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Reflect on your previous experiences as a language learner. What did you enjoy? What did you dislike? Think about the FIRE model and the surveys you have just completed. What kind of learner are you? What kinds of language learning activities suit your learning style? How do you think you should expand your learning activities?

I started learning my second language, French, when I was 13. It was the first semester of my 8th grade year. Ridgefield, my hometown, had just started offering French as a language course. The only other language class offered was Spanish. From the day I started learning French, everyone around me told me that "French isn't useful." This was one of the many things I did not enjoy about learning a second language. There is a stigma that we have to learn language that is deemed to be "useful." 

Despite adults, and even friends at the time telling me to stop, I have kept a bright mindset about learning French ever since I started learning in middle school. My French teacher, Ms. Rebecca Frommlet, has been my day 1 biggest fan. She continues to advocate for me to pursue French studies in college and beyond. While in the moment some of her teaching methods were not my favorite, my French vocabulary and knowledge of the culture expanded immensely. Every Monday and Wednesday, for four years in high school, we took a vocabulary quiz with ten new French words. There are only so many ways that a person can learn words in another language. Ms.Frommlet's method was effective, I would say, in the long run. 

I have always wanted to learn another language which is what keeps me going at the end of the day. I have just started learning my third language, Spanish, at the beginning of my second year here at UR. It's crazy to reflect on the fact that I have been learning French for five years. WOW!

I forgot what it takes to learn another language. Reflecting on my learning style is important. My results on the quiz stated that I was primarily an auditory and visual learner. I would definitely agree with this. My brain immediately processes images, which is how I ultimately see the world. I like being able to come up with my own interpretation first. Then, I am able to use auditory cues to establish what other people think and/or to make meaning of something. The best language-learning activities for me are involving note-taking and saying different phrases out loud to myself. That has been the method I use since I started learning French at 14. The best way for me to expand my learning activities are practicing French and Spanish more orally. I get very anxious in these situations, but I understand that this is the best way to learn. 

Throughout my time learning a language, I’ve heard people say things such as “Oh, I just can’t learn this. It’s too hard” or “I wasn’t built for learning a language.” But is there any truth to these claims? Some languages are definitely more harder to learn than others. Whether it be learning to speak, read, or write some aspects are certainly more difficult than others to learn. 

Take Korean for example: from my experience speaking and reading are fairly easy to learn. However, writing is a completely different story. Reading, especially, in Korean is fairly easy as once you learn the characters, the pronunciation of the characters never change. All you have to do is read the characters and words as they are shown. Writing, however… You would think that writing would also be easy. Afterall, reading is read as it is seen therefore writing should also be written as it is read/seen. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Take ㅐand ㅔfor example. Both are pronounced exactly the same (ae) but its usage is still one of the most complicated things in the language. Even native speakers have trouble differentiating between when to use which. There is no pattern either, they just need to be memorized.

So what was the point of all this? To show that there are certainly difficulties when learning languages. But, despite that it’s never impossible. Let’s look into the human brain for a brief moment. For a right-handed person, it was studied that the left hemisphere of the brain was dominant in learning a new language. The left also helps with activities involving analytical tasks, logical organization, info sequencing, and complex motor functions. The right hemisphere on the other hand is involved in the perception of patterns, creativive sensibility, and emotional expression/recognition (Crystal, D. 2005 How language works). Now someone, might read this and think “Oh, my left side must not be developed as much as someone who is good with languages”. But I’d like the challenge this belief. Yes, the left side seems to help more with learning a language. But the right side also most certainly plays a part as well. As said before, the right is involved with pattern recognition and to say there are no patterns in languages is false. Everything from prefixes, roots, sentence structure, etc. all form patterns. If someone can recognize this, then learning a language, especially reading and writing would be easier. 

Keeping these in mind, what can I do over the next couple of months? Well I’ve had past knowledge in learning Korean. So I could build upon that by understanding that there are patterns when it comes to reading and writing. Speaking can also apply this concept, but speaking is probably mostly improved by actually speaking the language. Not by worrying if what I’m saying is correct, but rather just speaking the language and whatever comes to mind. The concept of collocations were introduced in How we mean (Crystal, D. 2005). Collocations, along with context, can be brought into the picture when talking about speaking. Even if I may not understand the full sentence word for word, with context I can assume what the general meaning of the sentence is if I know a handful of words.

A couple weeks ago, 2 long swords were added to Korea's national treasures - (past) properties of Admiral Yi Sun-sin (이순신). These swords, albeit having a more ceremonial purpose, are thought to have been forged in 1594 due to the inscriptions, but are in extremely good condition. Although ancient relics may become national treasures due to their age and physical value, that probably isn't just the case for these swords. There are at least 3 more national treasures related to Yi Sun-sin, indicating his importance.

