Reflection Paper #1

[Noelle Garcia]

Learning new languages has always been an interest of mine. I have taken French, Latin, and Spanish lessons/classes, and even attempted to learn Russian but didn't feel the same spark as I did with the other three. Having been born and raised for half my life in Manila, I grew up learning English and Tagalog simultaneously.  However, since it has been about 13 years since I lived in Manila, I've found myself slowly losing grip of my Tagalog, and often mix words and the language structure up while talking to my family. As someone who's attempted to learn a variety of languages over the years, I've learned that I like writing new words down and doing this repetitively. On the Learning Styles survey, I learned that I am a Reading/Writing learner, which comes to no surprise as I do very much enjoy reading and writing.  With this in mind, the survey suggested I make lists, and make good use of the dictionary, another thing I will enjoy doing because I tend to be a nerd and do that already with unfamiliar words I come across with. On the Multiple Intelligences Survey, I scored the highest with an 80% for Verbal/Linguistic, a 75% for Musical, and a 70% for Intrapersonal. From these surveys, I can improve my Tagalog, which is the language I have chosen for this class. Although I already know how to speak it, reading and writing it is a pretty difficult task for me, and I would like be able to understand its grammatical structure better. To be able to do this, I must look up the words' definition, and write them down as often as I can. Perhaps I can make grocery/to-do lists in this language as well. To make use of my musical and intrapersonal qualities, I can listen to Tagalog songs, as sappy as they are. Furthermore, re-learning Tagalog would force me to spend more time talking to my parents in straight Tagalog, rather than in Taglish (Tagalog-English) which is what I've done for the past 21 years of my life. I can also watch Filipino dramas centered on love stories between two people placed in very unfortunate circumstances, which tend to be unintentionally hilarious. The four things I want to be able to accomplish are: 1.) ease in reading and writing Tagalog, 2.) expanding more of my vocabulary that does not revolve around light, conversational words, 3.) learning the complex grammatical structure, and 4.) reading Filipino/Tagalog literature.