This semester has been very interesting. I feel as if I have learned a lot without realizing it. I do not think my speaking has improved very much, but my listening and comprehension skills have increased. From this, I believe that I learn language better when I am either learning by myself, with one other person, or in a large group. I have come to realize that I do not learn as efficiently if I am intimidated, and for some reason I felt a little intimidated in my tutoring sessions. As I mentioned in my last reflection paper, since I felt like the rest of the class was too far ahead of me, I was losing confidence in myself and my language learning skills. One thing I did enjoy, however, was simply listening to the class. I really enjoy listening to the language and trying to interpret what was being said. When I was able to understand what was being said I felt a surge of pride and I would gain a little of my confidence back. However, when I was asked to speak and contribute to the conversation I would lose some confidence again because I could not form the sentences to express my thoughts efficiently. It would not be as bad if this was the only problem going on at once. It was the fact that I could not express my thoughts along with the fact that I was intimidated by the knowledge my classmates already had, the fact that some of the topics that we discussed were very difficult, and the fact that the small group setting made me nervous. There were too many factors working against me that I felt like I could not get the most I could have out of this experience. I will continue my learning by taking the next level next semester. Hopefully next semester there will be less variables that make me too nervous to learn efficiently.
The learning activities that I found the most useful were the five minute presentations and the class where we taught each other something. As an introduction to self-directed language learning, I felt that showing the general topics that could be learned in each language and culture was especially interesting and fun to learn about. My favorite classes were the ones with the presentations because of this reason. The readings that I found the most useful were the ones about bilingualism and culture shock. I feel that these topics are directly involved in the parts about language and culture that I found the most interesting. With bilingualism, we could learn how people who speak multiple languages can speak even more languages easier and find certain tasks easier to complete. With culture shock, it is important to prepare yourself for the striking differences in culture when traveling. I think it is very important for a person learning a language to be exposed to concepts concerning culture shock, especially if they plan on traveling.
If I were to take an introductory course about language again, I would like to learn more about the languages the other people in the class are learning. Maybe it would be nice to have a weekly mini discussion about what each of the tutoring groups are learning about or to discuss one interesting thing about their language that they have discovered during the week. It could influence more conversation to be made in the class and ultimately make people feel more comfortable with each other.
Comments
I really like your suggestion about the mini-discussion and will try it next semester. Thank you.