Learning Journal #3

[Melale Hailu]

I have covered a plethora of topics with my language partner throughout the course of the semester. A strategy that has been working for us and one we have used thus far is starting our sessions by reviewing what we discussed the class before. Rather than expecting me to memorize the sentences we learn word for word, Genet asks me what I remember learning last class and I respond in Afaan Oromo with the concepts/sentences we learned. The fact that there is no expectation to know the sentences word for word is so helpful to my language learning in the long run because then I don’t merely focus on memorizing before and rather thinking in my target language during it. I have found this strategy also useful because it allows my language partner to catch my mistakes early on whereas without reviewing, the ‘incorrect’ way would be ingrained in my speech making it incredibly difficult to unlearn. Additionally, while the structure of our tasks remained relatively the same, we covered many tasks. I have grown a large word bank through my learning of sentences that narrate my trip home, explain what moment in my life I love, introduce me (where I was born, where my parents are from, my siblings and what they do, my friends, etc), how I spent the holidays, etc. Aside from learning sentences that mirror those topics, Genet and I have also returned to the basics and reviewed numbers, days of the week, and months of the year in Afaan Oromo. A testament to the notion that practice makes perfect, I often forget the Afaan Oromo word for a lot of the days of the week besides the ones I use often (weirdly Monday and Friday). That has been a learning curve because it made me realize that my personal language learning journey can be beneficially supplemented with memorization of some things. In the same vein, I have come to notice that my deliberate use of other resources did diminish once I got in contact with a language partner. Granted of course a lot of that has to do with the amount of time I can allocate to using other resources to increase my knowledge of the language outside of the 3hr/week I meet with her. Nonetheless, my goals moving forward would definitely be to engage in intentional language contact through medians outside of speaking with my partner-watching movie, reading articles, using the book more, etc. Additionally, I want to bring up the possibility of going over some basic grammar rules with my language partner just because this will help me form my own sentences outside of the ones we talk about/practice. I often use the sentences we do practice to notice any conversational grammar patterns but actually understanding these patterns rather than inferring would certainly push my skills further in the direction I hope to be.