Most Koreans will know who Yi Sun-sin is, at least by name. In terms of renown, it is like how most (hopefully) Americans will know George Washington, at least by name. For context, Korea was known as the Joseon dynasty beginning in the 14th century, when the earlier dynasty was overthrew. This is where most of Korea's historical culture resides, as the dynasty continued before the Japanese colonization in the 19th-20th centuries, until it would become the 2 Koreas. Amidst the 16th century, Japan and Korea, which had okay relations till then, started having numerous conflicts, and Japan, who had finally unified as 1 state after a 120 year period, begin to invade Korea. This is where Admiral Yi Sun-sin's renown would begin, as he led naval forces and won numerous battles against the invasion. The Battle of Myeongnyang is the most famous, where he led 13 warships against an invasion of 133 ships, and was able to fend off the invasion. Yi Sun-sin is one of the reasons why modern day Korea exists, else perhaps modern day Korea would be a part of Japan. Yi Sun-sin is also famously correlated with the Turtle ships, a ship design seen in many Korean textbooks and motifs, which were decisive in his battles.

It was cool to stumble upon the news of his swords being designated as national treasures, and learning about Korean history gives language learning a much deeper connection. I've attached pictures of the swords, the admiral, and his turtle ships for anyone to see.

Reflect on your experiences as a language learner. What did you enjoy? What did you dislike? Think about the FIRE model and the surveys you have just completed. What kind of learner are you? What kinds of language learning activities suit your learning style? How do you think you should expand your learning activities?

My first encounter with formal language learning was in my eighth grade French class. I had an incredible teacher who was always willing to give me additional learning materials to accelerate the pace in which I could express complex ideas. I fell in love with the fact that there were somethings that felt more authentic to express in French, that I could get closer to meaning by expanding my toolbox of languages. 

Growing up neurodivergent, I found myself easily able to mimic the speech patterns of others-- I used this talent not only to help me pick up on linguistic patterns in foreign languages, but also to intentionally drop my Appalachian dialect at one point (which I now regret having done.) At the age of sixteen, I left Tennessee for a year abroad in Germany with the Department of State's CBYX program. This marked my first immersive language learning experience, and I arrived to the country with no prior German knowledge. Although it was undeniably one of the hardest years of my life, I learned a lot about my language-learning styles in that program and have remained at a C1 level of working proficiency. When brainstorming what was helpful, I realized that:

- Forcing myself to express and circumlocute ideas in my target language was both exhausting and crucial to building speaking skills. Even when I made little to no sense or embarrassing mistakes, it started a dialog with whomever I was speaking with through which I learned a more efficient way to express something in the future.

- Passively listening to the target language led me to a gradual building of comprehension and vocabulary. It took me roughly two to three months to be able to understand most things and about four months to be able to respond with more effectiveness. 

- Although mimicking the language acquisition patterns of children might have contributed to my existential woes of no longer being able to express complex thoughts and emotions, it helped me in the long run to think and speak more intuitively in German.

After returning from Germany, I felt empowered by my ability to express myself in a new way and connect myself with a greater variety of people. I took an introductory Chinese class, but found that the emphasis on direct translation limited my ability to understand the language from a Chinese perspective. I then did a short stint of time in Nepal in which I was able to learn much more in much less time by focusing on conversation. This makes sense considering my Learning Style and Multiple Intelligences results-- I'm a tactile learner, and my greatest intelligences are Social and Language. Conversation to me is experiential, and the most important component of language learning, personally.

Currently, I'm taking a 300 level Spanish class and beginning my studies of Bahasa Indonesia. For both languages, I want to try speaking as much as possible while placing more of an emphasis on grammar than I have in the past. As part of my learning for this semester, I'd like to challenge myself to write complex reflections with the help of external resources in order to quickly build a sense of grammar concepts. 

Hey y'all I'm Justin! I was born in Georgia (USA) and both my parents moved to the States from Korea. As a child, they would always encourage me to use Korean at home. Unfortunately for them, I would almost always respond in mostly English. They’ve sent me to multiple Korean schools throughout my life but sadly they would not help much. So, here I am now attempting to learn at my own pace, which hopefully will help now.

