Last summer, I’d conducted independent summer research project for my honors history thesis. While I had completed an independent research project the previous summer, this was the first time where the stakes seemed higher. The creative and gritty hard work that I would put in that summer would determine whether or not I should seriously consider a career in academia—so my professors had politely communicated to me. I liked the pressure to perform just as I imagined a strong PhD student would in the archives swimming in the unknown on one’s own. There was no structure. No one was going to tell me to do this or do that. I enjoyed myself. I planned trips to historic sites around the country, requested rare materials from libraries from all over, and spent hours immersed in conversations and miscellaneous material related to my area of study. I felt great. I became so confident in my ability to independently learn, that I decided my senior year would include as many independent learning courses as possible. When I decided to take SDLAP 110, I believed my unstructured approach to summer research would be the same as that of learning a language.
I forgot to take one main thing into account in approaching language study as I did my research over the summer. While my thesis research felt completely free of requirements, it was not. I had a thesis in mind at all times. I had at least some sense of what I was looking for. I was able to sift through what was important and what was not in the mountains of stacks of information. My summer was indeed uninhibited and free of restraints and boundaries. I read anything and everything that I wanted—whether experts in the field would consider the literature relevant or not. Yet, I knew after a certain time exactly what I was looking for. Everything kind of funneled into this thesis. It served as a sort of compass for my reading and learning. Language-learning I discovered, can and probably should be approached similarly. The world of language and culture is vast. There is no formal thesis or argument at the end of the learning experience. It is very easy to get lost or overwhelmed by what you perceive to be your own stagnating “slow progress.”
I think this is where well-thought out, challenging goals and subgoals come into play. They can serve as measurements that you can look back on and proudly proclaim finished. They also serve as a tangible roadmap to your desired destination. They allow you to make your knowledge, your learning, useful to you. It encourages applicable mastery—the ability to demonstrate control over your material in a variety of contexts or situations. I became conscious of the positive benefits of independent goal-setting in the days leading up to the final exam. I was nervous and was unsure if I had really learned enough despite the hours I put in throughout the semester. All of this anxiety was unnecessary.
This semester of SDLAP helped me to understand the usefulness of goal-setting in two ways. First, it is a very logical, practical way to get from point A to point B in manageable steps. Second, well-though out provides for oneself as a sort of tangible and creative way to show yourself and others just how far you’ve come from the beginning. In times of doubt or overconfidence, one can look at the “roadmap” and get a more realistic, concrete sense of where one really is in the language learning process. As I plan for SDLAP 111, I plan to take far more careful consideration in the formulation of my goals and subgoals.
I think this ability to set quality learning goals is actually one of the most beneficial skills I hope to leave with by the end of senior year. This is, I think, an invaluable skill to have whether one is learning to do anything really. Of course, this means more than saying “I want to read a novella” for instance. It requires one to think backwards in a way. What would I need to read a novella? How many different vocabulary words does a novella typically have? Do you know your cases? What might you need to do to learn cases? What is the particular novella about? Am I reasonably equipped with the vocabulary necessary? Here, Dr. Grove’s suggestion to “quantify” one’s learning resonates well here. This is one method I plan to employ more strictly next semester. Taking more care to assign “learning tasks” I have found most effective to certain goals might also be useful. For instance, if I found flashcards for vocabulary, be sure to drill at least 20 a week with that method. If I find pictionary or charades at the end of the week to be a useful exercise to test vocabulary fluency, than I’d do that each week.
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