A person’s learning history is made up of many factors, including good and bad experiences, long, hard work, happy and anxious moments. It has been influenced by encounters with different languages and cultures, by teachers and peers, assessments and feedback, various learning environments and learning systems. Remember that your beliefs about yourself as a learner and your learning shape your experiences. Your whole life history, its ups and downs, has played a role in how your history has turned out.
You bring this history with you to every new language-learning situation. It doesn’t necessarily directly explain your current situation, but reflecting on it and writing or discussing it may help you to become a better learner. It may help, for example, with any anxiety you may experience in language learning situations.
Critical reflection and, more importantly, positive visions about the future may help you get rid of some harmful attitudes or beliefs that are hindering your learning.
Student’s voices:
“I only studied English and Swedish at school”
“I’ve always relied on teachers’ evaluation”
“I’ve always enjoyed learning languages”
“School was about grammar and vocabulary
I’ve never thought of myself as a language learner”
“I have bad memories from language classes at school”
“I’ve had so little practice in actually using languages”
“We always used different languages at home”
“I have always had a lot of international friends.”
“It’s a long time since I studied languages and in those days there was hardly any talking done.”