100 Days of Spanish

This semester has been pretty wild, and I'm super happy with how consistent I have been with my spanish learning. Now that we're rounding the end of the class, I've needed to set new goals for my Spanish occupation. My first goal that I'd like to achieve is to continue my daily lessons next semester. But since all good goals have a time frame and an objective, I'll say that by June first next year, I want to read and understand The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein in Spanish.  I think I've definitely benefited from this activity because by making weekly blog posts on my Spanish learning, I've had at least five people talk to me about my progress all of witch also happen to speak some Spanish. In one of our readings by  Wilcock, he said that "doing + being, becoming, belonging = survival and health." I've certainly found that because of my occupation, I've found belonging with others who enjoy speaking Spanish, and my social health has benefited from i...

 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...