Aced the written, flunked the oral.
Mar. 5th, 2009 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadesfireI have a list of 27 "five things" suggestions from yesterdaym spanning 7 or 8 fandoms (depending on whether Jack counts as his own fandom or not - he does in my world :)). That's 135 things.
O.O
Y'all know I only have one brain, right? Anyway, I'm getting right on them, and should have a batch ready by the end of the day.
But there's something rather more random that's come to my attention over the last few months, and I get the feeling I'm not the only one.
One of my responsibilities from time to time is to open the safe and retrieve money for various nefarious purposes banking or counting. I have been told the safe combination at least eight times by three different people. I cannot remember it. At all. It's a date that has significance for people who've been here longer, but it doesn't mean anything to me, and I just cannot remember it, along with the necessary turns and twizzles that will actually open the safe door. What I need is for someone to write it down for me. I'm fairly sure that if I see the numbers written down, I'll find a way to remember them.
Considering I'm addicted to the radio (Radio 4 especially, whose tagline is 'intelligent speech'), it never ceases to amaze me how visually oriented I am. If I'm trying to learn something, I have to write it down. If I want to remember something, I have to write it down. The telephone is hard for me, not only because of the way my foot loves to live in my mouth, but because I can't see the other person. I can't judge their reactions and I find it hard to really hear them and listen properly unless I can see them. Podfic is one of my favourite things in the world, but I have to make a conscious effort to listen to it if I'm doing something else at the same time, even something as mindless as just walking home. Because my brain is too easily distracted by what I'm seeing and wanders off in that direction, and I end up having to rewind big chunks of it. If I'm doing something even more mindless while I'm listening (travelling by plane or bus, say), then I close my eyes and watch the pictures in my head. It's never just about the words - the words make a picture, and that's what I follow along with.
Anyone who's read my fic knows that my main focus is always the visual. My betas force me to put in the messy internal stuff, because otherwise they can't see what I can. They can't see the expressions on the characters' faces through the scene, and I'm constantly trying to catch that, to put into words what each look means. It often doesn't occur to me that other people can't see it, although I'm getting better at putting it in there on the first draft.
The visual-dependency has unexpected consequences. Another part of my job is to hand books out from a closed collection, which people normally request by saying the name of the book and author. Oh good grief, that part is hard for me. Really, really hard. If they show me their reading list, I can get it first time. If they just say it, I normally make them repeat it, then spell it for me. It doesn't help that I've got badly blocked ears at the moment, but even when I don't, my oral comprehension is terrible. I'm sure one girl this morning thought I was rudely correcting her punctuation, which I really wasn't, I was just trying to make sure I could remember it.
I'm not going anywhere with this, except to say that if you have a visually oriented person in your life/family/class, please bear in mind that they were genuinely listening when you told them to do that thing, but that they didn't remember because they didn't write it down. Ditto visual people - I sometimes forget to say things, because I've written them. One of my biggest bugbears as a student was lecturers who didn't hand out notes at the beginning of class, and I love it now when presenters give me their powerpoint outline. I know some people don't like to do it, on the basis that they want the audience to listen, not just read along or switch off, but when you have trouble remembering things when they're just said, it can make the class a nightmare.
I can learn things orally, but usually only if they're set to music. Even now, I remember the present tense of Ancient Greek verbs, because you can sing them to the tune of the Mexican Hat Song. But you know what? When I recite them, I get the mental image of a big old Sombrero lying in the sun. And the pictures are definitely better on the radio.
ETA: Having done some digging, visual learners are actually *more* of the population than aural learners (anywhere from 1/3-3/4 depending on which survey you believe) although those of us who are pretty much exclusively visual are more unusual. It's therefore even weirder that we expect people to remember things we just *tell* them to do.
Out of interest, people who know your learning styles, do you know your personality type too? I make no secret of my interest in the subject (this is me) and am kind of intrigued to see if there's any kind of correlation. (decent test here if you want one)
O.O
Y'all know I only have one brain, right? Anyway, I'm getting right on them, and should have a batch ready by the end of the day.
But there's something rather more random that's come to my attention over the last few months, and I get the feeling I'm not the only one.
One of my responsibilities from time to time is to open the safe and retrieve money for
Considering I'm addicted to the radio (Radio 4 especially, whose tagline is 'intelligent speech'), it never ceases to amaze me how visually oriented I am. If I'm trying to learn something, I have to write it down. If I want to remember something, I have to write it down. The telephone is hard for me, not only because of the way my foot loves to live in my mouth, but because I can't see the other person. I can't judge their reactions and I find it hard to really hear them and listen properly unless I can see them. Podfic is one of my favourite things in the world, but I have to make a conscious effort to listen to it if I'm doing something else at the same time, even something as mindless as just walking home. Because my brain is too easily distracted by what I'm seeing and wanders off in that direction, and I end up having to rewind big chunks of it. If I'm doing something even more mindless while I'm listening (travelling by plane or bus, say), then I close my eyes and watch the pictures in my head. It's never just about the words - the words make a picture, and that's what I follow along with.
Anyone who's read my fic knows that my main focus is always the visual. My betas force me to put in the messy internal stuff, because otherwise they can't see what I can. They can't see the expressions on the characters' faces through the scene, and I'm constantly trying to catch that, to put into words what each look means. It often doesn't occur to me that other people can't see it, although I'm getting better at putting it in there on the first draft.
The visual-dependency has unexpected consequences. Another part of my job is to hand books out from a closed collection, which people normally request by saying the name of the book and author. Oh good grief, that part is hard for me. Really, really hard. If they show me their reading list, I can get it first time. If they just say it, I normally make them repeat it, then spell it for me. It doesn't help that I've got badly blocked ears at the moment, but even when I don't, my oral comprehension is terrible. I'm sure one girl this morning thought I was rudely correcting her punctuation, which I really wasn't, I was just trying to make sure I could remember it.
I'm not going anywhere with this, except to say that if you have a visually oriented person in your life/family/class, please bear in mind that they were genuinely listening when you told them to do that thing, but that they didn't remember because they didn't write it down. Ditto visual people - I sometimes forget to say things, because I've written them. One of my biggest bugbears as a student was lecturers who didn't hand out notes at the beginning of class, and I love it now when presenters give me their powerpoint outline. I know some people don't like to do it, on the basis that they want the audience to listen, not just read along or switch off, but when you have trouble remembering things when they're just said, it can make the class a nightmare.
I can learn things orally, but usually only if they're set to music. Even now, I remember the present tense of Ancient Greek verbs, because you can sing them to the tune of the Mexican Hat Song. But you know what? When I recite them, I get the mental image of a big old Sombrero lying in the sun. And the pictures are definitely better on the radio.
ETA: Having done some digging, visual learners are actually *more* of the population than aural learners (anywhere from 1/3-3/4 depending on which survey you believe) although those of us who are pretty much exclusively visual are more unusual. It's therefore even weirder that we expect people to remember things we just *tell* them to do.
Out of interest, people who know your learning styles, do you know your personality type too? I make no secret of my interest in the subject (this is me) and am kind of intrigued to see if there's any kind of correlation. (decent test here if you want one)
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-09 10:52 pm (UTC)Ha! I used to take notes in an alphabet that I'd made up, for the same reason--it looked interesting. Now I take regular notes, only I also write down arguments and questions and sarcastic comments alongside.