I’ve also learned Spanish throughout middle and high school. Learning a new language however helped not only in Spanish but surprisingly English as well. I don’t know about most people, but I grew up without learning much of the grammatical rules and whatnot. So speaking was no problem, but writing (especially on standardized tests) were an issue. Learning Spanish however gave a fresh start to a language, and a lot of the rules from there applied over to English as well. Yes, things such as the adjective placement are different but other rules, such as the structure of a “complete sentence” are the same. So although English was my first language, my third language was the one that surprisingly helped the most!

During my past 3 years in college, I’ve taken two Spanish courses as well. Both of which had a “drill”, which was essentially an oral practice class. These also seemed to help a lot in learning a new language. First of all they were fun since we would talk about almost anything but in Spanish. There was really no forced rule or way of learning, other than having to speak Spanish.

Over the years I’ve found myself to be much of a visual and tactile learner. Actually doing activities and practicing them helped me grasp the content much, much easier not just in learning new languages but in basically every subject. Visually, using diagrams, graphs, and charts helped probably because they help me make connections, similarities, and differences between the material that was learned. The tactile aspect also ties in well with the visual style. Drawing these diagrams and graphs along with doing practice problems help a lot. An example would be the drills for Spanish. Actually attempting to speak and use the language outside of just writing helps me learn it.

Hopefully, I can learn from the past and use those experiences that both failed and worked and apply them to this semester. I’m mostly hoping to learn to actually speak and write Korean well enough so that I can actually have some dialogue between my family. It may take a while, and it could be very ambitious. But practicing speaking and writing slowly will surely help me improve!

Reflect on your experiences as a language learner. What did you enjoy? What did you dislike? Think about the FIRE model and the surveys you have just completed. What kind of learner are you? What kinds of language learning activities suit your learning style? How do you think you should expand your learning activities?

              I was born and raised in France to a Korean mother and an American father. From a young age my parents taught me the importance of learning multiple languages. Both of my parents travelled the world extensively and shared with me their experiences with foreign languages and cultures. As such, being multilingual has been one of my earliest goals.

              Growing up in France, I attended an international school, where knowledge of multiple languages was not only encouraged, but a requirement. At my school, all students were fluent in French and another native language. Students all took classes together from the general French curriculum, as well as classes from their respective ‘section.’ Students were divided into thirteen national sections, with countries like the United States, Italy, Sweden, Japan, and Russia being represented. We also each took two foreign language classes. From 6^th to 12^th grade, I learned Spanish, and from 8^th to 12^th grade I learned Mandarin Chinese.

              My international background has always been a point of pride for me that I love to share with others. I enjoy having experience with multiple languages and having befriended friends from various cultures. I believe that my understanding of the world is much more complete than if I had only learned English or French growing up.

However, being part of such a rigorous curriculum had its challenges. I often felt like I was being forced to learn, especially during my Mandarin class. I found the language extremely difficult, and never felt like I had a firm grasp of it. As such, I didn’t always put my full effort into it and have since given up on the language.

I found that learning Spanish with a French and English background was a huge advantage. Many words are similar, if not identical. I often found myself being able to decipher entire sentences just from common language roots and sentence structure. On the other hand, I do not have the same intuition with Mandarin or Korean. I have found that both languages are completely different and share close to no similarities with the previously mentioned Western languages. Chinese and Korean do share certain similarities, but I do not believe my knowledge in either language is good enough to take advantage of this.

I learn best with a combination of visual, sound, and practical learning. The best way for me has always been learning by seeing and hearing examples, and then practicing based on these examples. For example, in class, hearing a professor speak the language helps me pickup the various intonations, which I will then master by mimicking and practicing on my own. When learning by myself, watching movies or listening to music can help me pickup common phrases spoken in everyday life. I also like to learn my reading texts or articles in the target language and researching words or phrases that I do not know. I find that this is one of the most effective ways to improve my understanding of the language.

              I believe one area of my learning that I can expand upon is vocabulary. I think that memorizing common words is one of the best ways to gain an advanced understanding of a language.

I grew up in a Spanish-only household so it was effortless to learn Spanish in a very immersive environment. I think growing up in that household, my survival skills kicked in forcing me to absorb the language making it easier to learn the language. I learned English in kindergarten but had to repeat it since I did not know the language. I was able to become fluent in about a year and a half which I attributed to my young age but after reading one of the required articles, I realized it has more to do with the immersive environment and the lack of an "escape route". I learned a bit of Chinese in the fifth grade but it was at a new elementary school where the students had commenced learning in kindergarten, I could not catch up and was thus, demotivated. However, I started learning French in the sixth grade and have stuck through with it since it flowed so easily and I received constant praise from classmates and teachers. I started Russian at the university because I really enjoyed the history and wanted to understand their films/literature in its original language. Informally though, I have learned a bit of Turkish, Italian, Norweigian, and Korean as I really like consuming foreign entertainment without dubs. For the informal languages, it has been significantly harder to retain and persist since I have no accountability layer to it. I have liked being able to pick up on conversations and seeing how the history/culture of a country influences its language. However, I hate how slow the process is since I am not the most patient person. 

