The last thing I want to do for my starting Spanish booklet is give a paragraph or two of individual colour to some of the points I’m trying to make about visual learning versus aural learning.
What I’d really like to do would be to mention someone who came to us as a firm sceptic, convinced that they would always be a ‘visual learner’, and who has since discovered that as far as language acquisition goes, there really is a lot of value to focusing on the listening, even for confirmed visual learners.
If that describes you, and if you’d be willing to let me ask you a few questions and write a couple of paragraphs about you (mentioning you by first name only), then sing out!
Ww, thank you both very much, Sara, Helen - I’m literally just looking for a couple of paragraphs at this stage to ‘warm up’ the intro to the bit on learning styles - but now I’ve got a taste of the quality of people who’ve done visual->SSiW, I’m starting to wonder if doing something particularly about this would be interesting… so I may well be in touch about this again!
I cannot remember people’s names when I hear them, but if I see them
written, or write the name myself, I will remember.
I have a hard time processing first words spoken to me, which come
by surprise in English. I actually have a couple second delay in
processing them. This seems to translate into having a difficult
time processing most words spoken to me in a language I am
learning.
I have taught Koine in Bible College, and as far as that dead
language, was at the top of the class when in school. It was mostly
on paper, but my accents tend to be excellent, because that is
something I can process and mimic well.
I have found it easier to write song lyrics in Welsh than hold
conversations. O how stinking frustrating! when I am hanging out with
aural learners, who babble like locals.
I do not have a strong memory particularly in aural learning. I have
a hard time remembering the lyrics to my own songs. :-/ So, quick
access memorized vocabulary does not build easily for me.
Saying all that, I have gone through the southern courses 1-3, and am going through the 3rd course in the Northern lessons now. I came into SSiW after having traipsed through about 45 lessons in the Catchphrase lessons. I have found that I am beginning to get a hang of aural learning, and that it is helping my conversational skills. Even though I still feel like a buffoon around aural learners. If you want to Skype, G+Hangout, or otherwise chat - I’m game.
That sounds as though you’re building towards some pretty serious success there, Phil
Thank you so much for your offer - I will definitely be in touch when I find the time to do something that focuses more closely on this.
I’m just in the middle right now of doing a blog post which involves looking ahead to 2015, so I’m feeling a bit cautious about timescales, but it will certainly happen at some point!
