Discuss the subjects with which you had difficulty. What factors do you believe contributed to your difficulties? How have you dealt with them so they will not cause problems for you again? In what areas have you experienced the greatest improvement? What problem areas remain?
The subjects in which I have the most difficulty are my language subjects. Curious, since that the subject I excel at is English. The language subjects to which I am referring are courses such as Spanish, Navajo, French, Japanese and any other languages. I believe that I have so much difficulty with these courses is because I have a poor memory and my pronunciation is in desperate need of practice. I have tried to improve by using the languages in everyday life and asking questions many times. I have to give myself some credit; I have never given up on trying to learn.
In the new age of television and computers, some fear that human memory is slipping; I would have to say it is but not because of television or computers. In some cases, people just have bad memory. I know because I am one of them. I have tried to remember the order of the sentences in different languages, how words change when they are being congregated, and the words themselves. For some reason, the words and rules of the language take longer for me to remember. I also believe that pronunciation of the words that I do remember are off key. I once tried saying one of the Navajo Sacred Mountains in Navajo and came up with the private parts of the male gender. I was left blissfully unaware until the instructor took me to the side and informed me of my mistake. I believe it is not hard to guess that my embarrassment left me breathless.
I have tried many different ways of learning another language. I have tried using words in everyday life so that I may become more accustomed to them but it takes me so long to form the sentences that others just continue the conversation without me. I have also asked questions of the instructors and my fellow students. This leaves me not only embarrassed that I have to continue to ask them the same question more than once but also ashamed that I cannot make the meaning stick. More then anything, there is confusion and shame that something I cannot seem to learn other languages.
Despite the conflicting emotions, I still attempt to learn other languages. I still have the childish sentences and the faulty pronunciations. However, I encourage my self by saying that one must learn to crawl before they can walk. I know that if I keep trying, little by little I will grow in these other languages, just as I have grown in the English language.
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