Week Six: Memorize, Mesmerize, and Memrise

            This week, I have finally begun constructing my own course on Memrise. In comparison to Quizlet, I found it a little more complicated to add words and phrases, but I eventually figured it out. One of my classmates, SA, has said that you can alter the way you are tested, but I definitely haven’t figured that out yet.

I was also intrigued that as I was submitting words in Kinyarwanda that Memrise produced suggestions of words that I could mean (in Kinyarwanda, as well). I’m not sure why that intrigues me, per se, but it is evidence that Memrise has a certain database of Kinyarwanda available. Whether it’s of its own creation or a reflection of what other users have submitted, I am not entirely sure.

Ideally, to save myself some time, I would like to be able to import components of other users’ courses into my own, but I have yet to figure out how to do that, and I wonder if I even can. I suppose, in theory, I could use two screens (i.e. my computer and my phone) in order to manually import words and phrases from other users’ courses, and the results would be the same. I guess now I have a task to complete this week!

This task, however, is one of many, as I still feel a little behind in regard to my ISP. I guess it’s an adjustment act though, isn’t it? In constructing my initial ISP, I had to decide what was most valuable to my language study and commit to it. Now, as I am following my ISP through, I am still determining what’s the most valuable for my language study by actual practice and, in turn, practicing it. Right now, I believe Memrise is helpful to me, but with that said, I would still like to expand upon my activities.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I really enjoy crafting lessons in Kinyarwanda for my language website, and I have been neglecting it recently. However, as it forces me to explain aspects of the language, as well as illustrate language use in examples, I would like to return to it. In addition, I have located the following resource to assist me in listening skills. Incidentally, it is also highly pertinent to my research:

http://www.av.cah.utexas.edu/index.php/Category:Videos

I hope to listen without looking at the English translation; however, as the English translation appears on the screen, I will either have to A.) Not watch the video and only listen (which places me at a slight disadvantage, as I won’t be able to watch the speaker’s lips move), or B.) train myself only to watch their lips move and not look at the English words on the screen. No matter what I decide, however, I am excited to interact with this resource.

Murakoze, kandi muramuke!