I have been a language learner since I was 10. I was in my third year of primary school when I start to take an English course. The English book is designed to be engaging and interactive. There are four characters in the book and every chapter they have conversations in different scenarios to help students learn. At that time, English is my favorite subject. The learning process is fun, and the teacher encourages us to watch cartoons and listen to children's folk. However, when I was in middle school, the teacher begins to treat English course as an important component of the senior high school entrance examination. The course was not interactive anymore, the teacher emphasized grammar and sentence composition, and students were asked to finish a certain amount of sample tests every day. Since then, my interest in learning English has slacked, and English is no longer my favorite course.
My second language learning experience would be French. I registered in a French course in my last year of high school. At first, I am excited to learn French because of a saying that “French is the most beautiful language of all.” However, the class put too much emphasize on the grammar and the techniques to tackle the French a1exam. I found myself distracted in class often and lost track of the complicated grammar usage.
After taking the learning styles and multiple intelligence survey, I would categorize myself as a factual learner. I would appreciate the study process to be precise, which allows me to understand the process of learning and progress step by step. I expect detailed and precise course descriptions and grading policies, and I would benefit from the exam-oriented reviews. The learning style survey tells that I am a visual learner who learns by reading and seeing pictures. It says that I may have difficulty with spoken directions and may be easily distracted by sounds. Therefore, in my future learning activities, I would achieve efficiency by studying in a quiet environment and use a detailed schedule to track my study process. The multiple intelligence survey shows that I am an interpersonal person since I got 4.29 out of 5 in the social component. The result shows that I am able to develop ideas and learn from other people. Therefore, effective learning techniques would be using my social intelligence to participate in group discussions and one-to-one consulting. The result indicates that the self-directed language course would be a good fit for me since I would have a chance to learn from my language partner, and also observe valuable language learning skills from the weekly group meeting.
My future learning expectation for this course is that I should make detailed plans for each progress and communicate with my language partner to understand my weakness in the learning process. The learning process would be most efficient if I could develop an interest in the language, so I would consult my language partner to find out entertaining methods to get familiar with the language.
Comments
Interesting post, Claire. Throughout the course, we'll be reflecting on both primary and secondary language acquisition endeavors, so your experiences up until age 10 are also relevant. Stories involving classical settings, a simple cast of characters, and real-world interpersonal exchanges are excellent learning resources. Do you agree with the saying that "French is the most beautiful language of all"? How did the instructors of your course attempt to share the beauty of the language? What about a language makes it beautiful? These are big questions, and I'm hopeful that this course will help you to appreciate and form an understand of the components you find most compelling in a language.
What are your interests in learning Korean? Aside from entertaining methods, what steps do you think would produce tangible gains in proficiency acquisition? Best of luck, and I look forward to working with you!