Everything has been going well with my learning plan. I think that I could do better regarding switching up my way of learning. In my plan I included more games and worksheets but in reality, I have been sticking to more flashcards, listening practice, and watching videos/shows. My work with Emily has been going quite well. We learned the Hangul alphabet which was one of my main goals. Because I learned the alphabet, I am able to sound out words and basic sentences. Along with that I am learning the basic grammar rules which was another goal of mine. I have a grammar worksheet that was given to me by Emily for practice. I think it will be helpful if I create more of those worksheets for myself for extra practice. Another piece that I recently added was a Korean learner’s book along with a comic book in Korean. The Korean learning book is like the Integrated Korean Beginning 1 book that I was originally going to use so in that way my plan has slightly shifted.
I really enjoyed talking about the International Phonetics Alphabet and learning about all the different sounds and how some sounds will show up in some languages but not all languages. Learning about this was helpful for me to better understand Korean and the difference in the tenses of some of the letters. I have also used what I have learned in my daily life outside of just Korean. Sometimes I will hear different pronunciations of some words and in the past I would have never realized it but now I pick up on the fact that sometimes I am using a completely different sound in the phonetic alphabet than a friend of mine might use. Another helpful piece has been talking about how culture wraps into the language itself. There are so many mannerisms that we have in America that are so normalized to us but in other countries they are not normalized. For example, in the USA eye contact is very important and it shows a sense of respect for the person that you are talking to but in Korea it is the opposite. People are told not to make eye contact with their elders because it can be seen as disrespectful. When talking about culture in class and through the readings, I feel like I have learned so much and am able to connect with the language and culture better.
We are starting to now get into grammar which has been both difficult and interesting to me. Growing up my public school did not give much time to grammar so I now know the basics but in some ways I think I might be behind. Now that we are diving into morphology I am learning not only about the Korean language but I am also learning so much more about the english language. It makes me realize that if I tried to teach english to a new learner, I might have to do some learning on my own before teaching them. I am really glad I am learning about grammar now because it will help both my own english and my Korean learning.
To continue to improve my communicative competence I think that I just need to continue to practice and keep working with Emily on my skills. I should also start to push myself to develop more sentences on my own both on paper and through speech. If I was actually immersed in the culture and had people speaking the language around me, it would be much easier but obviously I cannot be immersed right now while I am at school. The key is to just continue practicing every part of the language and see small improvements in my skills.
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