January 2024 – Zach Nenson's ePortfolio

Hola Mis Amigos (Hello My Friends)

This week in my journey to learning Spanish, I have continued to use the app Duolingo. As stated last week, this app is great for learning vocabulary, however in my opinion is not great for sentence structure or for one day being able to speak fluently. The application teaches non-practical phrases. For example, I now know how to say, “Where is the library” and “The cat drinks milk.” As you can see, these aren’t everyday phrases that a beginner of the language would say on a regular basis.

In addition to using Duolingo, I also incorporated the app Babbel into my repertoire. When it comes to practical conversations and phrases, Babbel is the opposite of Duolingo. The app emphasizes real-life situations, aiming to get learners speaking the language quickly. Phrases such as, “Where do you work?’ and “How old are you?” As you can see, phrases that you could potentially ask someone while meeting someone for the first time.

Babbel vs. Duolingo

The other thing that Babbel does that Duolingo does not is focus on verb conjugation and explaining grammar rules to improve sentence structure. This is exactly what I have been looking for in an app to improve my learning. I strongly feel that if I would continue to use this app on a regular basis, it would greatly improve my fluency in the language.

Now time to talk about the negatives of Babbel. I’m glad that I have some knowledge in the language prior to using it. The app does not overly prepare the user with basic vocabulary that Duolingo does. While the phrases are practical in everyday scenarios, the app is very fast paced, and a true beginner could get lost very easily. Lastly, to be a user of Babbel, you need to pay for a subscription. The prices vary for how long you pay for the subscription anywhere from $12 a month to $20 a month. I was able to sign up for a free trial period while experimenting with the app. As good as I found the app to be, being a fugal university student, I think I will be trying other apps out in the weeks to come.

Has anyone paid for a Babbel subscription? If so, was it worth it? Let me know and comment below.

The link below comes from the T.V. show called, “Community”. The main characters rap a short song in Spanish talking about libraries and moustaches, reminding me the odd words that Duolingo teaches their users. Enjoy!

Spanish Rap | Community (youtube.com)

Hasta luego (see you later)

Zach Nenson

Is Screen Time Good or Bad?

As a society, we are becoming more and more depend on technology. It could be from being on our laptops all day for work or from laying in bed until 2am scrolling on TikTok (which I assume is the problem for many). While technology can be a tool for many things, I believe that we are abusing our screen time in a negative way.

Personally, I am on my phone and laptop a little more than I would like to admit. I have a bad habit of just that, laying in bed until the late hours of night looking at meaningless content on social media. I mostly use Instagram and Snapchat. 99% of the time when I use these social media outlets, they are for leisure reasons and social interaction. The odd time I will be looking up informational video retaining on something I am trying to approve on.

TikTok

In regard to tools to assist with my academics and teaching, I tend to use technology quite a bit. This helps with organization, unit planning, resources for students and much more. I use many Google applications such as Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Google Docs. Theses are all resources that are user friendly for me and the students I teach. I have also recently started using different AI platforms to assist me in lesson and unit planning. When prompted correctly, I feel like this new technology can help teachers become more of an efficient teacher, freeing up more time to focus on individual students.

Overall, I feel like I could improve my screen time usage. I have no problem using technology to become more productive throughout the workday, however I could improve on my leisure time while using it. I don’t need to be staying up late just to be looking at Instagram reels. One way I could improve on this is by placing my phone in a different room than where I sleep. This would decrease the temptation when I am having troubles falling asleep.

Do you have any other suggestions? Let me know!

Until next time.

Zach Nenson

From Hola to Hablo

Welcome everyone!

Join me on my adventure as I dive into the world of learning Spanish.

Back in 2016, I spent roughly 5 months travelling through South America. Within that time, I traveled to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. I can honestly say this was the best time of my life. I was captivated by the beautiful culture in these Latin countries. This stemmed from how smooth and romantic the native language is, which is why I chose to learn Spanish through our semester in EDTC 300.

A photo of Machu Picchu taken by me in Peru.

As I did travel to Spanish speaking countries for 5 months, I did not learn as much Spanish as you would think, or that I was hoping for. As a solo traveler, I would often stay at popular hostels to meet other tourists from all around the world. As this was a great way to meet people, the default language we would always speak was English, hindering my learning of the native language. I would say I do know more than the average Joe but not as much as I would like to know. My vocabulary is decent, especially when it comes to a restaurant setting, as I needed to learn this quickly to be able to order food when I went out on my own. I also have a pretty strong understanding on how to conjugate verbs but could definitely improve on that area as well. Where I lack is forming fluent sentences. When I attempted to speak Spanish, most locals had an idea of what I was trying to say because I could piece together a few words, however I was unable to make them flow smoothly into a sentence. I also found that the pronunciation on many worlds could use some work.

A picture of me looking onto the city of Quito, Ecuador after hiking a volcano.

Throughout the last couple of years, I have used the app called Duolingo. As I have used this in the past, I don’t think I have ever been overly consistent while using it. Once again, I found this app was great for the vocabulary aspect but not great from sentence structure. Maybe as I get further into the app, this would change. I have also taken one Spanish class here at the University of Regina. Outside of that, I haven’t really explored any other resources to assist me in learning the language. Throughout this semester, I am hoping to not only become a more consistent user on Duolingo but am also eager to find other online resources that can assist in my learning. As of now, I am unsure in what resources I am going to explore but will keep you all posted in the up coming weeks! If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

Until next week, bye.