100 Days of Spanish

 This week was pretty good concerning my Spanish occupation. I managed to get in five lessons, and I read a few comic books in Spanish. I am getting pretty burnt out again with Duolingo though. Every time I look at the Duolingo app I just get feelings of boredom and I instantly want to go do something else. I'll keep trying to get my one lesson per day goal, but I think I'll try to put more emphasis on other learning resources such as Spanish Youtube channels and comics. In the Ennevor reading we did this week, there was a section on how ordinary activities of daily living can be experienced as triumphs, adventures, and even heroic. That's definitely how I feel about learning Spanish. Each story in fiction has a conflict, and a protagonist who rises to meet the problems. I often see myself as the hero of my story when I finally figure out verb conjugations, or tricky word order. There are loads of struggles for each new facet of the language that I have to learn, and each o...

I have been learning a lot with my Spanish occupation, but there are some hiccups here and there. For one thing, when stating preference in Spanish is a little confusing. In English you would say, I like to play the piano. But in Spanish you would say "A mi me gusta tocar el piano." Which is a little bit like saying, "to me I like to play the piano." That sentence isn't too bad, but then when you're talking about someone else, it gets more complicated. Anyway, I need to search up a video that goes over those rules instead of banging my head on the wall, trying to read the language tips. Other than that, Spanish has been really fun and I've managed to get five out of seven days practice in. In the article by Deci and Ryan, they go over the distinction between autonomous and controlled motivation. As in all things, this occupation is on a spectrum between the two opposites. Even if my grades didn't depend on it, I would still have the autonomous motiva...

 The lessons on this unit have been way easier! It was a breath of fresh air honestly. I was definitely able to achieve some flow this last week. I managed to complete a whopping twenty lessons and I'm well on my way to reaching the past tense unit. When the lessons are this easy I feel like I'm actually making progress and so I can't wait to do another lesson. One of the factors of boredom we learned about was overstimulation. When there's too many new words in a lesson I would say that it's a case of overstimulation and I find myself bored with it. Especially when I try the lesson three times and fail each attempt.  The song we were asked to listen to appears to be about an introverted fellow who is never bored at home. Weather he's just watching TV or literally just staring at a wall, he's content. It's when he's forced to be outside that he's feeling out of place. To quote the song, he feels that he's unaccustomed to the sun and his shoes...

Hitting my language goals was pretty rough this week. I came down with a head cold that just wouldn't let up. That made finding the motivation impossible to concentrate on language drills and translations. So, most of the work got done early in the week from before I was sick. I got only four lessons done out of the goal of seven, so just over half of my goal. I should be learning how to conjugate in the past tense soon, so I am very excited for the upcoming lessons this week. In the Cantor and Sanderson reading, there was a lot of talk concerning resources in occupation. The presence of certain resources allow for participation in desired goals, as well as the likelihood of goal adherence. My greatest resource in this occupation for instance is Duolingo. The Duolingo program is incredibly fun and has an aesthetic interface that makes it pleasant to use. If Duolingo were not free, there are very few other free services of the same quality and I would likely not be able to continue ...

       Spanish went super well this week! I managed to do just one lesson every day like I had planned and I managed to finish unit 2. I think I will keep going at this pace, but I'll have to rework the math to see when exactly I'll finish the entire Duolingo Spanish tree. I'm really looking forward to getting into the past tense lessons that are coming up in this unit and I'd like to start looking for new ways to take in more Spanish media.      Considering my new occupation in terms of identity formation, I think that the goal setting section in the reading described my situation perfectly. Our identities are built from our actions and choices. Goal setting is a type of intentional identity construction. We purposely imagine a future self in our minds that we aspire to be. In a few more months, weather I have succeeded or failed though, this attempt at learning Spanish will be assimilated into my life story. It will either be the time I knuckled down...

    Ok so maybe my fifteen lesson goal from last week was asking a bit too much. I only got five lessons done. My plan to schedule in half an hour block every day worked well. I completed my half hour practice four out of the seven days. Despite that success, the lessons have gotten harder as I've moved forward, and so each one has been taking more time. So, moving forward, I will try to get seven lessons done each week. One for every day of the week is a much smaller, much more manageable goal.     During our reading last week, we learned about Dweck's entity and incremental theory. I think some skills that I have the entity theory applied to are singing, swimming, and remembering directions. Remembering directions is the worst culprit because it's been a problem I've had for so long, it's hard to believe that I can get better at it. I've honestly really really tried to get better, but it just hasn't happened for me.  Some skills that I apply the increment...