I will talk mention the task and how well I did on the Self-Assessment.

Ability to hold a fluid conversation: I am able to hold a casual fluid conversation

Fluidity of conversation regarding hobbies: This is something that I still struggle with since it is a specialized topic.

Speaking about weather: This is something that I have not really gotten to this semester. We used different descriptive words but not about the weather.

Description of surroundings: This is something that I learned about a lot. Since Youngmin showed us many different learning methods, using charades. This was an effective way.

Description of news: I have been reading the news articles for some classes with Youngmin. This has helped a lot about the summarization of news.

Translation of tv: This is something that I have been pretty good at, but it has improved this semester because of the increase in the listening skills of Korean.

Casual Korean conversation: I have done this very well, because of the way the class was structured. Since there was a lot of conversations going on, it improved my Korean drastically.

Korean audio: This is something that I have trouble with because my listening in specialized topic is a little difficult. 

News article: This is something that improved, because of the way the class was structured. Since Youngmin and I started reading news paper articles as a part of class, the skill improved drastically.

Business article: This was still slightly difficult because of the specialized language. I am going to try and increase my knowledge in this field.

Menu and order: This is slightly easier, but I still have trouble understanding the food. I still have to understand what the food item is. I still find myself relying on pictures.

Speaking about major: I have learned a couple of vocabulary words related to my Accounting major which helped in this topic.

Background: This was hard, because my background was very diverse. However, there was a speaking portion on my final exam that I studied for, which helped a little.

Favorite food: This was particularly easy, because it was something that I am interested in. 

Speech about hobbies: This was harder, because it was a speech. More formalized speech was harder, because I need to form complete sentences.

Writing to parents: This was medium difficulty because I text my parents weekly and helps me to reinforce my speaking.

Introduction: This was moderately difficult as well, because it was a diverse background and required some thorough explanation.

Short story: This is easier, because it requires creativity and if I can't find something that works, I can change the story to match my Korean level.

Research paper. This was something hard, because research papers will require a lot of knowledge and research in Korean. Since it is a specialized topic, it was something that I cannot do at my current level. 

SDLAP_learningplan%20.docx

For this artifact, I wrote a reflection on a favorite American movie.

친구들이 보고 싶다고 해서 인샙션 을 보았다. 이 영화가 재미있다는 소문이 많아서 보고 싶었다. 이 영화는 사람들이 다른 사람들의 꿈 안으로 들어가서 아이디어를 넣어서 사람들의 행동을 바꾸는 영화다. 어떤 사람이 다른 사업하는 사람의 아들의 꿈으로 들어가서 사업을 망치는 것이다. 이 영화의 제일 재미있는 장면은 호탤에서 싸우는 장면이었다. 나는 액션 영화가 좋아서 그 장면이 기억에 남았다. 이 영화에서 꿈은 현실이 아니다는 것을 배웠다. 

For this artifact, I am uploading a reflection I wrote about a movie I watched. This movie is a Korean classic. Ode to my Father. Ode%20to%20My%20Father%20Reflection.docx

For this artifact, I am uploading a reflection I wrote on Korean idioms. 

Korean%20Reflection.docx

In the past SDLC classes, I have learned about writing, reading, and culture. To demonstrate, I am going to read a short article and talk about my opinions.

Vocaroo_s1xytawbKu21.mp3

Presentation

This presentation is about Kimchi and its origins. I go more into detail about the health benefits and the westernization of Kimchi. 

During this semester, I learned many things about Korean culture in terms of cinema and cuisine. I learned many things about the westernization of Korean food and how Korean movies became so relevant in the United States. I learned what kind of movies Americans like and why it has become so popular in the United States. This was partly due to the reason of increasing immigrants from South Korea. The adoption and popularization of Kimchi was due to the huge influx of immigrants as well. However, with these increases in popularity, came another genre of food, fusion. This created a new, different taste for people in America and South Korea. I have learned why Kimchi is so prevalent in South Korean households and how it even got to my table and hundreds of millions' dining tables. 

