My own experience learning Slovak

" I could gladly express from my experience that we teachers are constantly researchers and scientists; we are always observing our classroom, introducing some changes, evaluating and assessing our students and ourselves, and we are craftsmen modeling the people of the future. "    Maria Eugenia Guapacha

Developing cognitive skills requires addressing a variety of tasks    such as the metacognitive skill strategies used by learners, everyone has his own way to process information and reflect about his learning process. Solving - problem skills, not all the students develop the same strategies to get into a solution. Intelligence, it is demonstrated that some learners present higher levels of understanding and intelligence than others. Memory, association and connection seen as abilities to retain information. Interest and curiosity flow out from intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learning. Risk taking, it is an overriding impulse that helps students to learn and experiment emotions. And finally, the learning styles that are the varied ways students like and are more feasible for them to approach learning.

My own experience learning Slovak

 

Since I finished my B.A. program in foreign languages, I had not had the chance to learn a new language by my own. I had thought that learning more languages were not necessary for I speak three languages that I consider enough for me to communicate and use them as a cultural and professional tool. Nowadays that perspective has changed!

In the light of my Masters assignments and challenging new discoveries and learning, I was required to undertake a new learning experience, that one of learning Slovak language. I only had 15 days to try by myself some things of this foreign language.

Fifteen days passed very fast and I had to face a known and overwhelming experience in that session of the masters’ class. We had a Slovakian teacher just right in front of us speaking in Slovak almost for an hour. My mind and memories came back immediately 12 years ago when I received my first English class at the university with a teacher who did not stop speaking in English.  At school I always had a good performance in the English class and I considered myself as a good student in this subject, but where was everything that I had learnt at school and why was not I able to understand just a little thing of what the teacher said?

Now I can answer the question. One reason is that in that time I thought that I knew English because of the fact that I was able to read and somehow to write it but I had never been exposed to that language before, at this moment I know that to be competent and to master a language, it is not enough to read it and to understand it, but also to listen and to speak it.

Coming back to the Slovakian experience, although I did not feel the same frustration that I felt in the first class at the university, I had a strange feeling. I was really motivated because I had studied Slovak on line by myself (this time I knew that I had to foster the four skills and I had developed new strategies for learning a language) however I felt  a little bit “puzzled” because I did not understand a word of what she said. Some minutes later she started by asking basic information, I felt a relief because finally I could understand something, that was the information that I had been studying during those days. Those short minutes were exciting, but once she turned to another task, that excitement vanished. I started nodding and saying yes to everything she asked, similar to the first experience. I seemed too dumb trying to figure out what she meant to do.

The teacher tried to do her best to encourage us and to make us understand but all her efforts were not successful. We just pretended to understand, except at the moment of proving our understanding by following her commands. We, or at least me, guessed all the time. Despite of all the emotions that day, it was a nice practice.

Now, my intention within this article is to share the aspects and strategies involved in this experience.

CONTEXT OR SETTING

We all were English teachers, experts in understanding foreign languages learning. In my case I knew that that was the beginning of learning another language. The fact of being an English teacher helped me to understand that process; nevertheless, it did not mean to get all Slovakian speech because I had never had the chance to get exposed to authentic listening and speaking models. 

METHODS USED BY THE TEACHER

The teacher used Slovakian, her native language, all the time. She used different strategies to make herself be understood. She tried by all means that we could understand through TPR exercises, drawings on the board, miming, and overall interaction and use of language in context. I received a lot of input but, unfortunately, it was not comprehensible.

MY FEELINGS

I experienced a mixture of feelings: excitement, anxiety, happiness, frustration and so on. I was excited because it was the first time I was listening to a Slovakian native speaker and I enjoyed listening to that mysterious and exquisite language, its words, sounds, pronunciation, accent, rhythm, etc., also excitement because I wanted to show that I had been studying and practicing that language and I wanted to interact and share my scarce knowledge with others. I felt anxious when I did not understand any word different from the basic things I could learn by my own. And happiness because of the new experience and reflections related to the learning process with my students. We felt almost the same feelings they experience when learning English with us and when some of them are not good at languages.

INTERACTION

I was in an environment in which I felt comfortable; interacting with my classmates, we all had the same opportunities and advantages to learn. I was not shy or afraid of making mistakes because we all were under the same conditions. Maybe some of them with a little bit more practice than others, but no one had any disadvantage. The interaction was the clue to have an effective learning.

MY STRATEGIES

I am pleased to have learnt at least some personal information phrases, I can say hello and introduce myself in Slovak and I can prove it in all skills. As an English teacher I implemented varied strategies to start learning this language.

I took advantage of my good memory skills trying to remember the whole phrases and repeating them several times. I also used mnemonics by associating the pronunciation of words or phrases with some expressions in my native language, Spanish. I love studying grammar and practicing through exercises. Grammar helped me interpret the linguistic form and structures of Slovak and assisted me in writing exercises. Vocabulary was also a powerful tool, by increasing my lexicon I could form at least one sentence. Therefore I tried to learn as many words I could, related to personal information.

I also found an effective language online lesson that helped like, understand and learn this interesting language. This is the web site: https://sites.google.com/site/marekhlavac/slovak_lessons_beginner_overview

SOME CONCLUSIONS

Learning a foreign or second language requires discipline. The learner needs time to practice and go deeper into it, by learning and discovering cultural aspects besides of its structures. We also need to have a purpose or interest. In my case it was only an assignment and I did not have any other purpose to keep on learning, moreover I had no one to practice with, I am not planning to travel to that country, I have no chance to interact or to be exposed to it through radio stations or channels on TV.

Finally, that experience helped a lot to understand my students’ feelings and processes when learning English in the classroom. Not all of them are good at languages no matter all the efforts they make or I make. I understand that the starting point is difficult but they can go through with patient and having an effective learning and teaching process.

https://sites.google.com/site/marekhlavac/slovak_lessons_beginner_overview

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