A Summary of my Learning Experience

At the beginning of this journey I was at a toss up with what I wanted to learn. I debated between ASL and Spanish and I ended up choosing Spanish. I am very happy with my decision and I feel like I have found some great ways to learn using technology. I began not knowing how well I could learn a language without being in a class to learn it. I had some mixed feelings but I am now very pleased with it. I used a variety of online sources that have truly helped me learn some Spanish. Of course, I wasn’t able to memorize everything and I do plan to keep practicing it.

A recap of each week:

Week 1 – 

This week was my first one and I just discussed what I planned to learn and what order I planned to learn it in. I described started by learning the alphabet then numbers then words and phrases.

Week 2 – 

I began my learning experience this week by learning the alphabet in Spanish. For this, I used Google Images to help me find a chart of the alphabet to see it in both English and Spanish. Google Images was very useful for this because so many great options showed up. I also used Google Translate to help me pronounce the letters. I found this to not be so great because it went so fast and there isn’t an option to slow down the audio to hear the pronunciation clearer.

Week 3 – 

This week I began to learn numbers 1-10. I used YouTube as my source for learning. I found it to be a great resource. There was so many options to choose from and the one I chose was AMAZING! It went through it slowly and emphasized the pronunciation which is really what I needed.

Week 4 – 

I practiced numbers once again this week. For this time, I created a presentation using Canva Video to show my learning with numbers. I have used Canva before but that was just a regular PowerPoint presentation. I found Canva Video to be a lot more difficult. I was just confused because I didn’t know where to adjust the voiceover volume and I didn’t find that it explained things well. It would be good if at the beginning of creating one it showed where everything was to edit the video with.

Week 5 – 

This week I wanted to start learning some words. I used an app called Babbel on my phone. I found it to be super handy to have on my phone because whenever I had some down time I was able to go on it and get some learning done. This app was very useful and it was sort of a game like experience with guessing what the Spanish words were in English.

Week 6 –

This week I used TikTok. It is an app I love and am on quite a bit so I figured I’d use it for some learning as well. I just searched up learning Spanish and some great videos popped up. I like them because they are short videos so it doesn’t make me lose my attention span. I found an account that went through a lot of common words and said them slowly and emphasized pronunciation.

Week 7 – 

This week I used another app I love, Pinterest. It was great for getting documents of words to practice and seeing them in English and Spanish. However, I did need an audio tool to go along with it. I didn’t know how all the letters were pronounced completely so I needed an audio tool to help me pronounce them.

Week 8 –

This week I found a website called Duolingo. This was so much fun to use I absolutely LOVED it!! It was also great because it is free to use and I didn’t have to create an account. I found this to be the BEST resource because it was literally like playing a game and made the learning experience so fun!

Week 9 –

This week I found another website called Berlitz. It showed a lot of useful phrases but it didn’t have any audio with it which was a major downside. I need to hear and see something in order to learn it best.

Week 10 – 

This week I used YouTube again. I found it to be great the first time so I wanted to use it again. I found a different account than the first video and tried it out. It was very effective for helping me learn because it went slowly. I also liked how it said the word normally, then slowly, then gave me time to pronounce it then said it again. It is just a great set up for learning.

 

Overall, I found technology to be a great teacher. There are so many different kinds of resources to use to learn online. I feel like I learned quite a bit in this short time and I am happy with the progress I have made with both learning Spanish as well as learning to use technology to teach me. I am still interested in learning ASL and I think I will try to this summer by using online sources!