Coming into this class this past January, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a wanna-be polyglot, I have been searching for the skills to independently explore language in a way that is both fun, effective, and efficient. As I wrote about in my initial letter in the beginning of the semester, I became fascinated with language learning from a desire to know and understand myself better. Coming from an Italian-American family, I often wondered what it would be like to be able to understand and see the world through the lens of my grandparents, and their parents, and so on and so forth. There is so much deep history that comes with having roots in another culture. Once I learned Italian, I soon realized that the desire to understand myself turned into a passion from wanting to connect and understand others. Building a plan and starting to learn French on my own using the information shared in this course has helped me see and approach language from a different and personal direction. While I have studied Spanish and Italian in a classroom setting, it has become abundantly clear to me that language is also something that can only ever be more rewarding the more the process is tailored to the individual. Creating and sharing resources for independent use has given me so many different ideas for how to enhance the experience for myself. 

I have really appreciated the process of learning all of the different aspects of language beyond the basic romance language setting. I always wanted to take a linguistics class during my time in undergrad, but I have always been a little bit hesitant and intimidated by the intricacies of grammar and semantics. I really appreciated learning the IPA, that is something that is so essential, but I had never taken the time to truly understand. Also being able to dissect grammar variations and decipher the parts of speech of completely foreign language structures was so interesting. I really enjoyed the class that centered around language families as well, I believe that it is so important but often forgotten about in the western world where English dominates intercultural exchange and had only ever learned about english and the romance language roots. 

Throughout the course of the semester, as my career path has become more clear, it became very obvious that these skills from the class will be utilized well after graduation. I hope to go into a field where language is such an asset and having not only lingual, but also cultural competency is essential. I think that the cultural presentations were so interesting and a great way to end the class. I learned so much information about different cultures that I have not encountered, and might have otherwise not encountered. This class opened my eyes in so many different ways and fostered a curiosity within myself to learn more! I hope to continue my French Language acquisition, re-encounter spanish independently, and possibly explore some completely new languages post-grad. I hope to continue to utilize language in a career in global communications and foster curiosity and community both in the US and abroad, so I deeply appreciate the skill set that I am leaving this class with!

The Figuring Foreigners Out reading was an interesting look at placing cultures on a sort of spectrum with two extremes on either end. There was Individualist vs. collectivist, the different levels of nonverbal communication, Monochronic vs. polychronic, Internal vs. external, Indirect/high context vs. Direct/low context, and each of these analyzed the ways in which a culture may be able to be categorized. I personally thought it was really interesting to think about the monochronic vs. polychronic divide in cultures and how societies value and orient their time. I think that it is very difficult to think of some of these attributes as cultural tropes that sort of create these stereotypes. So many of these categories involve incredible levels of generalization. I think that that can be very dangerous and misleading when trying to understand a culture and the different identities that exist within those cultures. For example, with America I think that it would be very difficult to make an accurate generalization for many of these categories. That being said, one cultural category I think that has some validity is monochronic and polychronic, mostly because I have personal experience that I can refer to. I definitely see how Italian culture was far more polychronic, living in Italy, you can see how the systems are built with different values. Time is far less of a currency and the culture is not built on efficiency, but rather on quality of time. Alternatively, categorizing a culture as Internal v. External seems far too much of a generalization for me. Although I completely see the validity of core values of a culture influencing people’s personalities, I think that this is far more of a personal life outlook and that there would be too much differentiation to categorize a whole culture as one or another. The maps on the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture surprised me, and the data that was collected was at times difficult to read. I was surprised at some of the European country's data points, and similarly the data from African countries went against all that I had previously learned about those cultures. 

I think that with French culture there are a lot of generalizations, trope making, and stereotyping. There is a connotation of sexuality, of rudeness, of the diet especially that paint the French as very specific and nationalistic. I think that this can especially be a deterrent for learning the language. I have heard multiple different implications that French people will not respond to you if your French is not good enough, and that they don’t like foreigners. Leaning into this stigmatized behavior makes the idea of learning French a bit intimidating, but I know that hearing one thing about a culture and letting that control your thoughts and fears is not  productive. Food is a big cultural factor in French culture and the sentiment that dining should take time and that there should be no rush. I think that this one thing that kind of drew me to wanting to learn more about French people. 

