Learning Styles

From the several language classes I've taken in the class, I've noticed I am more of a learner who is willing to make mistakes, looking at a foreign language and noting similarities/differences to my own, listening to others and trying to to pay attention to meaning as much as possible. Along with these styles, I also use flash cards and attempt to connect intricate sentences on paper (when saying it aloud, I would get confused quite quickly in the beginning).

My learning styles haven't really hindered me. I recall when I was learning Japanese, at first when I retrieved a particular vocabulary word, the image of how it looked and what it meant would come to me in the form of an index card. Interestingly enough, it came to a point where I would think of a common word, like a "watch", for example, and I would utter it in unintentionally in Japanese. When I studied abroad in Japan, I tended to get headaches after long periods of deciphering what my native Japanese friends were saying (while listening to them, I focused on their vocabulary, syntax, body language and intonation and then translated it to English). I felt like my brain was being squeezed for juice like an orange and filling up at the same time with more oranges. After a weeks though, the headaches stopped.

I believe all kinds of affective, cognitive and metacognitive factors can influence teachers consciously or unconsciously. Whether they realize it or not, their primary goal of teaching may be because of of instrumental motivation (to have a paying job), how they process information can be different from how their students do so and the traces of beliefs that have been instilled by them by previous (language) teachers may influence their behavior in the classroom.

If a teacher is anxious or nervous while teaching in front of the class, this may affect the authority they project to their students which, in turn, causes the students to doubt their teacher's "teaching" ability. A teacher with said behavior may detach himself from the students, leave them isolated in group work and busy himself by recollecting his compsure. (I've experience this from the student's point of view).

Side note: I just wanted to make a note of what occured while grading online posts this week for ENC 1101 - Writing and Rhetoric. I had a student, among several others who share the same view, concerned about her writing in English because English is her second language. She is having trouble with placement and use of prepostions as well as overall sentence structure. On top of that, she did not like reading and had confessed to to have more of a critical (scientific method) type of mind.

In order to help, I suggested reading books that contain side by side translations of English and Spanish. Specifically, I recommended reading the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Even though she'd rather read a genre more akin to a scientific journal, I told her it may be beneficial to dissect how syntax, grammar and meaning is changed, if at all, from Spanish to English and vice versa. I believe this may help her in having a better grasp of how English works.