Final Reflection Paper 105:

From SDLAP 105, I became a self-directed learner, which is that I need to set up my own goals to accomplish my own learning. We did self-assessment test, read different articles related to our topic and periodically wrote journals to reflect our learning experience. Moreover, we did presentations based on our target languages. Also, through blog Ning, we can read other students’ journals and watched their presentations; I really learnt a lot of language history, and cultural background from different countries.

I think all the reading assignments are helpful to me. I especially remember the cultural dimensions and factors. Language enables connection among humans. And culture is a way of life that relates to languages. Most countries and regions around the world are inextricably linked, and communication brings power and influence to individuals across borders of their relationships. Languages underscore the importance of understanding different cultures that is interconnected not only geographically but also psychologically. Having the ability to master a second language makes people become smarter and excellent in the working environment. Language is a direct communication style. At the beginning, when I started learning Korean, I did not learn any cultural background. Later, I think contextual style is important for speakers to focus when they learn a new language. For example, in Asian culture people use words that reflect hierarchical relationship in the conversation. As a result, when I learn to speak Korea, I especially need to choose words that are appropriate for me to speak to different age of group of people.

English is a more personal style language, which reduce the barrier between the parties in low-power distance. Knowledge of the home country’s language is important for personnel placed in a foreign place. More and more people are becoming multilingual, and in the future career life. Companies place a great deal of attention on the applicants’ ability to speak a foreign language without considering if they have other necessary skills. From the readings, I also learnt that cultural differences could cause misinterpretations. Many people use nonverbal communications such as body languages and the use of physical space, but this actually create distance and barrier between people to people.

This semester, during the process of learning Korean, I only learnt Korean in listening and speaking. Firstly, I learn about Korean culture, maintain an element of modesty and humility extremely important in Korean culture, and make direct eye contact when addressing Korean business professionals, as it is important to indicate your honesty and interest. Some Koreans do not make eye contact for any length of time when in the presence of an authority figure as a sign of respect. Second, I set up a plan to learn Korean. I mainly learn Korean through watching movies or dramas. I think it is more helpful to listen to what the sentences are and read the translation/subtitle in Chinese. In this way, I can know how they form grammar, and how they speak their language and when to apply them in different situations. At the beginning it is important to follow their conversation by reading the subtitles, but later I can gradually catch up their sentences and use it as my own knowledge. Again, practicing is the most important thing. When you stop saying that language, you are very easy to forget it. 

I think to be aware of the history of the language is very helpful and interesting to study a second language. Koreans initially write in Chinese. It helps me to learn Korean because there are two levels in Korean, first is formal way and then is the informal way. People speak informal way to the people who are same age as you, and use formal way when speak to elders or people who you first meet. This attribute to its history because Korea has history of dynasty, so it includes some moral standard in the history. I would more like to learn to speak the informal way because it is more casual and widely used nowadays. Moreover, formal way of speaking Korean is really hard for me to learn because it includes so many different required words in a sentence.

In conclusion, from this class, I learnt not only different cultural background, but also Korean. Now, I can speak simple sentences and many vocabularies in Korean. I think my learning experience was successful. In the future, I want to watch more Korean dramas in order to learn Korean while noticing more cultures in Korea as well. I also want to make a trip to South Korean with my friend this summer in order to really have the experience to practice my Korean. This trip is also considered a self-evaluation or assessment on my self directed learning. For my long-term goal, I want to try to learn Spanish on my own with the same strategy that I learnt Korean. Thanks to this class and I want to keep all the knowledge that I have learnt and apply to my future path!

Annalee Yin

Reflection paper#2:

Culture is way of life. I found this quote in the chapter. I think it really binds a group of different people together. I am glad that I have the chance to self-study Korean as a second language. At the same time, I have learnt so many cultures about Korean. Now, sometimes I feel like I am half-Korean! Based on the chapter, I decide to write a analysis on Korean cultures and how it helps me learning the language.

Koreans are highly in-group collectivism. People value family life, and each family member has her/his own role and duty. Korea is a very high power distance society. Women usually stay at home doing cooking and cleaning, children study in the school and men has the most pressure and burden to go out and work in order to feed the whole family. From the research, it says that Korea has big families, so even after marriage, wife and husband still live the with the husband’s parents. Husband’s mother is always very crucial to the wife in order to teach her to serve the whole family better. Men always have higher social status than women. Old people just rest at home and take care of the next young generation. However, I learnt that Korea is different than what we thought from a friend comes from Korea. It is not as that high on power distance as it was before, and actually try to maintain equality between genders. Women still go out and work after marriage and pregnancy, and lots of women refuse to live with their husbands’ parents and move outside and build their own family. Another unique aspect is that Koreans value friendship as one of the most important culture. As some Koreans said: “we always hang out together and play at weekends, and friends are always the ones who can help you when you are in big dangers outside”. However, there are negative side about their friendship, there are lots of on campus violence happened in South Korea due to its high power distance. Youth graders should always show their full respect and even bow down to people who are older than them.

In Korean language, there are specific honorific languages for elders when they communicate. Once someone who fails to do so, the people who are younger can be in great trouble. And whenever, there is a flight between people in the same age, friends will get together and help, so a group-fight is normal and very easy to happen in Korea.

