In the past, the only language that I have learned, other than English, is Spanish. I began taking Spanish in middle school and finished my sophomore year at Richmond. I was always an excellent Spanish student and learning the language was easy for me. I think the idea of being able to speak another language is important because of how vast and diverse the world is. I enjoyed speaking in my Spanish classes because I always felt that speaking was the most relevant for my Spanish studies. I always disliked writing because the topics that we had to write on were forced and weren’t topics I would ever have to actually write about when exhibiting basic communication skills. Since I did not have much difficulty learning Spanish, it was never a subject that I disliked. However, I do not expect the same experience from Amharic. I believe that my Amharic studies will be much harder than Spanish, but at the same time much more rewarding.
In the FIRE model, the aspects of the factual category that relate to me are 2 and 5. I like to learn the aspects of a language that are most practical, meaning what I need in order to understand and hold a conversation. This is especially important for me now as my main goal is to be able to have conversations with my family. As for methods of learning, I think worksheets, drills, and task-oriented activities that build skill competency are important for me to practice what I am learning. In the insightful category, I value time to plan and think things through before beginning to work. I am not the best at jumping into things without planning, so to be successful I need to know what my plans and goals are. This is especially important for me now because I need to make a specific plan of what I want to learn since I am in charge of my learning. In the rational category, I like topics that empower systematic and cause-and-effect thinking because this is what seems most straightforward to me. For the evaluative category, I think I learn best in a comfortable, personally pleasing environment because then I am not afraid to ask questions and engage in the class. This is one reason why I am excited about learning Amharic through this course. I have a language partner that I will have one on one time with so asking questions will not be a problem. I think the comfortable learning atmosphere of this setup will enhance my learning experience.
From the surveys that I took I found that I am a visual/tactile learner. Even though the quiz says that I learn best through visual activities and hands-on activities, I think I prefer learning languages through auditory activities. I find that I learn best when practicing words through speaking. This is especially important to me because I like to learn how to pronounce what I am learning. Activities that would help me learning a language include hearing the words spoken in the language and being told their meanings and then repeating the word. That way the pronunciation of the word along with the meaning will stick in my mind. In a language like Amharic, pronunciation is extremely important so I need to spend extra time on that aspect.
For learning Amharic, I think I will need to expand my learning activities because it is a harder language to learn than Spanish. I believe that I should expand my learning activities by including the task of looking at pictures and practicing being able to name the picture in Amharic. I also need to practice by having everyday conversations with my language partner and learning how to understand and respond appropriately. In addition to communicating with my language partner, I think I should try to engage in conversations with native speakers and do small things like ordering my food at an Ethiopian restaurant in Amharic. In Amharic there are different words and phrases for a man, a woman, and multiple people. I think keeping these differences distinct will be challenge and I need to develop some learning activities to help practice them.
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