I am excited to be learning Korean once again! I was born in South Korea and immigrated to America when I was around eight. Ever since then, my Korean skills have definitely declined every year due to my priority of learning English. I have noticed that my Korean skills have declined dramatically since coming to college. This is due to the fact that I only speak Korean to my mother because she does not speak English. Therefore, I am ecstatic to improve my Korean so I can continue to communicate with my mother, but also use it for when I have a job after graduation.
This week I started my first meeting with my language partners! Our teacher for the group is So Myung Kim, a sophomore who is planning to major in Mathematical Economics from Maryland. She was also born in South Korea but she immigrated around the same age as I did. My other language partner’s name is Tommy Na. He was born in Korea and told us that he didn’t really begin to speak Korean until middle school. Tommy is a junior majoring in Biology and is planning to become a dentist. He said he wants to pass the STAMP test and use his Korean skills in his job after graduation. He also told me that he thinks learning Korean is important to him because it is a part of his cultural identity.
The three of us discussed what each of us wanted our sessions to look like because we did not want to waste any time during our next session. We discussed our strengths and weakness in Korean and came up with a routine that will help us get better in Korean. We wanted to focus on Korean grammar, Enunciation/speaking in Korean during class, cultural aspects, and reading hard articles like Korean newspapers to practice our comprehension skills. One thing that we stressed was that we would be only speaking Korean during our Sessions.
Later on, I discussed to them that I was really invested in music and that by the end of the course, I want to be able to compose a Korean song. I told them that I would pick Korean songs to listen to and look up the meanings of the words I did not understand. So Myung then suggested a Korean Christian song that I could listen to a learn the vocabulary from. She also suggested a Korean singing competition that I could watch for fun. I also shared that I want to study abroad at Yonsei University in the spring semester of my junior year because I want to take their Korean language program and learn more about Korean culture.
We then talked about the requirements of the Self-directed language course. So Myung and Tommy helped clarify what bi-weeklys are, and how I would get to establish my own goals and pace for this semester. Although our session was conducted via Zoom, I learned a lot and was motivated just by talking to people who were also eager to learn Korean!
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