### Prompt: Becoming a Lifelong Learner

Learning a language opens doors to a world of opportunity. To truly benefit from your studies, you need to do more than just complete assignments. You must set habits that connect you to Spanish and its cultures even beyond the classroom. Students who become lifelong learners of Spanish exhibit some basic characteristics and habits that you should develop if you want to maximize your experience learning Spanish.

Lifelong learners:

1. Have friends with whom they regularly converse in the target language.
(This could be friends in school, neighbors, or friends in the community.)

2. Regularly get information from target language sources.
(Newspapers, magazines, Internet Spanish-related news groups (with parent's approval), TV programs, radio, etc. that are produced by and for native speakers.)

3. Participate in activities of the target culture.
(Celebrating holidays, watching movies or plays of/in the target culture, preparing or eating dishes from the target culture, reading books or magazines from the target culture, etc.)

Someone who has developed these habits is on the way to becoming a lifelong learner. These types of habits reinforce a strong connection to the language and culture and develop a love and better understanding of that culture.

Think for a minute about the resources available. Do you have friends who are native Spanish speakers? Do you engage with Spanish-language media or cultural activities?