According to the surveys, I am a visual learner and should try to visualize my learning for it to actually stick by creating a mnemonic, color coding stuff, or creating flash cards. I will attempt to insert more images into the online flashcards I create, and physically write out my notes using colored pens to make it more aesthetic and for myself to remember the content better. Trying to connect the pieces using the root of the words with their meaning using diagram also seems to be like a good idea. I think the most helpful part of learning a language through this class, though it is self-motivated, is that I will still have more of an accountability factor and someone with whom I can practice what I've learned and help correct any misconceptions I have. 

I am also an auditory learner so repeating words out loud is how I usually engrave new vocab into my brain so I will continue to do so but will also be speaking in the target language with my language partner. i recognize that making mistakes, however embarrassing or big of a setback it feels like, is essential to learning. Whenever my pronounciation or sentences are corrected, I am more likely to remember it and less likely to commit the same mistakes. I know at least for me, it is always easier to remember the negatives. I think that's why I prefer to do textbook activities like matching or filling in blanks because it's both visual and auditory when I am sounding out the words or reading out the instructions. I like straightforward activities since I am so impatient hence why I'd rather do grammar practice, written activities, and quizzes. I think I want to incorporate weekly quizzes into my study plan to make sure I am still on track and to narrow down the concepts that I am struggling with and adjust accordingly. That being said, I also agree with what the article said about needing to be intentional about our goals when attempting to learn a language. I think it was much easier to learn languages formally taught in school because my goals were always to do well on the assignments, assessments, and to communicate in class. Yet, with the languages I tried pursuing on my own, my mentality going in was always "i'm going to learn this language" and that proved to be unsuccessful. That is why I want to carefully consider my schedule and the amount of time/effort I can realistically spend on learning Korean without burning out or quitting midway. Though I also know that I am overly ambitious in the beginning so I will also have to heavily reflect throughout the first few weeks so I can adapt my schedule as needed to fit the speed I actually end up going at. I know it will be trial and error so I want to only plan out my first few weeks and then go from there once I've examined what worked and what didn't.  

I began learning my second language when I was 5 years old and enrolled into kindergarten. It was my first exposure to the English language both spoken and written. There was little effort required to learn English because I was surrounded by students and teachers conversing in English, English music, and English cartoons/tv shows. However, once I got completely immersed in English, I forgot how to speak Korean, my first language, because I wasn’t practicing or exposed to it enough. 

I never attempted to relearn Korean but eventually tried learning other languages. I realized how hard learning a language was when I took my first Spanish class in high school. I found it difficult for the grammar rules and conjugations to stick in my head just by looking at the charts that were provided. I disliked how unfamiliar the words looked despite being written in letters from the familiar alphabet. I further disliked learning ancient Greek (another high school class) because the unfamiliar letters made me feel like I was being left out in a secret conversation written in undecipherable code. When we had to read Greek text, I often stared at the words until my eyes lost focus because I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything. 

Both this experience and the survey about learning styles told me that I was not a visual learner, but an auditory learner. I only really started to catch on to Spanish when I took my first AP class and the teacher didn’t allow us to use English at all. Since I was constantly hearing and speaking in Spanish, I became used to composing full sentences and understanding others. I found catchy songs like the Spanish conjugations songs to be especially helpful in learning the flow of Spanish sentences, and the greek alphabet song helped me match the sound to the symbol. Once I continued to practice hearing and speaking the languages, I really enjoyed going to class to learn more in-depth concepts and reach a conversational level. 

Even though I didn’t continue to take those classes, I am still able to speak, read, and understand some Spanish and ancient Greek at a basic level. I am planning on learning Korean through the SDLC 110 course so I am hoping that when I learn Korean through the course, I will practice enough to not forget it once the semester ends. The multiple intelligences survey revealed my top three intelligences are social, self, and language. According to these, activities such as reading aloud, listening to tapes, engaging in interviews, and reflecting on learning suit my learning styles. I can incorporate these into my future language learning by reading Korean texts aloud, listening to Korean dialogue, having question-and-answer interviews with a native speaker in Korean, and reflecting on the day's work by keeping a daily reflection journal. Since I’ve never tried the interview and journal activities, I think they will further expand my language learning capabilities and allow me to explore more interesting and fun ways to learn.