The adventurous club’s learning style motto is “learn on the job” or “learn as you go.” If you got this result in our “What’s your language learning style?” quiz, maybe you're the most interested in speaking like a native, or interacting with others as quickly as possible.
You learn through connecting with others; it's also what drives you to learn a new language! Spending most of your time with speaking and writing practice makes you feel alive, but remember to build on your reading and writing skills from time to time.
To learn more about how this relates to your unique learning style, keep reading!
Quick Facts:
1.) You want to create spaces and learning times that allow you to be fully immersed in the language versus relying on direct instruction or translation.
2.) It might not matter to you to be correct from the beginning, as you will focus on creating an instinct for the language.
3.) You want to pick up the language as you go along, being guided by trial and error so that you can maximize your output first.
Overview:
Generally, this learning style focuses less on grammar memorization and more on practicing natural sentences from day 1. You focus more on pronunciation, personality, and understanding nuanced conversations.
Maybe textbooks and flashcards aren’t as appealing to you as resources that allow you to interact with native speakers. Finding language partners or language exchange platforms will be crucial to your study plan.
Reading and writing drills could get repetitive and boring for you. Using real materials, like songs, vlogs, recipes, spoken reviews of your favorite things with captions, or social media captions, could help you build up your reading and writing skills with resources that will help you reach your goals.
Activity Suggestions:
Try to include some of these activities in your study plan:
1.) Find apps and/or resources that connect your language’s audio with images.
2.) Find and study natural sentences from short and interesting videos. Practice their pronunciation and write down sentences that you think are useful for you.
3.) Check your progress with native speakers or language tutors regularly.
4.) Listen to podcasts regularly.
5.) Study song lyrics for pronunciation and getting a feel for the general gist of the song’s plot. Bonus: Space out how often you revisit the song lyrics to see if you can understand more words than you did before!
6.) Follow instructional videos in your language. For example, follow a video on cooking, workouts, dancing, or DIY projects.
7.) Practice tongue twisters at least once a week as a warm up . This could be a great warm up for your sessions!
8.) Find some jokes or common expressions. This is just to add personality to your language skills.
9.) Read a comic book or picture book. This is good for providing context for new words and concepts.
10.) Write shopping lists and to-do lists in both English and your target language.
11.) Write imaginary short postcards to friends and family.
12.) Record yourself reading a short text or talking about a short prompt.
13.) Write short journal entries at least once a month.
14.) Organize the vocab and grammar that you learned on paper at least once a month.
15.) Create a script with the phrases and vocabulary you learned at least once a month.
Pro tip: Pair this with your results from our other quizzes to help set more specific goals, such as how often a week/month you should do study sessions!
Concerns:
Focusing heavily on creating an instinct for the language you’re studying has one major drawback: if you’re not careful, it could limit your reading and writing development. Even if these skills aren’t your priority, it would be good to sprinkle in some more traditional study sessions in your plan to solidify what you know and what you need to work on next.
Recommended minimum: Incorporate structured grammar/vocabulary sessions biweekly (ex: flashcard session for grammar points and topic-based vocabulary, rewriting notes, doing a journal entry, etc.).
More about the Direct and Audio-Lingual Methods:
The direct method (or “natural method”) focuses on 100% use of one’s target language without focusing on grammar rules right away. You probably prefer to avoid your native language during your study sessions. This method believes that when you don’t focus on memorizing grammar in the beginning, you can hone in on your listening skills, pronunciation, and getting the general points of conversations. Overall, the direct method works on building language intuition, learning as you go with the resources you have with limited focus on structure.
The audio-lingual method (or “army method”) is all about repeating and perfecting natural sentences, phrases, and pronunciation. Again, this focuses on learning through experiencing more than through structured, grammar-based learning.
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And that's it!! Check out our blog posts to learn even more about the other learning styles!!
Psssssst!!!
Need more? Check out our resources for PDFs, resource instructions, and a sneak peak of the content in our Spade Language Playing Cards!
Ok, now it's really done! Happy learning!
Study like a diamond ♢ Practice like a club ♣ Vibe like a heart ♡ Speak like a spade ♠
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