Experiences of a Language Learner:
Maddie Philips
SDLC 5
8/24/16
My only proficient language other than my native English, French is a skill I have been learning since I was born. It began with the “bleu, blanc, et rouge” of the flag, and has since become the focus of my minor now in my second year of university. Although I’ve been hearing French (and Basque) in its native country every summer since I was three years old, I did not become a serious learner until my first year of middle school. Before then, all I knew were words to help me understand and play with my cousins and my other French friends, like the basic ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye,’ but also words for ‘come,’ ‘look, and ’ what,’ to name a few. For a young child, life is all about understanding the physical world, and so those were the words that stuck with me.
Because of my history of learning a language through what was most relevant to my life as it currently was, I think my learning style is based off of things that I can understand in the present. For example, talking about my friends, my classes, my job and my family are all things that I would do on a daily basis while speaking English, so I think they would also come most easily to me when attempting to learn another language. I used to enjoy playing games to learn new vocabulary, because they would bring out my competitive side, and I also think that conversing with people who are comfortable with the language is another surefire way to help me to improve both my comprehension and my general speaking. I absolutely hated being given homework to complete certain grammatical sentences, etc. and then being expected to research how to solve the problem myself. I was never motivated enough to go the extra mile, and so grammatically I was often left behind the rest of my class, even though my confidence in speaking was miles ahead of my other classmates.
In terms of the FIRE model, I believe that I am an insightful and evaluative learner. It is extremely hard for me to learn without detailed thought by thought instructions for me to follow, which are often most helpful when spoken out loud as opposed to being written in a book. I like to think through abstract problems, but when faced with issues that I see as redundant or commonly repeating, which is often the case with language learning, I have a difficult time staying focused long enough to learn the material.
I can conclude by noting that the best way for me to learn is to find a way to motivate myself through finding patterns. One of the best ways for me to remember vocabulary, at the very least, is to see a word in one situation and then see it in another in order to connect the word to both situations and therefore remember the best context for it to be used in. A part of this system of patterning is through learning and memorizing songs, which is another goal of mine on my language learning journery.
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