This semester has been so much fun with the addition of this class. I really enjoyed being able to study Hebrew with any methods I chose. The first few weeks were a great way to get started. I think that analyzing our study habits and what works well for us was a great way to figure out what worked for me. My strongest learning styles were "interpersonal" and "musical." I tried to focus mostly on these two because they were my strongest, and they turned out to be very effective. It was so easy for me to learn language by putting a song to it. I already knew that I work better in groups, so I hope that next semester I can work more frequently with other people.
I think that I evolved a lot as an autonomous learner. The ability to take information without the help of others and use it to learn is so essential, and I was not very good at doing that before this class. Now I am not afraid to approach something by myself and figure it out. I also think that this way of learning is very useful: it forces me to think hard and not just breeze through information without registering it. That is why in class I will sometimes not pay attention, and all that time spent towards learning is not totally efficient. When I work as an autonomous learner, I am making a greater use of my time because I immerse myself in the work. If I didn't, then I wouldn't get anywhere.
In terms of culture, I am so glad that this class focused on more than just learning the language. There is so much information planted in me now because of everything I have researched and heard from others in my class about the different cultures we studied and how language works. It was refreshing to learn by interest instead of memorizing. Normally, I would beat dates, numbers, titles, etc into my brain and would end up forgetting the information after being tested on it. I still know most of the information written on my ning, and will know it for a long time because I had to figure it all out myself and because I got to choose the things I was most interested in.
I still have a long way to go in my specific language, which is why I decided to continue next semester. I do not want a lot of the things I learned to just go to waste, so I need to keep working on the specifics of Hebrew. A good foundation is set, but now there is nothing more to learn about culture or how language works. I can focus strictly on the hebrew aleph bet and the sound each letter makes, sentence structure, and the differences of sing/plur and male/fem. With that, I hope I can improve from memorizing what certain phrases mean to understanding how they mean what they mean.
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