My How and Why of language learning.

My experience is that a paid teacher in a class has failed to really teach me any foreign language. One-on-One works well for me but I just can't seem to pay attention in a class. Also I find that I don't do the homework because I know that I'm not going to be the only one who hasn't done it. Its just a matter of safety in numbers. With One-on-One I know I'm going to bear the brunt of my teachers displeasure and disappointment so I do the work. One of the other problems I find with a class is that it is rare that the information is targeted to me it is either something I already know or something beyond my understanding, therefore I find I get bored waiting for things that are relevant to me. This has made me come to the conclusion that teachers rarely teach you anything. In class if the topic is either to easy or to hard i tune out and start reading other parts of the text book. So it seems to me that I pay for the privilege of going to class and working by myself. I really don't know if I'm the only one who has this problem or not. If I cast my mind back over the years of learning from school to university it is the same with every subject. In maths my teacher would show us how to work through a question then assign homework. I would either have already known how to solve the problem or I wouldn't really understand it until I worked it out for myself. So even then essentially I was learning on my own.

To sum up the reason I don't do so well in class

1. I find little motivation in a group class.

2. I find that a class' content is rarely suited to my level

3. I find that even in a class I'm teaching myself.

With all this in mind I've come up with strategies for teaching myself and just using my teachers as people to answer my questions. That's my first real learn by your self thing ask questions! If your even slightly unsure ask someone Otherwise you can make incorrect assumptions.

That's the back story to my learning style the next post will start to outline my strategies for self learning including the way I use ChinesePod. I'd like to here comments about others learning style and if they have similar experiences in the education system.