Bi-Weekly Learning Journal #2

[Vivian Shon]

During the first Tuesday meeting with my language partner Jenna, we started to talk about what we hoped to accomplish which was to work on learning some technical terms regarding Korea’s economy and business world. We also talked about how I wanted to improve my writing skills, more specifically, the spacing in the Korean writing system. However, during the first meeting, Jenna told me that spacing is not a big deal in Korea actually which I was very surprised to hear. Regardless, Jenna still gave us information about some of the most popular rules that Koreans follow. In the meeting, we proceeded to read two different articles. First, Jenna asked us to read the articles out loud so that she could hear our pronunciation of the words and help us if we needed help. Somyung, my other language partner and I proceeded to read one line each. Then, Jenna helped us fix some pronunciation problems and also asked us if we failed to recognize or understand any of the vocabulary words. If we did, Jenna first asked us what we think it means. I thought this was very helpful instead simply telling us what it meant because it made me think deep down to the lexicon I already knew. I also used context clues to try to figure out what the word meant. I think this method worked out for me because I was able to better memorize the meanings of the words. Overall, my first language session with Jenna was a success. I learned many new vocabulary words and also learned how to understand the weather forecast. Before, I thought I could understand the weather forecast on the news channel, but when I read it on paper, I realized that it was way more difficult to understand and there were so many terms I failed to understand.Outside of the classroom and the meetings, I hope to improve my language skills in my own time as well. I will hopefully do this by using resources around me. I would like to use youtube and wuizlet as my main resource to improve my language skills. Youtube has so many useful resources, like various news channel recordings that I can study. I will turn on subtitles so that I can listen and read what the reporter and announcer are stating. I can also adjust the playback speed to a slower speed which will make it an easier process to comprehend. Next, I will use quizlet to give myself “quizzes” and “tests” on the materials I learn with Jenna. There are many new vocabulary words that I do not know and probably cannot memorize in an instance, so I will make quizlet online flashcards to test myself on the new words.