Formal or Informal Learning

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• Describe your own experience of learning a language or languages • • It usually takes place outside educational establishments; • It does not follow a specified curriculum and is not often professionally organized but rather originates accidentally, sporadically, in association with certain occasions, from changing practicalrequirements; • It is not necessarily planned pedagogically conscious, systematically according to subjects, test and qualification-oriented, but rather unconsciously incidental, holistically problem-related, and related to situation management and fitness for life; • It is experienced directly in its "natural" function of everyday life. • It is often spontaneous. I started learning German as a second language at the age of seven when I had three German classes a week at school. Starting from the fifth grade the frequency of learning rose to five times a week. My first experience of communication with a native speaker was at the age of ten, when I started writing letters to pen-pal in Germany. All I remember about the first four years of studying was fun, games and competitions, the teacher I liked a lot and an excitement from getting letters in that language from a real person living somewhere far away. Learning did not involve any considerable efforts until I turned eleven. I did not face a lot of biased approach in my learning experience. The only I can think of was connected to the teachers believe that literary German should be studied and used for speaking, translation and writing, whereas other dialects and accents that are out there were considered as a lower culture attribute. Our German teacher showed us cartoons in German, played association games with us, taught us new words by pronouncing the word, showing what is meant on the picture without giving a translation into English, and asked us to repeat after her.
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