My experience as a language learner up to this point has consisted of taking academic Spanish classes since I was 13. This involved memorizing basic vocab, learning how to conjugate verbs, and eventually learning about Spanish and Latin American culture. I spent my fall 2017 semester studying in Madrid, my first immersion experience with the language. Despite all this time and effort, I'm still not fluent in the language. I did enjoy the grammatical breakdown of the language, it has served me very well in being able to write and read Spanish. I enjoyed learning about the culture throughout high school and college, and then seeing the Spanish aspects in motion while living in Madrid. I didn't like not having access to native speakers from the start of my language learning because I didn't learn how to speak with an accent or understand one. My Spanish learning process was very based on translations and the grammatical rules of the language, which are both useful, but I found when I got to college and had to take non-language classes taught in Spanish, I had difficulty understanding my professors even though I had taken Spanish courses for five years.
In terms of the FIRE Model, I don't fit perfectly in one category, but I think I'm most similar to the Insightful section; I enjoy problem solving, I like having logical structure, but not in the same way as the Factual column, and feel my work is done when I can demonstrate competence and reasoning ability. In one of the surveys, my top three intelligences were Self, Logic/Math, and Social, respectively. As for Self, I do like to reflect on my own and I do have a good sense of self, however some of the activities that the website suggests for me, especially journaling, are not how I typically operate. I'm bad at setting aside time specifically for reflection, brainstorming, or meditation. Even though I know these are healthy and productive practices, in my mind, I'm always thinking to myself, whether reflecting on myself or about the world around me, and I don't find myself needing extra time set aside for these activities. I do agree with the other two, however. I am a logical person at heart and love solving puzzles, finding patterns, and analyzing what I see. I have always thought it's important to exercise this part of my brain, but not let it take over the way I learn everything. I don't believe that everything comes down to an exact science and that it's important to be open-minded about different teaching styles and topics. I think it is fitting that I got both Self and Social, because I need a mix of time with just myself and time with others. It depends on the topic and style of the assignment for whether I'd rather do the work independently or with a group. In general, I do think I learn more in a collaborative setting, and with what I learn there, I can reflect on my own later. The other survey told me I was a Visual learner with 45% of my score being in this category. From there, I was 30% Tactile and 25% Auditory. I think this is true, I do like to see something written out to be able to imagine it in my head, but, as my score indicates, it's not imperative to my learning that everything be visual, but rather a variety of learning styles combined in order to understand and remember content effectively.
I think learning basic vocabulary and grammatical structures are important activities for me to do when beginning a language. These will give me the base to expand my language activities after that. Learning from my mistakes with Spanish, I think it will be important for me to start conversing out loud in Korean right away and learning how to pronounce the words without an "American accent." Also, because I'm very interested in culture, I think I should immerse myself in the culture of the language I'm learning before I've been learning the language for three years, like I did with Spanish. This expands my learning activities from just textbooks to children's books, TV shows, movies, and more. I believe these activities will help me learn a more colloquial, rather than textbook, version of the language, and since being able to converse fluidly is my goal in learning a new language, it's important to learn how people of that native language actually speak, not just the proper way.
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