In high school, My teachers used many methods in their classes. Some of them would read from the textbook and have students answer problems from the book. They would assign projects (Research and personal). They would use games like Kahoot and Quizlet Live which encouraged a lot of competition I actually found helpful to engrain information into my head. Out of all of these methods reading and answering questions out of the textbook never held my interest. Although presentations were always nerve racking, I felt that they also helped my learning.

I found that while taking Spanish classes for much of my life, I often lost interest in the topics being taught, therefore not retaining the information. My teachers in the past would spend weeks, if not months, on a certain topic that I would never use in the majority of my conversations. For example, we spent about a month on the topic of clothing items while having never gone over simple conversational Spanish. I think that students are much more inclined to learn and remember topics when they will actually use it in the real world.

I think this may contribute to the reason why many people find it challenging to learn a language in a class setting. Personally, I also think that it is unlikely to become fluent strictly from a language class, without any social interactions. Although, in a language class, students have conversations with each other in that language, it doesn't feel natural since there is likely a prompt or guided by the class agenda. I have found more value and have learned more from my interactions with locals in Mexico than many of my Spanish classes in high school.

In my experience with both online language courses (ie. Doulingo) and my high school language classes, when I was tasked with memorizing translations I wouldn't retain anything. It was only when I would have to do "behaviorist tasks" such as putting the right Spanish translation into the blank, that I would retain the information. Similarly, memorizing Spanish conjugations would not have the same effect as using the right conjugation after reading the context.

I heard about polyglots before taking this class because I found the concept of knowing so many languages so interesting and I wondered how they even began learning. One method that I remember a polyglot using revolved around a dating app in another language (I remember the guy was trying to learn Russian). He would start with a simple intro sentence (ie. 'Hi, how are you?') that he translated and would wait for the other's response. He then had a separate chat going with another person and would take the response from the first person to continue a conversation with the second (and vice versa) to begin learning. I've always found that pretty fascinating.

I think that babies might learn language slightly faster than the vast majority of adults. Not because of any innate ability or biological reason, just the environment in which they learn. Society is much more patient and understanding with babies and children because it is more commonly accepted that they are in the learning process. Although this is not the case all the time, some people may get frustrated with adults who aren't communicating efficiently and promptly, which could lead the language learner to get discouraged. I think that encouragement and patience from others is an important foundation for learning a language.

I've noticed that within my friend group there is a lot of communication that occurs without speaking. You can tell a lot about what a person is trying to say from the movement of their hands to the movement of their eyes. Often times, when we both see something funny, for example, all we have to do is look at each other and we know exactly what the other is trying to say. Also, a lot can be communicated simply from facial expressions.

This is an idea that I found interesting even before taking this class. In the Spanish classes I've taken in high school, the learning process was never enjoyable because the goal of the class was just to do well on the tests. This mentality made me reluctant to speak Spanish outside of a class setting because I feared making a mistake. Even forgetting a conjugation would prevent me from trying at all. However, it's important to realize that even native speakers make mistakes all the time. Many native English speakers have terrible grammar but they are still considered fluent. Worrying about perfection in language is futile since there are also many variations in dialect as well.