105 & 110: Final Paper

[James Kim]

Taking Self-Directed Language with Professor S and Ms. Jung was enjoyable and helpful form Korean-language learning experience. I have learned a lot about the culture and language of Korea and I gained a lot of insights about myself as a language learner. I realized that when it comes to languages, I learn the best through having conversations with others and trying to come up with personal stories that relate to a word or phrase I’m learning. The most difficult part about this entire process was time management and developing a passion for studying Korean. Time management was a big issue due to my Junior year classes, interviewing for internships, campus jobs, and what not. It was also an issue when it came to me planning to do a task for the language class. I sometimes just forgot to do what I was going to do to improve on my Korean. I believe this all ties into how much passion I have for the Korean language and preserving my heritage. Even though I’m Korean and consider myself a patriotic individual, I do not have a passion for studying the Korean language further than what my skill level is at the moment. However, this class has helped me change that because I learned to enjoy learning Korean and learning new vocabulary that will be extremely useful when I visit Korea in the future. Obviously, this entire process was enjoyable as well. I really liked learning Korean with one of my close friends who I have never spoken to in Korean. Korean-Americans like myself never usually speak in Korean to each other. English has become our prioritized language and Korean just seemed to be slipping off as we grew more accustomed to the American life in the US. However, studying with my friend was enjoyable and helped me appreciate the learning process. Additionally, I loved giving presentations and seeing others present about their own countries and mine. I gained a lot of new knowledge on cultural facts that I would have never came across if it wasn’t for this class. As I have learned a lot this semester, I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity to continue learning Korean next semester when I study abroad at Yonsei University. There, I will be able to learn Korean by speaking it with natives and Korean students who live in Korea. Additionally, I’m going to try my best to talk to my relatives a lot more so that I not only learn more about my culture but the language as well. A lot of the readings done in the class were very interesting especially the one about how being bilingual is the same as being intelligent. I truly want to believe this but I feel that this article is taking away hope from others that might want to pursue learning a new language in the future. If I could take this class again, I would have liked to learn more about each individual students’ perspectives on the various languages we studied and on the culture and traditions of the languages’ countries as well.