For the past two years, I concentrated on learning Spanish. The experience was great and helped me enjoy my abroad experience that much more. I learned cultural aspects beyond the actual language that prevented me from acting in ways that the Spaniards were not used to. Understanding the culture assisted in my adjustment to a new country more than I expected it to. I thoroughly enjoyed learning vocabulary more than grammar. I learned most efficiently by testing myself with flash cards rather than practicing writing or listening. I disliked the confusion of all the past, present, and future tenses involved with correct grammar. I believe I would like to learn the tenses eventually, but I hope to first perfect vocabulary and smaller phrases.
In evaluating where I best fit on the fire model, I found myself constantly falling under the factual category. I like the idea of knowing right from wrong, which is probably why I prefer vocabulary to grammar. I enjoy being accurate and working towards that goal by testing myself one step at a time. I am very task-oriented in accomplishing each lesson. When being tested, I always prefer multiple choice or true or false questions to short answer and open-ended questions because of my concern for exact precision in my answers.
The type of learning activities that suits my style is testing myself through flash cards as mentioned earlier and also testing myself with worksheets. I enjoy the online quizzes I have stumbled across because they can be graded immediately so I can see any flaws I make right away. Repetition is also a cognitive strategy that I find rewarding in achieving goals. It helps to engrain phrases into my memory if I repeat the phrase several times. I work best on my own, but sometimes need additional assistance to make sure I’m on the right track, which is why I like the idea of having a language partner. A learning partner will help expand my learning activities by allowing me to practice communicating out loud and not just on paper. It will also help me realize if I am pronouncing words incorrectly because that is often difficult to realize on one’s own.
I am very motivated in my reasons to learn Korean so I am willing to try new ways others find useful in self-learning. It is my first experience learning a language on my own so I would like to try a variety of resources before settling on what I found useful in the past. I know flash cards are very effective for me, but hopefully I will discover different ways to also assist in learning Korean.
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