SDLC 105 and 110: Learning Journal #5

[Krystin Schwarze]

This week I attempted to learn colors, body parts, and practice greetings. As one might guess, I have not come close to mastering this new vocab lists. I think this week I learned that cramming vocabulary is not the best method or process to learn a language. Because I have failed my learning task this week (to learn these words), over the next week or two I plan on implementing some strategies we talked about in class to help me learn these words. This week I tried just learning the lists by going over them with my Hindi partner and studying flashcards. I am going to continue to go over the cards, but I am also going to implement the following strategies: 1) use either myself or my roommate and point to her arm, leg, etc. and then make a sentence with the body part like "She has two hands", and 2) I have plenty of food in my apartment, so I will practice my colors and food by identifying the name of the food and then saying what color it is. I think that implementing kinesthetic learning will aid me greatly in studying these terms.
This week I did try to find a children's song that I could learn, but I was largely unsuccessful. I knew less than 20% of the vocabulary for all the popular children's songs I found, so I decided not to learn a song this week. Hopefully, in the future I can work with my Hindi partner and learn the necessary vocabulary for a particular song, and then implement the song into my learning plan. While this week was slightly discouraging, I am excited to practice and try some new strategies.