Go back and watch the recording of your presentation of your learning plan on the class PanOpto collection on Blackboard. Comment briefly on how things are going. What has changed? How have you incorporated materials and insights from class into your efforts? Have discussions regarding language structures and learning strategies helped you to understand the target language and culture? If so, how?
Reflect on your language learning so far. How would you describe the relationship between language and culture? What do you need to do to improve your communicative competence? Based on the readings by H.D. Brown, what kinds of competence are emphasized in your plan?
Replies
I mentioned this in an earlier discussion post, but I've found that I've been using the workbook exercises and resources that my language partner has provided rather than the textbook I purchased. I went back and forth of whether or not to still do them as planned, but many of them don't make sense for me as they're seemingly written for conversation practice within a classroom setting. Still, I've been using the book as vocabulary and as stimuli for my writing. This is similar to my ditching of my plan to do a large amount of work with Duolingo. I love Duolingo for pattern recognition and casually engaging with a language, but in terms of intensive study, I found that I was getting bored with the slow pace.
While at the beginning of the semester, I was struggling to find artifacts, my language teacher has helped me to find TV shows and movies to watch, as well as information on current events in Indonesia. Her input has greatly helped me build out this part of my curriculum. Additionally, as the semester progressed, I used the Indonesian students I've been teaching English to as resources as well-- not only as ways to stay plugged into the culture, but also as conversation partners.
I initially planned a semester that was heady and highly academic, but I've watched it become more human. This has been beneficial in many ways, my academic writing in Bahasa Indonesia isn't where I want it to be, but I can send WhatsApp chats to my teman-teman (friends) in Indonesia with increasing fluency. I've been able to practice using both informal and formal registers, which is key to developing fluency. I've definitely emphasized sociolinguistic competence more than anything else, both through engaging with the registers and through my studying of language politics.
I can totally relate on the switch of plans as the semester progressed and not having the patience to go through the levels at such a slow speed on apps like duolingo. I also did not use one of my textbooks because its content just did not match with the flow of my meetings with my language partner and my primary learning resource. I think the resources native speakers provide us with to learn their language are so much more relevant and helpful than ones we seek on our own. It's so cool that you have reached a level where you are able to write academically. It is also incredibly impressive that you are actively engaging with native speakers and building that community!!!
Discussion post 7: Mar Buigues Martina
dicussion post 7 (november 5) .pdf
I definitely overestimated how fast I would be able to get through content and actually retain the knowledge long term. I have made my plan a lot less intense as the semester picked up and I was no longer able to sit down and go through more than 30 pages of content several times a week.
I have been building my sociolinguistic competences by keeping up with the skincare trends, celebrity gossip, and the tv shows to better understand pop cultural references that the people around my age will know. Since most of my interactions right now are with other students, I am focusing on creating a variety of possible connections. Aside from that, I find it very interesting to notice the differences and similarities among the students of my age group.
What has been my main struggle is that I am currently learning Russian simultaneously, am enrolled in a 300-level French class and speak Spanish on a daily basis. Due to my constant use of very distinct languages, it sometimes makes it a bit difficult to fully use only one language when I try to speak. I find myself accidentally saying something in the wrong language while practicing my Korean. Learning about derivational and inflectional morphemes has definitely helped me piece together the grammar of the Korean language and enhance my understanding of the language.
Wow, this post really resonated with me-- I too bit off more than I could chew. That's the cool thing about this class, though, there's room for evolving in your plans, and the high intrinsic motivation that we have for learning our languages keeps us on track.
I've also been thinking about managing multiple languages at once. I've noticed myself pro-dropping in Bahasa Indonesia since I've been speaking a lot of Spanish lately. I'm still trying to figure out how to keep my languages more separadas in meinem Kopf. :)
In my learning plan, I placed a big focus on improving my Korean speech and making it more relevant to my life. For example, I have been working with my language partner by discussing how our business classes are going, what we do in our free time, and how class registration went. These are conversations I always have at school so it makes the learning and vocabulary much more relevant. Something that has changed is the inclusion of concepts we learn in class into my learning plan. I am now learning IPA transcriptions and pronunciations of Korean words in order to improve my pronunciation. Since I am unused to the Korean phonetic inventory, I have started to practice saying sounds that don’t exist in English to sound more fluent. Learning about the Korean language’s unique language family situation and the history of how it was created also helped me understand more about how to go about learning it. The written character system is unlike any other, however, some words have Chinese and Japanese influences like how the word “cha” means “tea” in all three languages. I think in Korea’s case, language is very closely tied with culture. Korean schools still teach Hanja which is the traditional writing system to keep its rich history alive. Our discussion of some nations being more masculine or independent than others was also relevant because I could see it in Korean speech differences towards family, elders, strangers, and friends. Since I am surrounded by Korean much more now than I ever was, I have been seeing a big improvement in my speech skills.
To improve my communicative competence, I need to put a stronger focus on pragmatic competence. Since I am unable to live in and immerse myself in Korea itself, it is difficult to improve my sociolinguistic competence which probably comes naturally to native speakers. Illocutionary competence is in my learning plan by practicing Korean in different scenarios with different “characters” to practice sending and receiving communication in different contexts. I took Korean reading and writing classes when I was young so I have a base understanding of organizational competence concepts. This is why my learning plan focuses on pragmatic competence and I hope to include more sociolinguistic exercises as well.
