This week was the first time I met with my student teacher, Jenna. We met at the library in a study room. The first meeting was very basic and introductory. I basically got to know her as a person, what she does on campus and where she is from. Then we dove into my skill level as a Korean speaker and writer. I talked about my proficiency in speaking and listening but my struggles in writing and reading. I talked to Jenna about my goals for the semester and my short term and long term goals. My short term goal is to learn how to read and write Korean at a basic level and also be able to talk to my grandma, who speaks only Korean, about deeper conversations. My long-term goal is to be able to pass the COM2 test here at the University of Richmond. I think that it is important for me to preserve my Korean abilities as I grow up because I was born in Korea and don't want to forget the language. Furthermore, I have started to compile websites and different platforms where I can learn Korean from. This includes VoiceNotebook, Duolingo, youtube, and radio garden. I will have to see what kind of topic I want to explore in the upcoming semester. I aim to learn mainly writing and reading more than speaking and listening. Of course, I will practice speaking and listening, but I really want to focus on reading and writing. I want to find a way to practice speaking by talking with native speakers. This could potentially be a phone call with my grandma every day or talking with a friend that is a Korean native. I will continue finding ways to practice Korean in my free time and find topics that I am interested in. I told Jenna about my hobbies and what I like to do, so she can teach me vocab that I would want to learn about. This includes sports like basketball and football and cultural elements of Korea like pop music and food.
Hopefully, in the next two weeks, Jenna and I will begin learning the basics of Korean reading and writing. Since I know most of the basics of Korean, I want to review the basic alphabet and how to write the different characters the correct way. I am very excited about my journey in learning Korean. I will aim to meet with Jenna once a week for 2 hours every Thursday at the library. Individually, I will be learning Korean on my own time, listening to Korean music, watching Korean drama and TV shows, and watching sports broadcasts in Korean. As we learned in class, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the target language's culture and truly be able to remember real-life experiences with words. Although I cannot go to Korea, by listening to Korean natives speak, either in person or on YouTube, I will begin to get used to the words and phrases in Korean and be able to understand it more easily.
Comments