My Learning Plan
Learner Name: Berhaun Fesshaye | Semester: Spring 2018 |
Language: Amharic | Course: SDLAP 110 |
Where are you now? What can you do? What do you know?
Use the Levels of Competence document and the LinguaFolio® checklists to assess your current abilities in your language. For more information, see the SDLAP Wiki.
Interpersonal Communication-Beginning 0
Interpretive Listening-Beginning 0
Interpretive Reading-None
Presentational Speaking-None
Presentational Writing-None
What is your ultimate goal? What is your goal for this semester?
What do you want to be able to do with this language at the end of this semester and in the future?
I want to be able to have casual conversations by the end of the semester. My number 1 goal is to be able to have a conversation with my grandma. She doesn’t speak English and I’ve always needed someone to translate for me. In the future I want to be able to speak fluently and be able to read.
What tasks will you complete and what activities will you do this semester to meet your goals? How will you document and evaluate your progress?
Novice learners should consult the ‘Language Tasks’ page of the SDLAP Wiki and incorporate the required tasks in their learning. Be as specific as possible when planning activities, e.g., “I will watch YouTube videos to learn how to talk about the family.” or “I will consult a grammar text to learn about possessives.” Make sure you include some tasks that are relevant to your interests, e.g., “I will learn to understand soccer commentary.” or “I will learn to talk about the stock market.” Culture and language are, of course, inseparable. It is expected that all your language will be culturally appropriate and that every task will contribute to your cultural competence.
Task 1 | Learn classroom/life survival language |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I need to learn how to say “hello”, “goodbye”, “My name is Berhaun”,“I speak English”, and “I am learning Amharic”. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn this by talking to my language partner and asking how to say these things while also using youtube videos to practice my pronunciation. I will also try to find movies in Amharic to see if I can understand and pick out common phrases and get the big picture of what is going on. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I have learned by recording myself interacting with someone and saying these things. I could also watch clips from shows or movies and translate them. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by talking to native Amharic speakers including my family to make sure that I am understood. |
Task 2 | Greetings/Farewells (formal/informal, for different times of day, male/female, single person/multiple people) |
Type of Task | __x_ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking ___ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I need to learn how to say: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight for male, female, plural, and elders (formal). |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn this by looking at printed resources and online resources and then practicing my progress with my language partner. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I’ve learned by recording a conversation with my language partner or another student that I know who speaks Amharic. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I can assess this task by greeting someone that I do not know. |
Task 3 | Introducing yourself (your age, where you are from, what you are studying, something interesting about yourself) |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing _x__ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I want to be able to not only say my own age but the age of others, so I need to learn all of the numbers. I also want to be able to tell people that I am from the United States and that I am a student. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn this by looking at printed and online resources and practicing my pronunciation with my language partner. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I have learned by telling a native speaker about myself and recording the encounter. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by being able to introduce myself to a stranger in Amharic. |
Task 4 | Identifying and talking about family members (names, relationships, professions, something interesting) |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking __x_ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I need to learn how to say all of the members of the family in Amharic and be able to say what career I want. I also want to be able to describe family members and other people by talking about their personality. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn these by watching Youtube videos, consulting books, and talking to my language partner. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I have learned by recording a conversation between myself and another person talking about family members. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by describing my family members in a conversation without looking anything up. |
Task 5 | Telling time / asking the time, date, and weather |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I need to learn how to ask for the time and reply with the correct numbers. I also need to learn the Amharic months because they are different that what we say in English. I also want to be able to ask about the weather and reply if it is cold, hot, or raining. | |||
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn these by consulting books and maybe even look at resources that are meant for children to learn how to tell time, the months, the days of the week and the weather. | |||
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I have learned by making my own clock and calendar (out of paper) in Amharic that shows how to say the time at each hour and the days of the week. | |||
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will asses this task by recreating the calendar and clock that I used to study without looking at any resources. | |||
Task 6 | Asking for things in a store (Clothes, household items) | |||
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading | |||
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I need to learn how to say different items of clothing and household items. I also need to learn how to ask how much something is. Since bargaining is big in Ethiopia I also need to learn how to bargain. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn this by looking at online resources and making flashcards to remember the different vocabulary words. To learn the language of bargaining, I will ask someone that lives in Ethiopia or visits there often how I would go about that. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I have learned by keeping track of any conversations or letters that I send to native speakers asking them how to communicate about store items. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by going to a store that is owned by Amharic speakers and buying something. I would probably have to travel to DC for that but I could assess many other tasks there as well. |
Task 7 | Asking for food / buying food / ordering at a restaurant / describing food |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I want to be able to order food and drinks in a restaurant and know how to communicate any special requests for food. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn this by consulting my language partner and online resources about the names of foods and drinks and the appropriate way to ask for them. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document my learning by taking a picture of an Ethiopian restaurant menu and translating it. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by going to an Ethiopian restaurant and ordering my food using only Amharic. |
Task 8 | Talking about your schedule / daily activities |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I need to be able to talk about other things like time and food so that I can make sentences about the order of events in my day. Words like “first”, “after”, and “finally” will be important for talking about the order of events in my day. I also need to learn how to talk about things such as going to class, doing homework, and sleeping. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn these activities by watching Youtube videos of people describing their daily activities and by looking through books that give vocabulary about daily activities. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document what I have learned by recording a conversation with my language partner about our daily activities. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by describing my day to my language partner. |
Task 9 | Asking about past/future events |
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking _x__ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing ___ Interpretive Reading |
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I will need to learn the past and future tense of verbs so I can talk about something that has already happened and something that is going to happen. | |||
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will need to consult a grammar book to learn the correct tenses and then speak with my language partner to learn how to form sentences in these tenses. | |||
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will document this by recording myself having a conversation with my language partner about past event and future events. | |||
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will asses myself by being able to have a whole conversation in the past tense or in the future tense. | |||
Task 10 | Writing my name and other basic words | |||
Type of Task | _x__ Interpersonal Communication ___ Presentational Speaking ___ Interpretive Listening ___ Presentational Writing _x__ Interpretive Reading | |||
What do I need to learn to complete this task? (goal) | I want to be able to write down my name and other basic words like Hello and Goodbye. |
How will I learn? (learning activities and resources) | I will learn this by studying an alphabet poster that I bought in Ethiopia and maybe finding a resource online that shows me how to write the letters. |
How will I document what I have learned? (artifacts) | I will take a picture of my writings and compare them to my language partner’s writing. |
How well can I accomplish this task? (self-assessment) | I will assess myself by writing my name and other things without consulting any resources. |
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