For another class this week, I was working on my inquiry project about how to better motivate students to continue in their second language learning. As part of my research, I watched a TED Talk by Lýdia Machová called, The Secrets of Learning a New Language.
In her research for understanding why polyglots (a person that is fluent in many languages) are so successful in their language learning, she discovered two common learning strategies: each polyglot found a different learning process that was enjoyable for them, and each acknowledged the patience needed to learn a language. From this video, one of the strategies used by some polyglots as an entry point to learning a new language was to learn the 500 most used words of a language.
Therefore for this week, I aimed slightly below this tool and decided to try and memorize the 250 most used words in Spanish. The list was compiled into two lists: most common Spanish words and pronouns.
I first started by writing them all down on a sheet of paper and then covering the english translation with another sheet of paper (a method I picked up in highschool). While trying to memorize the vocab I also try to think of mental images so it’s not purely word association but also visual. I would say I have between a quarter to half of the list memorized. Only 125 more to go.
And finally, I have still yet to break my Duolingo streak! So major success there, for now.
Despedida!