For this cultural post, I am going to write about the prevalence of Kimchi in American culture. Since Kimchi's popularity increased, there has been a lot of fusion food with Kimchi. There are Kimchi burritos, tacos, and even fries. There are also many different types of Korean fusion restaurants that are popping up around the country. Even in Richmond, there are places like Zzaamm and J Kogi. These places serve many different Asian inspired cuisine, but incorporate Kimchi into many of their dishes. With the popularity of Kimchi, its store presence has increased. It has made its way into some American grocery chains. Since Kimchi requires very delicate handling, special Kimchi refrigerators are a necessity in Korean households. These Kimchi refrigerators have even made it into Best Buy store lots. With the increasing popularity of Kimchi, more and more cuisine and accessories will become readily available. 

For this cultural post, I am going to focus on Kimchi. Kimchi was originally just pickled vegetables that were fermented. Kimchi was not originally spicy until the American army introduced Korea to the red pepper. Although it was introduced, it was not adapted into Kimchi until a few decades later. The importance of fermentation was due to the fact that there were no refrigerators to keep the food fresh. Since Korea was not a very affluent country and was one of the poorest countries in the world, people needed to think of other ways to keep their food fresh. Fermenting it meant that the food could have been eaten for a while after it was made. There are different types of Kimchi, like cucumber kimchi and water kimchi. Each region has its own specialty in Kimchi. This combined with many other vegetables made it so that there are over 100 varieties of Kimchi. Kimchi is something that was eaten for hundreds of years and has not really changed in its shape, size, or form. 

For this cultural post, I will focus on Korean cinemas. Korean cinemas have been starting to gain worldwide attention. This started with the movie The Host. This movie has garnered worldwide attention and even got a limited release in the United States. After that, movies like Oldboy and Taegukgi has started to surface and gotten more attention. These two movies were known for their story telling and twists. Oldboy is part of a trilogy that has to do with revenge. With these popular movies, came Korean movie theaters that opened up in select parts of the United States. These movie theaters show Korean movies with english subtitles and even Korean movies that are popular. Although these cinemas are not too prevalent, their popularity is rising. Okja, a Netflix special that was set and directed by a Korean director is also a sign of this Korean cinema revolution too. 

For this semester, I want to learn more about the culture in terms of movies and Korean cuisine. I want to explore the Korean cuisine side more, because I want to learn more about the details of the background of the food that I grew up with. 

I plan to explore these topics by doing some more research about each one and seeing what interests me the most. I have already decided that I will be going with a culture presentation of Kimchi, because it is a staple in the Korean dish. 

I hope to learn why Koreans are so dedicated to Kimchi and its origins. I also want to learn more about the history of why Kimchi became one of the most important dishes for Koreans. 

I believe that my Korean is adequate in terms of casual speaking, but not in formal speaking. Here are the results:

Interpretive listening: Developing 1

Interpretive Reading: Developing 2

Interpersonal Speaking: Expanding 1

Presentational Speaking: Beginner 3

Presentational Writing: Beginner 3

For these final 2 weeks, we focused on our cultural presentations. I decided to do my cultural presentation on Kimchi. It was interesting to learn about this staple dish, because even though I grew up with it, I did not know much about it. After doing the research, I became more interested in Kimchi and Korean cuisine. I understand the importance and the cultural aspect of the dish. It was something that reflects the Korean culture. For example, Korean Kimchi was actually not spicy until the Japanese invasion when the American soldiers introduced the red pepper for the Koreans. The hardest part of this presentation was actually condensing the information into a presentation and finding reputable sources. Since most sources are just casual websites for people who do not really want to get too into the nitty gritty, it was hard to get actual insight on the dish. However, after digging around a little more, I found out the history of Kimchi and it gave me a broader understanding of food in Korea. Giving the presentation was actually helpful, because Youngmin and my classmates gave me critiques on the presentation. This was helpful because I did not know how my presentational skills are on Korean topics. Some critiques were that they wanted to know more about a certain topic. I have added these information to the cultural presentation and have greatly increased my knowledge on presenting in a foreign language. 

For these two weeks we learned about traditional Korean buildings. Youngmin brought our class easy assembly toys that we were required to make and learn about. After we made the buildings from some styrofoam, we were supposed to give a presentation on them. This was interesting to learn about because it gave us a hands on experience on how the buildings are actually structured and the special parts of the assembly process. The building I had was a national treasure and a palace for the King and Queen and the family of the royals to sit down near a lake and rest. This was a two story building that was tall to overlook the whole palace. This was good in learning because before this experience, I had no idea that the building even existed. The presentation also allowed us to learn about other people's buildings as well.

