Final Thoughts

I enjoyed doing this project. I enjoyed recording and analyzing my own learning experience. I noticed many different aspects and points of views found in learning and teaching.

As a learner, I am happy with my progress. I realized that my weakness were NOT BEING ABLE: to learn on my own, to study on my own, and to assess my own progress. However, when there was no pressure of being graded, I was able to truthfully documenting my learning process.

I liked my own insights. I felt some of the ideas were quite unique given the backgrounds I had. I told the story of learning Japanese from a fluent Mandarin Chinese and English speaker's point of view. I analyzed the process from a cognitive scientist and linguistic point of view. I immersed in learning as a learner while occasionally approached and considered about learning as a teacher.

I witnessed the importance of have a complete and thorough lesson plan, as well as the effectiveness of drilling. I came across many aspects of feedback and multiple intelligence. These were just terms of ideas that we learned in class, but now I had a chance to get closer to them as a learner.

I also thought about motivations. It was such a magical and obscure concept. I thought about it over and over again. It was closely linked to my frustrations, that was my conclusion so far. However the process of discovery would not stop here. I want to keep thinking and search for better ways to motivate students.

In Chinese proverb, there was a story about an old man who lost a horse and then found two horses back. When he suffered from the loss, people felt sorry for him, but he told people not to, because loss might be a good thing. When the horse came back to him with another horse, people congratulated him for gaining, but he said it could be a bad thing. The story continued with his son riding on the new horse and broke a leg. In short, my point was just that I suffered from not having one Japanese teacher because my friend couldn't manage a time for me. However, I had unexpected gaining too. I was able to experience and compared different tutor/teaching style, as well as self-directed learning (term found from Oxford Brookes University's website).

I never considered myself as a studious student. I thought I would not be an autonomous learner (wiki) and that I was handicapped in autonomous learning. However, my goal in education is to help students become autonomous learners. Deep in my heart I've always had doubt in myself, for it seemed to be such an oxymoron, how can I be a dependent student myself yet want to teach students to be independent learners? Doing this project helped me understand more my strengths and weaknesses. It also helped me to see what I lack to become an autonomous learner. I felt that I may be one step closer to it now.