniques work logically so that they can apply them in a way they understand to achieve their academic & life goals.
My experience in each of these subject & environments (aside from the above, I grew up on a compound- I suppose you could say - with only family as neighbors and the freedom to explore & learn in nature with just about every animal you can imagine) has shaped my perspective of how all things in life & education are intertwined. When I learn how to become a more effective teacher, I also improve as a student. When I learn new techniques in Karate, I’m challenged to understand myself, my body, & my mind at a higher level, which in turn contributes to my ability to process new concepts based on this new elevated version of my soul. I’ve infused all of this into the Linguist Dojo, to share all that I’ve learned & discovered with all those who need it 🤍
What’s Inside the Linguist Dojo
The Linguist Dojo is a self-paced course with written activity books & recorded presentations for every single lesson. It’s housed in a Google folder for easy access & editing as you work your way through the curriculum on your journey to fluency🤍
The Core Curriculum
We’re equal parts language theory & practice in the Linguist Dojo! You’ll also have full-access to the complete 6-unit core curriculum which includes step-by-step guidance on applying it to your own language learning🤍
Linguistic Essentials
Since much of my perspective and many of the skills I’ve developed were inspired by my linguistics studies, the Linguist Dojo begins with an introduction to linguistics and how language is acquired in a native & foreign context with a focus on transferring skills between languages & understanding how fluency is developed through reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I highly recommend that you read Becoming Bilingual before beginning this course as this unit is designed to transition the learner from the core study skills & concepts about bilingualism in my book to the process of developing a high level of fluency through the application of linguistics.
Linguistic Essentials includes a written activity book & recorded lesson on each of these topics:
What Is Language?
Skill Transferring
Forms of Fluency
Unit 1 is designed to be completed in about a week. It’s a quick introduction to the foundational understandings that will help you be successful in the rest of the course. ❤
Reading Fluency
One of the most effective ways to acquire vocabulary and learn to use grammar correctly in a language is through reading - and of course integrating it with writing, listening, & speaking. Think of reading as another form of immersion, and with the strategies I teach, you’ll be able to not only understand texts in another language but improve your reading skills - and other core skills - across all your languages.
Reading Fluency includes a written activity book & recorded lesson on each of these topics:
Styles of Reading
Vocabulary Development
Grammar Usage
Unit 2 is designed to be completed in one to two weeks depending on how in-depth you choose to go into the reading practices, how long of texts you choose, & how much support you need in this area ❤
Writing Fluency
Perhaps the most crucial and most avoided skill, writing is the foundation of this course. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be a good writer yet to do well here because you’ll be learning how to become an awesome writer and use those skills to become a fluent speaker in any language. Yes, you read that right. Writing well is going to make you a better speaker because writing is practice for speaking. It’s an opportunity to practice organizing your thoughts & carefully choosing your vocabulary & sentence structure so that when you speak, your mind will already be trained to do this.
Writing Fluency includes a written activity book & recorded lesson on each of these topics:
Persuasive Essay
Literary Analysis
Compare & Contrast
College Application Letter
Research Paper
Unit 3 is the foundation of this course and will likely take the most amount of time. You could easily spend a week practicing each of these writing styles ❤
Listening Fluency
The listening strategies I teach here are more than just understanding conversations. They’re about improving your ability to listen & retain information in conversations, presentations, audios, and pretty much any situation where you need to understand what you hear, comprehension & context, and your ability to understand spoken language in detail & precision, dictation.
Listening Fluency includes a written activity book & recorded lesson on each of these topics:
Details & Context
Understanding & Retention
Dictation
Conversation Strategies
Unit 4 is designed to be completed in one - two weeks, but as with the other units, there always new depths you can expand the content of the lessons to❤
Speaking Fluency
There’s a lot more to speaking than just conversations, although that is a component. If you think back to your formal education, you likely did quite a bit of formal presentations & interview style speaking as well as conversations. You’ll be learning all the skills you need to be a successful speaker in formal & informal settings.
Speaking Fluency includes a written activity book & recorded lesson on each of these topics:
Levels of Speaking
Formal Presentations
Interview Skills
Conversation Practice
Unit 5 is designed to be completed in one to two weeks. It’ll be exceptionally valuable to plan to do this unit when you have access to a tutor or conversation partner❤
Fluency Embodiment
Now that you’ve learned the core skills, it’s time to integrate - even more than you already have - and level up your study skills so that you can further apply everything you’ve learned in this course. It’s one thing to know the skill, but another entirely to create your own process with it. So, in this final unit, you’ll learn how to be more productive, focused, & motivated while you study & integrate language learning into your daily routine & lifestyle.
Fluency Embodiment includes a written activity book & recorded lesson on each of these topics:
Focus & Motivation
Integration for Optimal Productivity
Language Learning Lifestyle & Mindset
Unit 6 is the final module, and as with the first one, it’s designed to be a shorter one as we tie all the concepts you’ve learned in the course together❤
Ready to get started?
You Linguist Dojo awaits!🥳
What Students Say about the Dojo
My students come from all different backgrounds & languages, but they all have one thing in common: they LOVE the Linguist Dojo & all that they’ve achieved here🤍
Sasha from Ukraine
I became Sarah’s very first student in October 2019, and I have been learning from her ever since we met starting with 1:1 mentorship. I have been looking for a program that would help me improve my language skills to become better at reading, writing, listening and speaking in American English, and I have found one! Even though I had a lot of language related questions, my challenge was writing and thanks to Sarah’s reflection questions, her time with me, perseverance, patience and understanding I have been improving this skill for most of the time learning to write cover letters, persuasive essays, literary analyses, compare and contrast essays and much more. Sarah has helped me to overcome my writing block with the help of her program called ‘the Linguist Dojo’. This is the language learning course where she uses an integrated approach to reading, writing, speaking and listening. My life motto is “a teacher is a student first” that’s why I feel like I have found a perfect environment for me to grow. Sarah didn’t give up on me when I had my ‘Sasha moment’ and that says a lot about her as a person!
Connect with Sasha on Instagram @aleksandra.zaitseva & YouTube @Aleksandra Zaitseva
Sofia from Mexico
Hi there! I’m Sofia. Some months ago, I found myself in a difficult situation because I was in the first semester of my bachelors degree in Applied Linguistics with some courses in English. Since I’m a Mexican student, this was a completely new experience, not because I didn’t know English but because I had studied the language but never in the language. When I met Sarah, and she introduced me to the curriculum she created for the Linguist Dojo, I couldn’t be more happy because it was what I needed to tackle those courses at university. What I like most about the Linguist Dojo is how much you reflect on your own language journey.