For the next week, we went over the workbook a little more and did problems from there. These were situations like texting conversations. We were supposed to text each other in class and talk about what that text message said. This was fun for me because it allowed some room for creativity. The most difficult part of this assignment was to actually describe what was happening in the text messages. Since it is not something that is used as a daily conversation material between my parents, it was something foreign to me. However, it gave me a chance to text my friends and use Korean in a more casual manner. 

For these past two weeks, we watched a movie and summarized it. Since Youngmin was not able to make it to class, she assigned us a movie to watch and to write a reflection on it. When we wrote the reflection, we typed it up and read each other's in class. It was an interesting way to learn Korean and to reinforce the first topic that we learned about writing a reflection paper in Korean. This was an interesting way to learn and a good exposure to Korean cinema. The movie was about a Korean native who is taking up odd jobs in foreign countries to help support his family back home. I liked this balance between learning about Korean culture and the Korean language.

For the next week, we went back to working on the workbook. This time, we learned about descriptive words. These descriptive words were words like "next to" and "behind of". She showed us a picture of a scene and we were required to describe each object like "The lamp next to the bed is turned on." This was something that I had trouble with because it was hard for me to form my sentences in formal settings. When I have casual conversations with my parents, I have no problems forming my sentences, but when I am forced to, I have a harder time. This is something that Youngmin and my class will work on continually. 

For these two weeks, we worked on the workbook again. She made the class more interactive and put impossible scenarios on the whiteboard. These situations were like "If I won the lottery, I would..." and "If the world was ending tomorrow, I would..." This was an interesting topic for me. It was something different than the usual curriculum, so it was fun to be creative and learn Korean at the same time. After we went onto the board and wrote our different scenarios, we spoke about them in Korean and asked each other questions. I believe that this was something that was very effective in keeping my attention in the class and actually being engaged to the content that we were learning. We also did a couple of problems in the workbook to reinforce those concepts.

For the next week, we did charades on descriptive words that are specific to Korean. It was a fun way to learn unusual words that are commonly used in Korean. Some of these examples were "bzzzz" or "bark". It was entertaining to see my classmates acting these scenarios out and actually learning these topics. We reinforced these topics by doing some workbook problems in class. 

For these two weeks, Youngmin  and our class worked out of the workbook that we have been working on last two weeks. We have been talking about performances and grammatical rules based on that. We have been learning about speaking in the third person and how to write in them as well. Since I told Youngmin that I wanted to focus more on writing and speaking, she has structured the class in a way that has a lot of writing and speaking involved. In terms of speaking, we go around the class and answer questions out of the workbook verbally. We also have more writing involved in the class. She gave us homework that reviews what we have learned in class. 

For the next week we went over the same concepts and watched some videos of actual Korean traditional performances. We then did a writing response on a performance that have impacted us. This could either be a movie or any other performances that we watched. I did my writing response on Inception and why I liked the movie so much. We wrote it in Korean and typed it up which gave me a chance at practicing my Korean typing. This was an effective way to practice my writing on something that actually took some thought and insight. After we typed up the report, we sent it to Youngmin, who gave us corrections. This was effective and something that I could see myself using for my future studies in Korean. 

For these two weeks, we have focused on writing, reading and speaking. Youngmin has provided us with a textbook that is designed for English speakers to learn Korean. This is a perfect level for me and the right amount of difficulty. We have started by talking about performances in Korean. We started off with a simple speaking exercise to make us phrase sentences. This was helpful in gauging my level on how well I am able to speak Korean. We moved onto a writing exercise that was forming sentences with a given grammar structure.

The week after we focused on the same topic and did other activities like sending text messages to each other and using that as an exercise. We also did another writing and grammar exercise to help us be more comfortable with speaking. Since the class is more focused on group activity and more speaking based, I believe that it is effective in helping me to increase my proficiency in Korean. As opposed to last year where we focused more on culture, this semester is more focused on grammar. I believe that this will be very useful to me because I always spoke in broken Korean.

Korean%20Presentation.pdf

For my final project, I researched and delved into the presidential scandal with Park Geun Hye. I decided to do this topic because it was very interesting to me and was what got me interested into Korean politics. I research on Park's effectiveness as a president, her criticisms as a president and the scandal with Choi Soon Sil.