This week, I transitioned back to
formal language study. First, I attempted to review that which I did last
semester, confirming that what I build this semester has a solid foundation in
which to lie on. This primarily meant reviewing flashcards and practice
conversations/notes. Second, I investigated with the time-of-day in which I
study. Even though I think I anticipated selecting a similar time-of-day every
day to study, I found that wasn’t particularly feasible, because my schedule is
different day to day. In hindsight too, it might be best do change the
time-of-day, lest I begin to associate Kinyarwanda with morning, with lunch, or
with the period directly after reading, and inadvertently create a context in
which I interact with the language. Third, I’ve been experimenting with the
amount of studying I complete each day. Formerly, I tried to measure this with
the amount of work/studying I completed, but now I am trying to determine if
the amount of time dedicated to work/study is a better ruler. I fear not as
much work will be completed this way, but it’s an approach to make studying
more manageable and approachable. For instance, if I recognize that I only have
to complete at least an hour of studying per day, and within that, only twenty
minutes with flash cards and forty minutes of translation, it might make the
task a little less daunting. Finally, I also created a first draft of my
individualized study plan. I tried to make it a little more doable than in
years’ past, but I also left room for new, “un-planned” activities, which will
be determined as the semester progresses. The un-planned nature of it all might
ensure that my progress in Kinyarwanda does not become stagnate. This week, for
instance, I reviewed news sources in Kinyarwanda for articles on the Women’s
March. Even though it wasn’t in my ISP, I thought it might make my interactions
with the language less-structured and more natural.
One “challenge” that arose this
week, however, related to my intention to submit a proposal for a Kinyarwanda
language presentation at the World Languages Day. I think preparing for such a
lesson will be a project I can work on throughout the semester, and it will give
me a measurable purpose. When thinking about it, I realized that greetings and
introductions might be an effective and perhaps even fun lesson for the audience,
but I thought it might be too simple, not only something that has been “done”
before, but a presentation that does not show the full linguistic range of the
language. Accordingly, I then thought that discussing opposites might be interesting.
For example, I would provide students with a
list of vocabulary (e.g. igiti- tree, umwana- child, ikawa- coffee, ifanta-
soda, etc.), and then I would prompt them to identify each term as hot or cold,
short or tall, as appropriate. Due to noun classes and adjective agreement,
however, I fear this activity would grow too complicated within the
forty-minute time frame, particularly as these students aren't necessarily
familiar with Kinyarwanda, much less noun class and adjective agreement. I’d
like to think of a way to simplify this activity, and my first impulse was to
present nouns only from one noun class, but I don’t think that’s necessarily sustainable
either, because it also won’t provide a comprehensive ideas as to what the
language looks/sounds like. I suppose this is a challenge I’m still working on.
I’ve contacted B to ask him about it, but I haven’t heard back yet.
Also, this week, the students of
African 671: Multilanguage Seminar met, and we talked about more goal-oriented
approaches to our ISPs, our Final Self-Assessments, and our learning more
generally. When I review my ISP before submitting my second draft, I would like
to make sure that the goals I state are reflected in the activities I propose.
If they are not, and in some cases, they might not be, I would like to alter my
ISP. One of my classmates, S, made the observation that sometimes she picks
resources in which to engage based on their “convenience,” not to their actual helpfulness
to her study. Although I never thought about it in such terms, I have to admit
that I might be guilty of the same. Furthermore, I think I am often hesitant to
change a certain learning activity and/or approach, even if I recognize that it
is not working, because it was “part of the plan.” I’d like to give myself a
free pass to change my ISP now, but also to deviate from if it is not working
later. Of course, this might seem like a rather obvious course of action, but I
think, for others such as myself, it’s a little more difficult than is
necessary.
Relevant to the necessity of change,
I mentioned earlier that I left space in my ISP for new activities, as they
occur to me, by merely making the workloads lighter some weeks. Next week, I’d
like to try reviewing Kinyarwanda flash cards on the bus. This is an idea that
my other classmates have shared with me in the past, but I have never actually
done it myself. My time in the bus is always “wasted” and/or occupied with
thinking, checking my email obsessively, and making sure no one enters my
private space! If I could instead fill it with something more productive, I
think I would feel better about myself. Indeed, I often spend a minimum of
forty minutes on the bus per day (at least twenty minutes to Van Hise and
twenty minutes back home), and that could be used as valuable study time, not
as structured as other designated times and, therefore, hopefully better
integrated into my everyday activities. With that said, however, I don’t think
I want to consider this time as part of my one-hour-per-day minimum, so we’ll see
how that goes!
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