I have not been as fast in my learning of the Korean language as I initially hoped. I have only learned recognizing syllables and am now onto limited vocabulary words. I have started watching an adult korean show outside of class, but I think that I will need to switch to a more learner friendly show like a kids’ show. I will also have to slow down my syllabus schedule to accommodate my current pace of learning. I have incorporated the earlier articles that addressed how to learn a language at one’s own pace so that I can best optimize my learning outside of the classroom style and gain a grasp of the language. I have also thought more about the sounds that the Korean language makes and how it compares to certain symbols in the IPA Chart and how certain sounds differ from the existing options. In my opinion, the discussions regarding language structure have not really improved my learning journey for the Korean language or its understanding of the culture. I have found it interesting though to think about how languages can evolve and differ from their neighbors. If I had a background of the neighboring languages like Chinese Mandarin or Japanese, I think that could potentially improve my learning. I could probably find cognates or similarities like in French or Spanish when compared to english. However, that could also confuse me since there are false cognates in languages similar to english. The in-class discussions have not helped me understand the culture itself.
I think that I need to improve on matching the written words to the english words. At my current state of learning, I can mostly identify the words if I say them outloud to myself. I need to be able to identify the Korean words themselves without having to think about the pronunciation. I should start to practice my korean more and go in depth with my lessons. Practicing on my own is something that I definitely need to increase the frequency of so I can learn faster and be able to recognize in real time.I should also practice more and watch Korean bilingual learning shows. I think that would help me organize and add to my current knowledge of korean. Regarding the competencies. I think that I need to focus on linguistics and sociolinguistics. Since I have no knowledge or background in Korean, I have to learn the different parts of the language to fully understand it and improve my usage. Sociolinguistics, or communicating with other native korean speakers would be very beneficial to my learning. I’d have to practice my communication in real time and that would be a great test for my skills at any level of my learning process.
I initially stated that I wanted to focus on contemporary Korean culture for Koreans in their 20s. I wanted to learn about their popular activities, games, and habits. This remains a goal, however I would now also like to focus more on learning Korean history. My two cultural posts thus far have been focused on cultural topics, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning and writing about these subjects. Our initial readings on the semester gave me valuable tips on learning a language. The most important ones for me so far have been to immerse myself daily, to set realistic and specific goals, and to NOT think of language learning academically. I believe that our in-class study of phonetics has helped me better understand the Korean phonetic inventory, and exactly how it differs from General American English.
I have been satisfied with my progress, however I now believe that many of my desired goals might have to be achieved in two semesters rather than one. Believe that language and culture are fundamentally intertwined, and both must be studied together. What I need to do most is simply put in more time speaking Korean with other native speakers. Over time, practice will help be achieve my desired level of fluency.
Thank you very much for sharing about your language learning progress, things that worked, things that worked less. I definitely can relate to a lot that you mentioned in your post. I find it extremely accurate and important how you said that we can not perceive language learning just from the academic side. There is truly so much more to it.
The creation of the specific learning plan for learning Hungarian, and presenting it in the classroom really helped me to keep my learning experience very organized and well-arranged. The combination of two-three classes a week with my community partner with at least 1.5 hours a day work on my own helped me to learn a lot of new topics in a short amount of time and at the same time incorporate and use them in my speech. I believe that the books - Grammar book MagyarOK Nyelvtani Munkafüzet A1-A2 and Language book MagyarOK Magyar Nyelvkönyv A1-A2 both by Szita Szilvia & Pelcs Katalin- work really well together since they very well correspond each other. Usually on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I do the assigned units from the grammar book which is followed by a meeting with my community partner during which we go over my questions and practice the new grammar structures in speech. During the second part of the week - Thursday, Friday, and the weekend I work on the assigned units from the language book which correspond to the topics from the grammar book. At that time I also meet with my community partner, and we do different activities which help me to memorize new words, vocabulary, and immediately integrate them in my speech. Due to the fact that MagyarOK books are one of the most popular sources to learn Hungarian, I do not use any outside materials. However, I try to watch short youtube clips, kids’ cartoons, and listen to audio files, songs whenever I have time. I try to memorize or write down new interesting words, phrases that I hear, and later use them during the meeting with my community partner. I really enjoy my experience learning Hungarian. And besides the progress that I have been making regarding my actual speaking and language skills, I believe what else has changed since the beginning of the semester is my attitude towards my target language. I am not afraid to speak it anymore. I am not afraid to learn it anymore. Before I got enrolled in SDLC 105 and SDLC 110 courses I had a lot of fears and doubts about me learning the top 4th hardest language in the world. However, here I am now being able to put together words in the sentence with different tenses, conjugations, and a lot of other skills that I obtain in addition to that.
According to H.D. Brown, communicative competence is the aspect that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts. There are four types of communicative competence: grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic. “The first two reflect on the use of the linguistic system itself, the last two define the functional aspects of communication” (Brown 219). I believe that grammatical competence and discourse competence are primarily emphasized in my plan. Due to the fact that I have started to learn Hungarian from the scratch,and I did not have any background knowledge in it, it is pretty ordinary and natural to focus on the linguistic system of the Hungarian language at the beginning of my learning experience. I believe that I can do better with both sociolinguistic and strategic competences. I can do that by reading more articles, books about Hungarian culture, history, watch more videos in Hungarian, listen to more songs, and etc. Overall, I have been making good progress so far, and I will do my best to keep improving.