Learning strategies can be used in all areas of our lives, not just in a school context.
The first time I actually learned about learning strategies was when I was learning how to play sports. Coaches always talked about reflection without being too critical of yourself. Using SMART goals in sports helped me improve a lot.
After looking at these examples, take a moment to think about what next steps you would like to take in your language learning journey.
I think when you look at a task as a big blob of decisions it can be very overwhelming. Being specific about your goals and breaking it down bit by bit is the most important part of salving a problem.
Aware learning is when we have some familiarity and are aware of our thinking.
This is another thing that I struggle with. Awareness is the most important one of these in my opinion but the one people struggle the most with. It is easy to get caught up in the moment.
Every person has their own experiences and perspectives that affect how they complete tasks. It is important to identify our individual strengths, be aware of our weaknesses, and use this information to guide which strategies we try.
As someone who mostly uses the right side of my brain I am someone who would benefit a lot from metacognition. I always struggled with details and letting minor mistakes bring me down. Having that sort of reflection would help me refine my processes.
the pace of loss has accelerated in recent times far beyond historical trends
This is surprising because I would assume that language assimilation would happen mostly in the years where there is oppression of another culture. No to say that we don't have that now but in times of colonialism I would expect the number to be higher
The way heritage speakers use their heritage languages can look different from the way "native" speakers of the language use it,
This reminds me a lot of the spanglish I grew up around. A lot of my friends that grew up with latino parents don't speak back to their parents in spanish it's almost like a hybrid of both. I do this too inadvertently when talking to my grandparents when I stumble across a word I don't know.
Therefore, it is crucial to understand that minority languages are not necessarily just defined as the languages of a numerical minority but are rather languages subjected to the active process of minoritization
Minoritized languages should be focused on more in order to shift away from this power dynamic. One thing that was surprising is that even though english is a majoritized language barely anybody speaks it as their native language compared to the people that don't.
. Why is this?
Our way of eradicating their culture was digging it from the roots up. The invention of the carlisle schools and other forms of oppression were designed to erase their native language and culture at the risk of being beaten or tortured.
By being aware of the differences between high-context communication and low-context communication,
It is interesting to me the different strengths and weaknesses between the two. It makes sense to me how high-context languages might be able to communicate more effectively but it could be harder to learn for people who aren't native to it or trying to learn it for the first time. Low context languages are easier to learn but might lose some of that context that might help communicate.
Culture shock can be big or small.
I feel like I experienced culture shock on many different levels where I liked what I was learning about a different culture to a point where it was overwhelming. I think sometimes a lot of the culture shock I felt was feeling like an outsider and not being able to embrace those sorts of feelings.
In such languages, the use of the word “love” is replaced by actions,
This is interesting because often times people like to describe love as an authentic action more than just a noun. When you use it like a verb like this it almost changes the meaning of the word and makes it more authentic.
As culture is dynamic and ever-changing, so too is language.
I have noticed this even in my short life time. I never thought of language trends this way. I remember certain words and phrases being popular when I was a little kid that would be super outdated to say now. Even if I zoom in to my own group of friends I remember having little sayings that we would say to each other.
Lose your vocabulary
I feel like I would rather keep my vocabulary because without it I wouldn't really be able to communicate at all. If I had only vocabulary and not grammatical knowledge I would still be able to communicate it would just be very awkward.
Some common practice exercises used machines in language learning labs, rather than using practice with other people. These machines would allow you to listen to a sentence as spoken by a native speaker, and then record yourself speaking the same sentence.
For some reason I always learned better from a person rather than an app or machine. I learned the most language in my life subconsciously and had many issues with apps like duo lingo.
can we exploit this for educational purposes?
This reminds me of how teachers or parents teach little children who might not understand the meaning of simple words like cat. This is why children books use pictures and sounds so that they can associate them with a specific word.
You are able to use it effortlessly without thinking about its grammar patterns, for example.
Many music teachers I have had in the passed often refer to this type of knowledge and the importance of learning through repetition. The way you learn an instrument is basically the same as learning a language and I never thought of that before. The best way to learn an instrument is by playing and practicing with experts who are better than you are. Similarly when we learn language as kids there are expert language speakers all around us and our constant interactions with them is what makes us fluent.
based on your knowledge of body language or how greetings typically work.
This reminds me of some of the discussion we had in class about body cues and the various things that can be picked up from those slight changes. This also got me thinking about which one of these three learning theories applied to my life. I never reacted to reward and stimulus the same way I reacted to body language and cues.
This could be something like sports, music, art, food, or something completely different. Watching videos on these topics is great because it is something we love that involves auditory input in our target language.
Watching argentine club soccer games with my grandfather and hearing the announcers talk was one of the main things that helped me decode the type of spanish they spoke. The slang and different sayings they would say was one of the main thing that confused me when learning spanish, but by using the context of soccer which was a culture I was familiar with, I was able to use context to understand what they were saying.
Have you ever met a polyglot? Someone who speaks multiple languages? We may not often notice polyglots in the United States, however when going to other countries, suddenly we see more and more people speaking multiple languages. In fact, this is backed by numbers, as the United States sits at a bilingual population of around 20% compared to the 67% across Europe, 55% across Canada, and 25% across India (Byers-Heinlen et al
Many people in my family are polyglots because I feel like in every other place but here it is important for people to learn english for business and their careers in general. Many latinos I know forced themselves to learn english before coming here or at least tried to familiarize themselves with it because they know how much of an edge it would give them over others. Why isn't it this way for every language? Why are other people from other cultures that speak languages better than ours forced to learn english?
Many of us are used to measuring our success by how well we passed those tests.
In my experience many people equate their intelligence to the letter grades they get in certain classes. This is a bad way to look at learning because like the text says learning things is an imperfect process. In my personal experience I have learned the most when I was forced to fail over and over again. Just because you get a bad grade in a class doesn't mean you are forever bad at that subject.
Growth and Fixed Mindsets
This is something that was always super clear to me but so hard to do at the same time. Even though most people know it is better to approach learning this way, it is very much easier said than done. Like the text says many people confine themselves by thinking they are bad at certain things and people who struggle with negative self talk might run in to this issue a lot.