I’m a visual learner, and can’t remember words unless I see them written down; I pick up colloquial grammar and expressions best from reading books and looking up words I don’t know. I almost always forget anything people try to teach me via conversation, so I have to stop people mid-sentence and say (in the target language) “Wait, can you spell that or write it down? I need to read a word to remember it,” or some variant.

My little brother is exactly the opposite; he has a hard time reading and writing fluently in a new language, but will mimic and join conversations in a snap. His language learning materials (TV shows, people) tend to be different from mine (books).

Out of curiosity, what program is this where students go abroad for a year? Sounds like a lot of fun.