Throughout my sixteen years as a student, I attempted to learn three different languages with each attempt getting a little less successful. I grew up in a mono-lingual household with English as my first language. My parents can speak a little French and Spanish, but the native languages of my immigrant ancestors were lost in the early twentieth century. I acquired English with relatively little difficulty, but I did require extra assistance in learning to read and pronounce English proficiently. My elementary school teachers resolved these issues by working with me individually, something that I still view as a valuable learning strategy.
At about ten years old, I began to learn the very basics of Spanish such as colors, greetings and the days of the week. I continued to study Spanish throughout middle school and high school; eventually, I received a seal of biliteracy in Spanish and English from the State of Illinois. To me, the award represents my most tangible accomplishment in my ten years of studying Spanish. Despite this award, I still felt disappointed in my Spanish speaking and listening abilities. My ten years of study left me with mediocre pronunciation skills and huge anxiety around speaking in Spanish. I enjoyed reading and writing in Spanish but speaking and listening always left me feeling uneasy and lacking confidence.
My third major experience with a new language happened during my semester abroad in Copenhagen. I took a beginners’ course in Danish at my study abroad institute. I really enjoyed attempting to learn Danish especially due to all the new pronunciations. Danish letters and words make completely different noises compared to English. Additionally, I liked compiling a list of Danish cognates that helped ease my anxiety around this completely new language. However, I did not enjoy my professor’s teaching methods as she focused mainly on memorization and recitation. During every class, we had to stand up and read aloud from our booklets. It reminded me a lot of a schoolhouse environment such as Little House on the Prairie. During these exercises, I always imagined myself behind a wooden desk, dressed in a bonnet and staring at a blackboard. Recitation and memorization become very useful while I study, but I really do not like to use these two strategies when first introduced to a new concept. These strategies stray away from comprehension and focus on quantity of knowledge accumulated. Ultimately, I classify this language experience as unsuccessful due to my lack of comprehension.
With my past experiences in mind, I want to focus on comprehension and confidence. My language goals will focus on producing language verbally and listening effectively, something that I have only accomplished in English. My strategy for accomplishing these goals relies on my visual learning style. I plan to use flashcards to learn necessary vocabulary and take organized and visually appealing notes. Additionally, in my past language learning experiences, I benefitted from speaking aloud to myself in order to explain and learn culture, grammar concepts, and important historical events. Additionally, I am a huge perfectionist in most things which causes me a lot of unnecessary anxiety. Even in learning to play instruments, like the flute or the piano, I would become frustrated with mistakes and could never play through the imperfections. I always stopped right after making a mistake and refused to play the entire song until I could master the botched notes. I really want to push myself to speak through potential mistakes or slip ups. My solution for chipping away at this perfectionism is to practice speaking by myself regularly and journaling about potential frustrations.
Comments
Excellent post, Emma. My family also largely lost the native languages of their immigrant ancestors, and my grandfather was my last surviving family to speak Russian. I have tried to resurrect the language to pass on to my own children. Can I be nosy and ask what languages your familial predecessors brought with them to the U.S.?
The Seal of Biliteracy is a great curricular achievement, but I agree with you that the bar for American students is set too low compared to curricular expectations of pupils in other cultural contexts. How did you try to activate your Spanish and Danish linguistic knowledge in social settings?