Korea has its own traditional clothes; on special days, women wear a traditional dress called a hanbok, a short jacket called a jeogori and a long skirt called a chima. Men also wear a jeogori. Koreans like spicy food, rice is eaten with almost every meal, and another traditional food is called kimchee, which is a spicy food made of vegetable and garlic sauce. Kimchee is stored and fermented in large jars outside of the home. Meals are served and look differently in Korean than do in the United States, everyone gets their own rice or soup dish, and everyone share many different side dishes, the side dishes are spread over the whole table. Bibimbap is traditional food in Korean with plenty of vegetables including bean sprouts, spinach, mushrooms, cucumbers, onions, carrots, and one fried egg, people eat it with garlic spicy sauce as well. In Korea, friends always get together and eat noodle and kimchee in one big boiler. And we “fight against” each other to get the pot cover, because it is an old stereotype that eating noodle on a pot cover is more delicious than do in a normal bowl”.

In Korean, all boys are responsible for two year mandatory military training; it is not only good in building strong characters, but also being ready to serve the country anytime. Plastic surgery in South Korea is famous and is considered the best in the world, so there are lots of people from lower classes become stars, such as singer, actors and actress in order to make more money. However, stars in Korea do not earning that much income than other countries, and it is considered a normal career and job because of the huge supply trends. Korean and English are different types of language, but many words pronounce similar, such as the “menu”, “coffee” and so on, so she has strong Korean ascent. Another challenge is that people try to make friends in the US. Americans are very independent, and people always go to class by themselves, and crab lunch fast when they are busy. Koreans always be around with friends.

I think learning a new language is important to help participating with local people around, building experience, knowledge, and be patient when she builds her friendship and networking. There is an old phrase: “walk a mile in someone else's shoes." There is no way that we can get involved into the new society unless experiencing what life is like in another atmosphere, and get to taste the different cuisine, enjoy music, and interact with citizens who are dissimilar. I think staying motivated and getting rid of all the stereotyped ideals are important. We should be curious and eager to learn new things. It is a country with a combination of people from different and diverse cultures and become unified. Citizens will learn tolerance and respect for difference. They will be privy to information that others do not have.

From my personal standpoint, I leant lots of thing from this.

It is a way to interact with individuals, who are diverse, and also an opportunity to build and strengthen a better understanding of people worldwide. In conclusion, I think students are essential to have worldviews when we move from a different cultural background into a new diverse culture, and learn to acquire a new worldview and apply critical thinking to become pro-active learners.

As new century students, gaining knowledge through our life experiences within the culture, as well as deeply engage and assimilate with the knowledge we learn and appropriately applying to recognize situations in reality. Cross-culture is a shared mutual respect for the world in which we live and is a valuable experience we had in our lives!

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter” NYT

I enjoy reading article, and I think the fact is true that: being bilinguals are remarkably important. After I have experience of several interviews, I think it is beneficial after graduate when you try to look for jobs. It is a more globalized world, and more and more multinational corporations are looking for language talents, so they think this is a big criteria when they look for employees.

We should start learning a second language at younger ages, so thats why we need to prepare our children to learn when they were young because it is easy to adopt and they learn faster. There are so many universities require students to choose a second language in their education. We can see language is the power! And being able to speak a language proficiently make people smarter and more diversified, and more knowledgeable. 

Response to reading

I think this article is interesting when explain the extinction of the language. What happened when language die? I think this would be a terrible topic to think about because there will be silence in the world. How language is dying? There are so many people (old) who lose the ability to speak language, they dont know how to communicate to others, to focus.They are more likely to talk themselves, and make the listeners upset. The language is facing a crisis. 

I think languages are important thing to be recorded, and it shows history, culture, and timeline. Now, our languages are losing, which I think we are losing something valuable, humans are losing wealth. Even though everyone in the world speak one language will make easier to communicate, but it would be less diversified if we just have one. Overall, I think humans should come up with a plan to keep our languages, and pass to the next generations in order to make life more well-rounded. 

Culture shocks, i think this is a very interesting because i am an international student, and I can feel the same way.

The first shock: 

I think when I first came here, I had the same feeling. When I entered my class, firstly I looked differently. I felt wired and frustrated: "what I am doing here?". especially during the orientation time. I am glad that University of Richmond provided us the chance to meet all the international students first before the local students here. I think it is obvious that we can get along with each other better with international students. 

The Chinese students John in the video talked about his own experience and feeling when he said: "whats up" to an american student. He continued the conversation because he thought the american student wanted to continue the conversation by saying whats up. But later on he realized that it was just a way to say hi.

I think to learn a language is not hard, but the hard part is the cultural competence. To really blend into the culture and use the language to communicate correctly. I feel the hardship to live in a new country, and I think it is more helpful to me to first get education here. Through education, I can build my cultural sense in a smaller community. By talking and learning from professors, roommate. The experience is frustrated at the beginning, it is an adventure. Now, I am proud of myself being an international student live in a new environment. 

Reflect on how knowing a language’s history can help you learn the language.

