Paper-Trail For Spanish Language Learning Project - Relating To "Teaching Spanish"
Paper-trail -
Initial Start Date - ( 16/Nov/ 2016) -I set up the section of this website to make the results I found available, and to lay the groundwork for the plug-in being available for others, at least in conceptual form. It should at least work for me, but based on what emerges, others should bedefit from my effort.
J.B. Phillips (?) said that a plugged outlet is one of the quickest ways to bog down in any learning endeavor. So I started with an outlet potentially bigger than any input I could generate...and a learning project is, by definition, a massive uptake of material.
My basic operating principle is "share everything, and give back into the system as much as possible, vs. be just a taker.
(Dec/18/16) - I did poems on each week at Sp. Church and reflected on some aspect of it.
I made one poem about the future tense and asked about its use in Spanish (Ogden's trick) and got a spelling item corrected
Very positive reaction to the teaching inversion..."awareness" stage of change at least...so play with the concept. It was grasped fast and viewed as humorous.
Mar 3/17 - I have been working on a couple of tools for language learning and find that for me that is a great way to indirectly learn a lot about the language. One is a spreadsheet based on Ogden and Loom of Language. Sharing the insights I have gotten with people makes a great conversation filler as most people have had bad experiences with language and only vaguely are aware of the resources, but have little idea how to tap into them. A relative through my son's connection was great to chat with and she had wide experience in Spanish French English and Portuguese and operates as a translator and interpreter. Addressing the politics of teaching and learning has been another interesting conversation piece as most people have fairly strong experiences in this area....and grasp my concept of teaching someone who knows the language immediately, as it cuts through the politics and power plays of the field.
I find it interesting that one has to be certified to teach a language for some purposes,but nobody is tapping into the auto-didactic turbo-boosting effect of having students teach the teacher...and yet the cutbacks to formal courses continues...
(25Mar/2017) With cutbacks of government funding for EAL programs at the local community college, I have been able to chat with some affected students through my church connections. I was able to suggest one student needing medical terminology equivalents to Spanish term she had learned, start from the English end and work backwards to Spanish. I checked on the net and found a book doing exactly that and sent the URL to her. i also found out that it had been taught in English by a (now deceased) professor in a matter of days with a high success rate, but showing students how the terms were developed in order to facilitate international communication in he medical field, so once they understood the system, they could actually "construct" needed words...rather than memorize the terms. I offered to try to help her make contact with some nursing students why had made the journey ahead of her.
(3 Apr/2017)The other day I showed a woman the old system for diagramming sentences and my 5 colored markers to introduce the substrata layer of language processing. I also mentioned the stuff I was now just becoming aware of, the stress vs syllable based timing systems of the language families. It was done using a print out of a hymn I had heard at the service in both Spanish and English. It was good to have to put it into words.
(July7/2018) I wrapped up the tool-making process as Jamie had gotten his language up to the point he passed his driver's license in Spanish. There has been a process of re-evaluation of purpose, and objective at this point. The issue of "If you don't want to speak with folks who use that language, (and/or access their resources) then don't bother learning the language" re-emerges.
At a minimum, the project has re-configured into a potential learning process for me, and therefore a question of whether to proceed. I did a review of "Synergy Spanish" lessons 1-8, and an update of this paper-trail in the meantime.
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