My past experience with language learning has been positive for the most part. Spanish is one of the first languages that I gained interest in. I began my language learning journey with Spanish in elementary school and continued to become more advanced with the language from middle school to high school and college as well. Most of the experience I have when learning Spanish was based in a classroom setting. And each piece of information we learned would allude to what skills we would be need for the next unit or next piece of information we would learn. For example, when we learned conjugating verbs in Spanish it would go in the order of learning present tense, past tense, conditional, and future tense. And if a unit was based on health, we would learn basic vocabulary that would be associated with that unit, such as food (types of healthy/unhealthy, exercise, check-ups/doctor’s appointments, etc.
I enjoyed the feeling of being immersed into a new language. Learning the language of a culture I admire really helps me to feel more connected to that culture and its people. During the process of learning a new language I enjoyed the small little victories achievements I’ve made, which continue to bring me closer to actually being able to conversate with a native speaker or someone that spoke the language comfortably. I’ve come to realize that I like the process of being able to learn new vocabulary and form sentences through writing and speaking.
As a language learner however, I dislike the struggle I faced with differences in grammar between my native language and the language that I was learning (Spanish). Sometimes I would have difficulty memorizing some of the rules or it would take me a while to get used to the changes and differences. And while learning Spanish in college in comparison to learning it in high school, I feel a little left behind in the sense of differences of learning style I experienced and missing vocabulary.
In regard to the fire model and surveys that I took, they concluded that I am more of a visual learner, and secondly an auditory learner. With these given characteristics it was recommended that I color-code notes or draw pictures to associate a word or concept to help me in the learning process. I will definitely take these tips into consideration when I begin my language learning journey with Korean. In one of the surveys, it stated that one of learning styles is being music. It went into detail to explain that using background music can help me while reviewing important information or memorizing important material when learning a new language. This is something I do on occasion but now I will definitely incorporate it more when I am learning Korean. Since music is something, I truly enjoy, I think analyzing Korean song lyrics in order to learn new vocabulary would be a good strategy to memorizing important vocabulary faster and more efficiently.
Comments
I love how you mentioned that language could help you connect with the culture and the people. I have never really thought about it that way but I completely agree with you. I wish you the best luck with your journey to learn the langauge of Korean. You got this!
I am so in awe of the fact that you want to create music through your language learning. I am so glad I am taking this course because I am excited to hear about your progress and how it reshapes how you experience and make art in the future.