During week 7, Jimin and I viewed a recent Korean film called “Swing Kids” that beautifully blended Korean history, comedy, music, and romance all into one. It took place in a Geoje prison camp during the Korean war and unraveled the story about a North Korean soldier, an African American officer from Broadway, a Chinese soldier, an amateur dancer, a Korean prisoner who hopes to find his wife, and a young single mom. I was enthralled by the sheer diversity of the group of characters who came together to form a tap dance group in the midst of a war and also by how they used dance to make a political statement about the war itself. As I love modern Korean movies that incorporate historical events, this movie was one that I would definitely watch again. At times when it was difficult to understand what was happening either due to the vocabulary in the dialogue or the historical background itself, we would pause the movie to discuss it. I thought it was helpful that the movie began with a brief overview of the historical events at that time. The movie “Swing Kids” enhanced my understanding of the historical context of South Korea and thus improved my cultural and language learning with a modern twist. Discussing the movie after watching it also helped me to recap and fully understand the historical context of it.
During week 8, Jimin and I had our Korean lesson at the local juice bar called Ginger Juice. It was a nice change of scenery and made the lesson more enjoyable. By going through a packet that had passages, discussion questions, and multiple choice questions concerning the content, I was able to test my knowledge of the readings right after I read them. The content included history about one of Korea’s top colleges, Yeonse University, and its founder. It also included the significant meaning behind two famous paintings. By reading the passages aloud, I further enhanced my language learning because I had to pronounce some words that I was not familiar with. Also, it helped with my conversational speaking because I normally do not get to speak in Korean as often as I would like to. The passages concerned Korean traditions, Korean history, etc and thus encompassed a wide range of Korean culture. I thought it was a very practical way of learning because I could test my understanding of the passages through questions.
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