Get Silly! some suggestions for language learning

Posted on September 5, 2007
Filed under language learning

This is a list of suggestions I gave to my 9/10 Chinese elective class. I’d love to hear what other things you would add to this list for students, or even for yourself as a language learner. What sort of advice do you regularly give your students?

Repeated and regular listening to the dialogues you are studying – you can focus on a sentence or two until you understand it completely and then move on to another one in the dialogue. You don’t have to do all at once.

Read, listen, read, listen, read, listen, try speaking, read, listen, read listen, try writing. Don’t rush into trying to produce the language yourself.

Make sure you understand the construction of the sentence as well as what it means, although you don’t have to understand all the complicated grammar terms. Look for patterns.

Flashcards – useful for testing yourself on words and/or characters

When studying Chinese,decide which characters you are going to learn to write and which ones you won’t worry about so much – you can practice characters a few different ways – writing them repeatedly (whiteboards, character grids), using the multimedia characters program, playdough, flashcards, matchsticks.

Try pronouncing individual words out loud. You can ‘over-do’ the pronunciation to emphasise the tones to help you remember them.

Get Silly – try making up silly mnemonics for words and characters. Put them into ridiculous sentences, make up rhymes or songs, anything that will help you remember what they mean. This is especially useful for those words that you always forget how to say, or write.

Record yourself record yourself record yourself. Excellent feedback!!! Record your pronunciation of single words or whole sentences. Record yourself talking about words – you could do your own recorded explanation of your vocabulary list.

Use the people around you – your classmates are learning the same language you are too. Ask them for help, ask them to test you, to assess you, to listen to your recordings and give you constructive feedback. Offer to do that for them. Remember that I am not your only resource. We’re all learning and know different things, so find out what your classmates know!

Have language learning goals and keep a language learning journal. Commit yourself to your language learning. You will need to practice. Keep a journal which lists your goals – you might aim to learn a certain list of words in a week or fortnight. A journal might help you to maintain regular study sessions. You can write about why you found something difficult and how you sorted it out – this could be a good reference later when you come across a similar problem. Record your successes as well as things that didn’t go so well. It’s all part of the learning curve. You will be required to do different assignments (sorry, challenges!) over the term so you might want to record how you will approach these. You can use a blog as your journal.

For some LOTE games and other non-ICT based lesson ideas check out these posts: The Polish Monkey King, Reading the Ri Bao (newspaper), Off to Market We Go!, Touchy Feely Language – Literally! and the LOTE Games page (which is under the Resources page).

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One Response to “Get Silly! some suggestions for language learning”

Lisa on September 6th, 2007 6:37 am

Hi! I’d add using PostIt notes or labels all over the place. It worked for me – I have vivid memories of exam time when I covered the bathroom walls with Spanish vocabulary and later when I started teaching, the kitchen by the sink, and on the toilet wall were used for French verb conjugations.

Also echo the efficacy of listening to others speaking – it familiarises you with the sounds and you understand more than you can say usually so it’s a good way of picking up vocabulary. Could be speaking or singing, or TV programmes – I’ve seen all work wonders! I just have to think about the 2 and 3 year olds that I have taught who know loads of Spanish before i start thanks to Dora the Explorer!!