Language Learning Challenge Week 6 (Revision of Tenses Covered)
Week 6 Summary
For the Final Week of the Language Learning Challenge I began with writing out 25 sentences using all tenses covered. (5 Sentences for each tense)
I then completed a Lingolia quiz for each tense.
Week 6 Reflection
This week was a challenging one yet again, the assessments never stop and like everybody I'm a tad stressed, however the Language Learning Challenge was still completed, just with the added dimension of stress, just to make it exciting. This week was slightly different in that I did not need to begin with a French tense definition, this was for the reason that I'm using the final week as a period for consolidation, therefore I began with writing out 25 sentences using all tenses covered during the LLC. I most definitely experienced an improvement in my comprehension of the tenses generally, especially the tenses covered in the first few weeks as I had the opportunity to revise them more often. This is both a success and a shortcoming for my LLC, on one hand it was a success because putting those tenses first was intentional as I thought they were what I most needed to work on and because of this extra focus there was improvement. The shortcoming is that some tenses weren't covered as much, they were still revised at least twice but in an ideal world there would be more revision.
As mentioned in the summary, after I completed the sentence writing task, I completed 5 Lingolia quizzes to evaluate knowledge as well as improvement, here are the results:
|
Tense
|
Score 1
|
Score 2
|
|
Passé Compose
|
9/15
|
10/15
|
|
L’imparfait
|
9/15
|
14/15
|
|
Conditionnel
|
8/15
|
15/15
|
|
Futur Simple
|
7/15
|
12/15
|
|
Futur Proche
|
15/15
|
15/15
|
All results were either improved or maintained, validating the efficacy of my Language Learning Challenge to a degree. I will now discuss the six components of my Language Learning Challenge Proposal.
My Challenge
I personally struggled with learning French tenses and listening comprehension, my personal challenge was to improve these two essential components of language learning. This didn't change throughout the entirety of the LLC and I'm of the opinion that my LLC tackled this challenge more than adequately.
My Learning Goal
This did not change throughout the LLC, the learning goal remains to improve my ability to use the five French tenses mentioned as well as improve my listening comprehension to the point where I feel more comfortable in my intermediate French level class. The Learning goal was certainly met, I have both improved my understanding of the French tenses (As can be seen in the results above) and my listening comprehension, the listening comprehension is a bit more difficult to evaluate but I'm getting more confident in class and feel like my comprehension has improved.
My Learning Styles and Strategies
I have most definitely tailored my Language Learning Challenge to suit my learning styles, I am both a visual learner and a kinesthetic learner according to a quiz published by Warwick University. Therefore I have used platforms that require me to read and absorb information that way. I've also accommodated the kinesthetic aspect of my learning style by implementing periods for the LLC, after I've read an article or written a little bit of my blog I would get up and move around a bit and basically go over everything I had just done in my head.
As mentioned in a previous post I also completed a Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), the results indicated that I needed to work on managing my emotions and remembering more effectively. As predicted, these strategies were improved throughout the LLC via this blog for the managing of my emotions and the challenge itself for remembering more effectively.
Technologies
During the LLC I used a few more technologies than originally put forward, mostly because I found that I was easily bored and the critical attitude more successful language learning is motivation. I have used Lingolia, podcasts, forums, quiz sites, word, online dictionaries, a French pronunciation app and translation sites, forgive me if I've missed any. I would argue that all of which were useful for my Language Learning Challenge apart from the online forum (see previous blog post).
My Plan
In the original proposal I outlined how the first step of my plan was to research all the technologies I was going to use thoroughly and I did for the first few technologies used, however as the LLC was going on I became more preoccupied with the after effects of the technologies and less concerned with analyzing them beforehand. In the beginning my plan involved writing 5 sentences a week, using a different tense for each, as this didn't seem like enough, it then evolved to the following plan:
Week 3- 15 sentences, 5 passé compose, 5 l'imparfait, 5 conditionnel
Week 4- 20 sentences, 5 passé compose, 5 l'imparfait, 5 conditionnel, 5 futur simple
Week 5- 25 sentences, 5 passé compose, 5 l'imparfait, 5 conditionnel, 5 futur simple, 5 futur proche
Week 6- Repeat week 5 to reinforce
I feel that this plan was significantly more effective, it allowed me to revisit tenses previously covered each week, an affordance not granted by the previous plan.
My Evaluation
My main source of evaluation ended up being the Lingolia quizzes, all of which pointed to personal improvement regarding my understanding of French tenses. The other more subjective method of evaluation was measuring how comfortable I felt during my French class and in the end this also improved.
Overall I feel that my Language Learning Challenge was an effective use of my time, I have seen improvement in both my French tenses and listening comprehension.
This concludes the Language Learning Challenge.