Learning plan-Caro Bisese

For my learning plan I have tried to organize my exercises so that they correspond to my strengths and I made sure my plan takes into account what has worked for me in the past, and keeps in mind what has not worked in the past. As reflected in my personality quizzes I took the first week in this class, it reaffirmed my knowledge that I am primarily an auditory learner, then a hands-on learner. I focused my future studies on listening exercises like watching children's TV shows that are geared towards education. I remember that watching similar education based grammar teaching shows helped me acquire Spanish phrases and vocabulary. The interactive aspect of these shows also help me understand sentences and phrases first hand. Other listening activities include listening to SlowNews, printing out lyrics and listening to songs to hear the grammar in action, and finding both educational and cultural (more advanced, more for exposure than comprehension). 

Then, I also have purchased a grammar workbook/textbook that goes over the systems and has exercises that follow units. This structure, especially being able to follow it at my own pace, has always been one of the ways I best gained comprehension. Also, simply rewriting the grammar structures and tenses in a repetitive pattern helps drill it into my memory. Other daily activities include reading/labeling objects in my room to help with conversational vocabulary. Also writing about my day in the diary to help with describing everyday activities. I think that these sorts of exercises help to identify conversational terms and phrases. 

Ultimately, I think that the route of my learning plan is patience with myself and learning at my own pace. I know that in the past sometimes the pace of the course and the direction that the course takes makes it so that I loose the effort to truly learn the information that I am studying.

“B-I-S-E-S-E, Bisese” I say as I try to articulate my last name. It has never been an easy one for people to pronounce. I remember as I was growing up as a figure skater I would be standing on the side of the ice in my little sparkly outfit, shivering because of the cold and shaking because of the nerves. Then as if on cue, they would mispronounce my name and I would skate out with a plastered smile. 

My last name is Italian, and although I could correct people on the mispronunciation of my last name, there was so little that I knew about Italian culture and the language itself. I never knew my grandmother, and my grandfather passed away when I was six. My father never picked up the Italian that was sometimes thrown around the household, he was self-proclaimed “unable to speak a language, not even English sometimes”. I never felt this though. I always dreamed of travel and excitement, to see people and places but experience them closely without the barrier of my comfortable, but limiting native English. Growing up I took Spanish and I excelled on the quizzes and tests, but it lost its beauty for me. The classes that were offered never offered a look into Spanish culture beyond the occasional worksheet on “Día de los Muertos”. It became boring and the dreams I had to travel to spanish speaking countries dwindled down to dreaming that the class period would finish. 

Then I came to college and everything changed for me. I felt like I had an actual choice. One that went beyond “French or Spanish” and one that said, “where do you want language to take you?”. I remember distinctively thinking, “home”. I wanted to connect with my dad’s family, see the roots of my family tree where I get my thick dark brown brows and curly dark hair. So I enrolled in Italian and it became a part of me. I loved the grammar exercises being intertwined with the culture. I loved the discussions I had one on one with my professors, where they would recommend me news articles to read and tv shows to watch. I loved that throughout getting my COM2 requirement, I was planning an entire year abroad that would entirely change my life path and direction. The quiz I took reaffirmed that I am both an auditory and tactile learner. I have never been one to be able to memorize charts or models. Living in Italy I believe ultimately is what helped me become C1 level. Living in and being surrounded by the language really changed what the language was in my head. As time went on there was less translation and more simple action, I could use the language without thinking about using the language so much. 

Moving forward, I hope to continue this sort of learning where I focus on immersing myself in the language. I think that looking at media, be it news, movies, tv, podcast, etc, is most helpful in helping me obtain the spoken language. Listening to pronunciation is important to me because one thing I know I have trouble with is gaining the confidence to speak. I believe that taking the time to listen and practice, it will make me less averse to speaking. Being creative is also very important to me, I love writing and journaling. I think that it is important for me to incorporate this into my future language-learning endeavors. Especially keeping some sort of daily journal in the language, I think that it is important to know the everyday vocabulary and being able to recount my day would help to acquire words and grammar structures. I hope to apply the knowledge I have acquired for how I best learn languages to French, using cultural media at the forefront, especially as someone who is hoping to use a diverse array of languages throughout a career based in global media and communication.