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Reflection%201.docx

Jumping into a new language is quite a journey. Along with a language comes thousands of years of culture and ideas, from not only the region I am focusing in on but the regions that surround it and the regions it used to be a part of. Language is amazing and incredibly deep and complex. Getting to see into these things, though daunting, is what makes me love language. The only difficulty is trying to absorb all the knowledge so quickly, as it is a lot to take in and many times I do not know where to even start.

One of my favorite things in learning new language is learning new vocabulary. It is admittedly a bit boring and repetitive trying to learn new vocabulary words, but I cannot help but feel so enriched after I get a whole set of vocabulary down. I, of course, also love learning grammar too. Grammar and vocabulary just make me feel like I am getting the whole ‘language thing’ down correctly.

The thing I dislike the most about learning a new language is my pride. Many times I cannot just let down my pride and simply let myself speak in broken Spanish/Persian/Russian/Japanese/anything else I have tried learning because I am afraid of looking too embarrassing. I find myself unable to speak in any language I am trying to learn in front of one of those languages’ native speakers unless they are some sort of language professor. My boyfriend, for instance, is Japanese and I choke up even trying to say a simple sentence to him in Japanese. Even to this day he has barely heard me speak any Japanese at all despite me completing up to 202 in Japanese here at UR and us having been together the whole course of me taking Japanese here. Speaking a language is essential to memorizing and understanding it. I have undoubtedly forgot so many of the vocabulary words I was so excited to memorize simply because I did not utilize them in conversation.

According to the Multiple Intelligences Assessment, my top three intelligences are self (intrapersonal), social (interpersonal), and body movement (kinesthetic). I love self-studying so I was happy to see that I scored highest on the ‘self’ intelligence. At the same time, this reinforces that I do still need to speak to other people in the languages I am trying to speak in as I scored high on the social as well. Body movement is interesting and something that is very reinforced in the Learning Style Assessment as well. I also scored above 3 (though just 3 for musical) in the other intelligences so I should probably try to utilize them as well. I, for instance, enjoy involving math and logic in a lot of my studies.

The Learning Style Assessment states that I am a tactile learner. What this means is that I should be involved in the language, to utilize it and to deconstruct and understand the underlying principles of a language, its building blocks. I do shake my foot very often while I study as the Learning Style survey suggests I should do. Its suggestion that I should ‘do’ the language instead of just reading, seeing, or hearing the language hits home as well as I frequently only learn things after writing them down or saying the words by myself. My pencil and notebook are the only reason I have survived any sort of schooling my whole life; I only learn once I write things down.

Looking at the FIRE model, I definitely think I am a factual thinker, though maybe with a bit of insightful thinker mixed in. This might be why I like language so much because there is no ‘wrong’ answer, it is simply memorizing the facts of how people communicate and get their ideas across. Vocabulary and grammar are straightforward, and though there are exceptions, once you memorize them they are easy to keep in mind as well.

With my previous experience, the help of the surveys, and things I know I should be doing but have just been stubborn about, I know my learning plan should include the self-studying note taking I am so fond of as well as speaking in the language I am trying to learn. I really need to expand my learning style outside of my beloved notebook and pencil and try to adapt to the speaking world. I cannot just write to people in a certain language and call it a day – I need to speak to them as well!

            Over the past years of my adolescence, I had learned English gradually when my family and I immigrated to the United States when I was 9 years old. Then, during high school, we were required to take additional languages, at first I chose Spanish but quickly transferred to Latin. During my time studying English, I believe the most beneficial factor was being situated in an all-English speaking environment. It was very tough and disheartening at first because I only knew a couple of words and phrases and could barely communicate with anybody. Therefore, I have had to force myself to learn as quickly as I could by following the ESL curriculum at school and try to talk as much as possible with other classmates. I do believe that this is the most expedient method of learning a language, however, the most painful as well. When you are in a situation where you could talk to no one except your parents and sibling, it felt alone and separated.

            Entering into high school, the curriculum required a new foreign language for graduating students, I chose Spanish but the class quickly lost my interest. The main reason being the extensive vocabulary, a lot of grammar rules, and most importantly, the method that the teacher employed to teach. It was very paragraph/word – based teaching. After transferring to Latin, although it is also a vocabulary intensive language, the teacher made it more enjoyable by employing various graphics, comic strips, songs, to help us remember key concepts and grammar rules. Reflecting upon the surveys and self-assessment, I am indeed a more visual learner, learning by reading or seeing pictures, and also remember things by visualizing. This trait had definitely manifested while learning Latin and English. In addition, one of the other surveys suggests that social or interpersonal skill is ranked as one of my top three intelligences. While learning English or even many other subject, engaging in a dialogue or reading over equations with other people helps me to be more engaged with the subject and I learn better in this manner.

            After exploring the learning styles and reflecting those on my past language studies, I am leaning more towards visual, interpersonal, and also reflecting on new ideas and information alone. In the past, different language activities I have employed in the past such as reading from graphic novels, doing a lot of extra practices on vocabulary and grammar rules, and reading new sentences while marking any familiar trends. After knowing about the various styles that suit my personality better, applying that to new language acquisition, this could mean introducing more visual and auditory activities, such as drama series, songs, podcasts, etc. In addition, because of the language partner and many other Korean speaking friends, I can easily have a conversation in Korean with them and be able to locate my mistakes while talking. As for learning vocabulary and grammar rules in Korean, my learning style suggests that I do best by writing down key concepts and have visualizations during instruction, and have additional time ruminating and digesting new information on my own, while speaking them out loud reinforces the memory.

            Additionally, the different blog posts shared in the homework assignment by Tim Ferriss and Benny Lewis provides additional learning tips. The one I paid special, close attention to is the “interact in your language daily without traveling,” this to me could mean listening to songs, speaking in that language with other people, things I can do to practice the language every day. Also, creating realistic goals for myself and not rushing through the process, a big mistake I always make while learning is that I rush through things. For example, I could theoretically handle something in paper, but once I get to apply the concept, because I rush through learning it initially, the concept is not deeply ingrained and I haven’t spent the time to fully digest the information. I look forward to using these new learning activities to learn Korean in the upcoming semester.