I ask this question because of the dramatic shift in my learning methodology over the last year.
Linguistics is a relatively easy subject to study since much of it is cut and dried. For my personal method of learning Japanese, I'm studying for a JLPT exam, I use an online resource that has the vocabulary syllabus for the previous exams. I learn a set of twenty five words every day from a set of homemade flash cards. On one side is the word and it's meaning, on the other side is the word written in Japanese. Now that I've become more familiar with the vocabulary I've stopped trying to compose sentences out of them and simply go through them word by word, although I would recommend using the words in sentences the first time you use them as it makes it more interesting.
One of the first things I do after I get up is to run through a set of flash cards, trying to remember how to write them in Japanese and if I can't I turn over the card and put it in a pile I come back to when I've finished and try again. Them I flip them all over and try to write down how the words are pronounced and what they mean. I repeat this about an hour later and then again sometime late in the day. One of the key elements is to make it easy. I don't pressure myself trying to come up with words I can't think of. The easier it is, the more fun and more effective learning is. Another key point is that I do a reasonable amount every day.
Studying a subject for up to one and a half hours at a time a couple of times a week is not as effective. Also the teachers seemed far more interested in pupils making notes and keeping their books neat than memorising the information. That's the whole point of going to classes: to learn. I test myself in a no pressure environment three times a day and try to make the tests as easy as possible. Save the stress for when you actually do an exam. You'll probably feel a lot more relaxed about it too. Teachers who bite pupils heads off for making trivial errors are bad teachers. If he classroom environment was more relaxed then pupils wouldn't think so much about behaving properly and think more about the subject the teachers are supposed to be teaching them. I've learned more about drawing from a few hours using a rather cartoony drawing book than I did in all my school art classes. Those who can do, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can teach. I never once received proper instruction on how to draw a person. Manga is an excellent way of learning to draw people's faces, the hardest part of them to capture, because it's so simple.
