EnglishAholic isn't live. I'm already dreaming up more apps.

In my last post, I wrote about EnglishAholic. This time, I want to explain the wider English-learning plan I have in mind: a whole family of products.

EnglishAholic has been through so many rounds of work and rework, and it still hasn’t launched. Where do I get the nerve to talk about a whole family of products already?

Mostly, I keep having ideas. While learning English, I run into a problem and want to build a feature. While building that feature, I find another job the product could do. Each one seems reasonable. Put them all in the same app, though, and the app gets more and more bloated. If these jobs need to be handled differently anyway, perhaps they should become separate products.

In the previous post, I planned to split EnglishAholic into a vocabulary app, a browser extension for reading, and the underlying system that would organize content and learning scenarios for both. Thinking further about that division, I found another kind of practice I wanted to add: having to respond in English when a conversation starts without warning. That brings the number of products a learner would actually use to three.

Learning words and putting them to use

First, the vocabulary app. I want it to help me learn words and use them, expanding both my vocabulary and what I can understand and express.

A word has a meaning, but it also has places where it tends to appear, other words it goes with, and a tone that may suit one conversation better than another. I picture those connections as a web. When I learn a new word, I want it to connect with things I already know. When I come across a familiar one, I might discover a use I haven’t seen before.

The app would give me planned practice in both learning and using words. A few suitable words would appear together in a scenario. I would first work out what was happening, then try to use those words to say what I meant. Recognizing a word does not automatically mean I can use it (Webb, 2008).

That’s why I keep wanting to put vocabulary into situations. After memorizing a word, I want at least one chance to bring it into a conversation myself.

Let a conversation catch me off guard

There is a condition built into that kind of practice: I have already decided to study English.

It’s like being called on in class. You know what the lesson is about and roughly what you’re expected to practice. Opening a speaking app and choosing “Ordering at a restaurant” gives you a similar head start. You may not know the next question, but you have already switched into speaking-English mode.

You don’t always get that chance to prepare in real life.

Imagine walking down the street when an older woman asks, “Can you help me?” She might need help crossing the road. She might just need directions. Before you can answer, you have to work out what she needs.

Or imagine trying to order something in a shop. Worried that you won’t explain yourself clearly, you stand outside, list what you want, and rehearse the lines a few times. Eventually, you feel ready. You go in, deliver your lines, and the person behind the counter asks one more question. Your script has ended. The conversation hasn’t.

If it takes that much preparation every time, everyday life becomes one long exam.

I want to practice another way of responding: hear what someone says, then figure out how to keep going without a script. I can’t schedule a rehearsal before every conversation in English.

That is the idea behind the second app. I haven’t settled on a name yet. For now, I think of it as a way to call on my language skills when a situation catches me off guard.

It could work with an alarm, or more generally, a trigger. At a set time, or when a condition chosen in advance is met, it would start a conversation in the language I’m learning and bring me into a particular situation. I wouldn’t know the task beforehand. I would have to listen, make sense of what was happening, and respond as the conversation unfolded.

For example, the scenario might involve buying something. The other person tells me the item I wanted is unavailable. I could choose something else or ask what the alternatives are. The task could be small: explain what I need, understand the reply, and move the exchange forward.

With the vocabulary app, I would go looking for practice. With this app, I want the practice to come looking for me. Both involve using the language. The second could happen before I’ve switched into study mode.

My hope is that this would make expressions I’ve learned easier to call on when I need them. Whether I could handle the same situation in real life is something I would still have to try. The unpredictability is part of the experiment. What matters to me is whether I can still use those words and sentences when the situation changes.

First, help me understand what I’m reading

Even with both kinds of practice, I would still encounter things I don’t understand while reading. That brings me to the third product: the extension I mentioned in the previous post.

In a research paper, technical documentation, or an article about an unfamiliar field, the obstacle might be a single word or a whole sentence. I might recognize every word and still have no idea what the author means. Even a translation into Chinese, my native language, wouldn’t necessarily explain the concept.

I want the extension to work with the text in front of me: translate a passage, explain it, pull out the main points, or summarize it. If the first explanation doesn’t help, I should be able to ask another question and keep exploring the same passage.

My immediate goal is to keep reading. I don’t need to stop and memorize every word I look up, then work through a few exercises. I also don’t need to master all the vocabulary in a field before I’m allowed to start reading about it.

When I come across a useful word or phrase, I can save it. Looking up an unfamiliar word while reading may also help me learn its meaning along the way (Alahmadi and Foltz, 2020). But a count of lookups is not a count of words learned.

For me, saving something leaves open the possibility of meeting it again. First, understand the material in front of me. Later, if the word seems worth studying, bring it into planned practice. I don’t need to decide exactly which future exercise it belongs in at the moment I save it.

Main quests, side quests, and things picked up along the way

Seen together, all of this reminds me of a game.

The planned learning in the vocabulary app would be the main quest. I set aside time, learn something new step by step, and put it to use. My character gradually grows.

The unexpected conversations would be side quests. I’m on my way to do something else when someone by the road needs help, or a situation comes up. Once I take on the quest, I have to work with the abilities I already have. I might discover something I’m missing, too.

The extension would help with the things I collect along the way. A word or an interesting expression is like a gem or a seashell I happen to pick up. It has no assigned place in the main quest yet. But it appeared in something I was reading, and I want to keep it.

These activities could weave in and out of one another. A word saved from an article today might get some deliberate practice a few days later. Further down the road, perhaps it would turn up in a conversation I hadn’t prepared for.

That’s the family of language-learning products I have in mind. As the main quest and side quests continue, I could take out those shells, move them around, and gradually piece them together into something of my own. I’m curious to see what it might become.

I want these products, together, to be EnglishAholic. The name belongs to the whole English-learning plan: the time I set aside to study, the moment I suddenly need to answer someone, and the article I need a little help understanding. The vocabulary app, the conversation app, and the reading extension would each take on a part of it.