I think to be aware of the history of the language is very helpful and interesting to study a second language. Koreans initially write in Chinese. Long time ago, the way how they write is the same as the Chinese. In another word, Koreans write Chinese! After that, Koreans change the way how they write things, and transfer in their unique style. Before 1st century, it was proto-Korean, it was not well-formed. 1st-10th century, it was old Korean, and it was the time they use arrangements of Chinese character to represent phonetically. Then, it came the middle korean, it becomes easily read and write. Later was modern korean, which have developed including variances in pronunciation, vocabulary. 

It helps me to learn Korean because there are two levels in Korean, first is formal way and then is the informal way. People speak informal way to the people who are same age as you, and use formal way when speak to elders or people who you first meet. This attribute to its history because Korea has history of dynasty, so it includes some moral standard in the history. I would more like to learn to speak the informal way because it is more casual and widely used nowadays. 

What artifacts will you use to document your learning? And why?

I just focus on speaking and listening Korean, and I made a tape recorder to repeat some of the Korean phrases after I learning some useful daily sentences. I think this is a good way to learn because I am not just learning the sentences, but also listening how I pronounce the sentence. How much differences between my pronunciation and the native speakers. In the future, I will watch more Korean Movies or dramas in order to improve and keep recording my voice in Korean. 

Reflect on “cultural competence”:

I enjoyed reading this chapter and I think communication is a natural event, communication link provide information to each other and in this case we exchange individuals through symbols, signs, or behaviors. When we communicate we exchange information so that we can better understand each other. Humans do not exchange data, but sharing meanings, which refer the management of messages in order to create meanings. At the same time, we link other people's thoughts and feelings. 

When I try to learn a new language, I think I have three main stages and goals:

1. I can self present myself, let other people perceive what I try to say

2. To develop a relationship, such as friendship

3. To manage interpersonal conflict and influence.

In conclusion, communication is even a strategy to achieve goals, which is to maximize their achievement by using knowledge, cultural context in order to adapt communication.

I only learn Korean in listening and speaking. I do not do any reading, so I will reflect what I have learnt from the listening part. I think it is more helpful to listen to what the sentences are and read the translation/subtitle in Chinese. In this way, I can know how they form grammar, and how they speak their language and when to apply them in different situations. At the beginning it is important to follow their conversation by reading the subtitles, but later I can gradually catch up their sentences and use it as my own knowledge. Again, practicing is the most important thing. When you stop saying that language, you are very easy to forget it. 

Figuring foreigners out article:

I think this is a very interesting article to read, and it is not only useful in learning a foreign language, but also will be useful in the future business world, such as cross cultural business management. Culture is a knowledge we can use to interpret our social behavior. It is shared and adaptive. This will definitely be helpful when we try to learn a language. The language can illustrate the complexity of culture's effect on behaviors. Different cultures express their emotions or feelings differently through languages. Like when I try to learn Korean, it is more easier for me to learn than learning English because Korean culture and Chinese culture are very similar in some cultural dimensions. 

We both have high power distance, low individualism. We both donot express our feeling directly through language, and we are more likely to hide our emotions( neutral). In addition, culture values can help us to better understand the meaning of the conversation when we speak a second language, and avoid flaws and misunderstanding during conversations. 

Jurnal #2:

How the brain handles langauage:

The article talks about contents on brain regions, dominance, localization, and neurolinguistic processing. The section that especially interested me is the concept of dominance, which is the functional relationship betweent he brain’s two hemisphere. Each is dominant for certain mental functions, the two major factors of cerebral domance are language and handedness (the left hemisphere are right handed people) but the relationship is not a symmetrical, right hemisphere is fominant for language in left handed people, which is not always garanteed. I am a right-handed person, so I am specialized in analytic tasks, caterozation, logical organization, information sequencing, and language.

“How we mean” and “ How we analyze meaning” are helpful to me because it states that it is not important to understand the meaning of each specific word, but more important to comprehend as a whole.  The last article “How to investigate language structure” is also interesting in the four models of language. It reminds me the time when I studied English. When I studied grammar, it is not only exist in a sentence, but also the word structure. In the future, when I study Korean, I will start with a bigger picture, such as learning the whole meaning of the conversation, and try to get the meaning in a big picture, instead of memorizing each vocabulary.

Annalee Yin

SDLC 105 jurnal:

Article1: What is learner autonomy and How can it be fostered?

                Overall, I think it is really interesting to know what is autonomy learner and how it works in different situation with the specific skills, plans, and learning strategies or evaluations. I can easily make a link to my own experience to learn a second language. I really agree with the idea that motivation and interests is crucial when people are trying to self study a language. It is the exercise of learners’ responsibility for own learning, which is without external pushing factors. As a result, learning strategies and planning are important. We need to constantly practicing the language, so repetition, resourcing, translation, note-taking, and using the knowledge to understand the background or cultures are also important. Moreover, asking question is required if we want to improve because we are actually learning from the mistakes. It will help us to memorize the language in a much more effective way. Other than those, keeping diaries and evaluation sheets is something new to me. After reading the article, I think this is a possible way to learn a different language too.