Creating Order

Learning Blog #5

Objective

To search out the applicable Learning Theories to help better explain my current experience in learning basic conversational French.  I decided to take a step back and gain a bigger picture of my development - what can I say, I'm a principle-based girl! After all, I need to learn how to apply theories to my learning as well as use learning theories to explain my challenges and successes.  

First, an Explanation...

Today is Friday and I am about to delete, that's right, DELETE my entire blog post that I thought I finished last night.  Wha???? Am I nuts?  Something was bugging me about my draft: the only thing I was doing was explaining what I did all week.  That's fine if this were a journal, but I don't want this to be a journal - I want to make sense out of this 8-week long exercise and APPLY learning theory.  

ITLS 6540 has been challenging and I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about learning!  So this morning I sucked it up and decided to use my textbooks and this really amazing website, http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/ (that I highly recommend you check out) to help construct a more solid schema of learning theory and how it applies to my current learning task. Note: these two sources as well as the material presented by Dr. Fields is the basis for the following information.

Attribution Theory 

As I attempt to learn something, it's very important for me to identify and offer myself explanations as to why I'm doing something and why or why not I'm achieving success.  This learning theory has a basic assumption: people like to attribute a cause for behavior.  Some of my causes for not just wanting to learn French, but also in not giving up by this point are an inner locus of control and controllable components.  I have been questioning how controllable (my ability vs. effort) this project has been.  I have decided I really can control this through my efforts (the reason I broke down and purchased a French Immersion Program from Costco).  It is very difficult to learn a new language - I often find myself not only applying the theory of tuning to my knowledge, but sometimes full on restructuring!   

Schema : Organizing and Relating Concepts

(A Great Use of Applying a Tool from Cognitive Load Theory)

Not only have I been actively organizing the knowledge I've gained this semester regarding Learning Theory into my own schemata (see graph), but I've been trying to create some new schemata for new French vocabulary (see Constructivism and Cognitive Load Theory below).

Applying Constructivism & Cognitive Load Theory (Bruner/Sweller)

Part of this theory is to encourage the discovery of principles through dialogue, inductive reasoning and from basing instruction on what the learner already knows.  I am actively constructing big ideas or principles of French language structure.  My original approach was to learn super basic vocabulary, much like a caveman would speak, so I could communicate at a base level.  I have to tune and restructure this model because it just isn't effective: there are too many nuances in the French language to make it so cut and dry (once it comes to conversation anyway). 

For example, there are many variations on descriptors like un, une, de, des, la, les etc (there are sooooo many more).  If I misuse these terms, conversational confusion may occur.  Easy example would be: un avion (an airplane) and une voiture (a car) OR une plage (a beach) and un lit (a bed).  I still don't understand when to use which descriptor, but my French-speaking nephew is helping.  

I'm especially noticing this theory in action with my French Number Schema formation.  Based on the Cognitive Load Theory, I'm trying to chunk number memorization to lessen my working memory load so that I may learn (through the creation of better schema) more efficiently.  Here is an attempt to explain the way I'm chunking to tune my existing schema of French numbers:

• Chunking worked great for learning numbers 1-100.
• So there are some cool patterns for memorizing all numbers en Francais.  The chunking goes like this:
• you don't have to memorize 17, 18, 19 or 70, 80, 90.  If you know that ...
• 7 = sept
• 8 = huit
• 9 = neuf ... then you can deduce that...
• 17 = dix (10) + sept
• 18 = dix-huit
• 19 = dix-neuf....and if you know that, then you can deduce...
• 70 = soixante (60) + dix
• 77 = soixante dix-sept
• 80 = quarante (40) + vingt (20) so...
• 88 = quarante vingt huit
• 99 = quarante vingt dix-neuf
• I know it sounds super complicated, but once I tuned into this pattern, I have been confident that I can blast out any number en Francais.  Basically, the only new vocabulary words (considering 100 different numbers) I have had to assimilate into my existing French Number Schema (I did have a schema based on my 8th grade French class) are:
• quarante (40), cinquante (50) soixante (60) and cent (100).  Every other number from 1-100 can be deduced (or inferred...not sure which term applies). 

• Restructuring took place this week due to a simple question:  How do I say "I am 40 years old OR my son is 15 years old" en Francais?
• Discovery: Google translate does not count as an "expert!"
• I've been relying too much on google translate.  It's taken me a bit of trial and error to notice there are so many nuances in the French language that a straight translation taken out of context has proven to be less effective and down right not correct!
• For example:  I wanted to learn the phrase I am 40 years old and My son is 15 years old (2 phrases I tried to learn while spending time in Haiti).  Google translate  gave me the following phrase (it's important to note that I typed in what I assumed would be the appropriate word for word translation...I am age of 40 years).
• Je suis age de quarante ans (I am age of 40 years).  That seemed pretty wordy to me so I thought I would check with my nephew who speaks French.  He said that no one would say it that way.  The correct way to say it is J'ai quarante ans (I have 40 years).  I learned that they say I have, not I am (a simple distinction, but it caused me to restructure my current idea of how to form sentences in French.
• With this new knowledge, I could deduce that the phrase My son is 15 years old translates to Mon fils a quinze ans instead of Mon fils est age de quinze ans.  I love experts!!

Applying the French Immersion Program to my Learning

This week, I have successfully passed the First Words, Numbers and Colors modules in my Instant Immersion learning software. I also made flash cards for the words I couldn't instantly recall and had my kids have been quizing me using the flash cards.  My 6 year old thought it was awesome to teach his own mother!

• Random thoughts on the software:

• An organized approach is more effective! Duh...
• Nice to have an organized program instead of relying on my own plan for learning French.  It has been very effective to have the program open at all times on my desktop - I can't escape it! Actually, I'm not trying to escape it, I just get so busy that a visual reminder has been quite beneficial.

• Doesn't have any diagnostic capabilities.  
• It would be nice if this program gave me a pre-test of sorts to determine my existing vocabulary.  This seems like a more efficient approach, although I will admit it feels good to know that my brain remembers some of the words from years ago.

• It tests recall and recognition of basic vocabulary.  
• In reality, I can't move on to basic phrases until my vocabulary improves.  
• This is an immersion program so I do appreciate the fact that they include all the French descriptors like whether to use un or une...or de, du or des and the list goes on.  This has been the trickiest part of trying to learn basic conversational French - so many of the words depend on female, male etc.  I like that this program is forcing me to learn the descriptor right along with the regular word. 
• Games: once the memory game exceeded 7 units, I was toast.  I actively tried to chunk the numbers to take the burden off my working memory.  ex:  looked for patterns in least to greatest, or  all the small numbers to the left.  This only helped a couple of times.  It didn't work very well because I was unable to see pattern most of the time and I didn't have time to make a pattern.  I would have to unpack and study in order to do that - it seemed completely random and happened so quickly that I was spending too much time trying to make sense of it and that took up some space in my working memory.