Lesson #8

Once again, this week I have felt "stuck" in my language learning. I have tried to find resources to learn Yaqui verbs, yet I have come up with nothing more than how to use the past and future tenses. The most unfortunate part is that I do not know any verbs to make up sentences. Again, limited resources have stalled my learning.

I have continued to learn new vocabulary words- in themed groups. So far I have numbers, colors, emotions, subject pronouns, a few time expressions, kinship terms, and some weather terms. Flashcards were an interesting option for me, and frankly a strategy that I have never used before in any language learning endeavor. I think that my lack of resources- especially a textbook- has made me resort to new strategies for learning. Being that flashcards are the only way to test myself, I have been limited to learning only new vocabulary. I hope to soon have a dictionary that will aid my acquisition of verbs so that I can start testing out sentences!

Lesson: Adapt learning to your resources. As I said before, my resources are quite scarce, yet I am still able to continue learning my adapting my learning strategies to best suit my situation. That is, I adopted new (to me, at least) ways to learn and quiz myself. Without changing my approach to learning Yaqui, I would have been left with few opportunities to practice, and possibly a lowered motivation to learn/practice. Understanding your own learning situation is necessary to assess the strategies you are (or are not) using and how they are contributing to or hindering your acquisition. For the first time, I believe flashcards are actually helping my acquisition of Yaqui.