Reflections Week Eight

[Becky Walker]

I hit the point that I knew was coming--the same point that I hit in every language: I realize I have a large deficit in aural skills. Though I could attribute this lapse to my deafness, unfortunately I don't think that I can fall back on that as my sole excuse. The problem is not that I am unfamiliar with the material, for if questions are asked to me in English, I could respond to them, or even translate them, in Farsi. I have tried listening to the BBC and other aural exercises in order to accustom myself to the sounds and voice inflections in Farsi, but it is increasingly becoming more of a struggle to understand not only single words, but entire sentences. I thought that the Modern Persian CDs would benefit me as it would pair the aural exercises with sentences with which I was already familiar. I think what I will now do, is return to some of the aural exercises that I completed at the beginning of the semester, such as the basic phrases on Biki and the first levels of the Rosetta Stone and listen to those without looking at the screen in order to get a stronger grasp on my listening skills.Otherwise writing my practice sentences has been a great tool in knowing what questions I want to learn. Through writing them I begin to question placement of things such as the where prepositions belong in sentences and to which words can possessors be attached. I will continue making sentences on a weekly basis in order to both reinforce the grammar that I have already learned as well as use it as a means to develop new questions.