Jocelyne Rodriguez
Journal Entry 10
Reflect on your experiences as a language teacher and learning in this latest speed-dating workshop. What difficulties did you encounter?
` It was difficult to find a topic that was simple enough to teach in five minutes without any prior exposure to the language. It made me aware of the fact that I have never studied a language completely from scratch but that every time I have tried to learn a new language I start with some background knowledge either direct or indirect about the language.
How did you successfully relay concepts that were foreign to your classmates as your students?
One of the learning strategies I have employed throughout my study of Portuguese is to try to find connection between new things that I am learning and things I already know or that are easier to understand or remember. For that reason, I decided to use historical background as well as word origins to provide some familiar ground for my classmates to understand new concepts and be able to remember them.
If you were eventually granted the opportunity to teach a full semester-long course on the target language, what strategies would you adopt?
I am a Spanish TA and a strategy that the program uses to help students learn new concepts is to use activities and games to help students practice new concepts in low-stress environments. If I had the opportunity to teach a full semester-long cause on Portuguese I would employ a similar strategy of using creative activities that would get students to practice through conversation and quick reviewing activities.
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