Diff Persp

Diff. Persp.

I used to be a foreign language instructor. I taught Chinese. It was relatively common to encounter students who did not practice good language learning skills. All sorts of reasons and conditions exist to explain this (not the least of which is there seems to be a horrible misconception that Chinese is impossibly hard to learn). At times, however, I found myself lost when good and great students failed to comprehend seemingly simple concepts. To gain some perspective, I signed up for Banjo lessons.

Maybe you will disagree, but I did find many interesting similarities between language and banjo study. Constant and consistent practice was one. And interaction was another. You can learn more from playing with people in an hour than you can in a week locked alone in your room.

That’s the background story. Now, while I am rusty both in Chinese and banjo picking, I am gaining skills in design and interactivity. To further my knowledge I recently signed up to experience an online course for myself. Already, the student perspective is illuminating. Being in a position where I am expected to learn material online with a group of online people all organized by an online person has provided some insights.

1. Discussions are connective. I really do feel a part of a group, and this is just the first week. Maybe I am lucky and have a communicative core, but the instructor does an incredible job at pointing to other posts to answer student questions. He also gives time for students to help other students. He encourages this and praises those who help.


2. What’s next is so obvious. There is no question about what needs to be done and when. Repetition of instruction is not intrusive. Or maybe I like it since the repetition is usually designed with a “remember:” It’s just one word, but it allows me to skip the section if I do in fact already remember.


3. Discussions are casual. I thought I might have some issues here. The instructor described the discussion area rather rigidly, but he was quick to praise humor. And he is familiar and not afraid or too cautious to use emoticons or SMS abbreviated text (lol, omg…)

I cannot recommend enough the idea of revisiting an old perspective: learning. You might just learn something.