My first experience learning a foreign language was taking a Spanish class with some other children when I was about five. Even though I learned nothing beyond counting, colors, and a few other basic words, the things I learned stayed with me. I remember the class consisted of a lot of repetition; each time we met we would review the words we had learned before. I believe this is the main reason I remember what I learned then.
After traveling to Mexico when I was fourteen, I began to realize the value of being multilingual, and I have become increasingly interested in learning languages after subsequent trips to Brazil, Spain, and France. I was homeschooled, so I did not take languages in a classroom during high school. I instead used the Rosetta Stone program for learning Spanish; I felt it was a natural way to learn a language but did not give me a strong basis for conversation. It did, however, help in some areas, such as verb tenses, once I got to Spanish at the college level.
The results of my Learning Styles Inventory were not surprising to me. The area I scored the highest in was Solitary, with 17, and the lowest was Aural, with 5. Undoubtedly because of my experiences as a homeschooled student, I have always learned best when I am working by myself. Since I began attending college I have had to work to develop my ability to learn from classroom lectures. Especially with my Spanish classes, I have found it difficult to remember material unless I see it in writing. Learning straight from a textbook continues to be my most productive way of mastering material. My Multiple Intelligence Inventory confirmed this; my two highest scores were 35 in Intrapersonal, meaning I learn best by working alone and with self-paced instruction, and 34 in Linguistic, meaning I learn best by saying, hearing, and seeing words. For these reasons, I am hopeful the SDLAP will work well for me. However, the downside to being a Solitary learner is that I struggle with being confident in expressing myself orally. I am hoping practice with my language learning partner will be helpful in overcoming my weakness in this area. Overall, I hope that SDLAP will be a good way of using my strengths to learn a language while taking the opportunity to improve in areas in which I am not as comfortable.
Comments
Repetition is the most effective way to learn a language. Automaticity (I think that's a real word) is achieved only through repetition. Reading, listening, writing, and speaking about the same topic can lead to the mastery of some vocabulary and structures. What are some of your goals?