Throughout the semester I learned a lot about my culture. Because I am Korean, learning about my own culture was fascinating because these were my people. Throughout my life, I learned through the American education system so I mostly learned about American history and things related to America. I remember the only thing I read about South Korea was in high school and it was only one little paragraph that briefly touched on the Korean War. This class was the first time in my educational life that I was able to solely focus on exploring my own culture and it gave me an incentive to really take in what I was learning. It was great to finally gain insight on the Korean people’s mindset, history, and cultural traditions throughout the class activities.
As a language learner, I realized how difficult it is to fully grasp a language. I learned that you couldn’t just memorize basic vocabulary and grammatical rules. You have to also fully immerse yourself into the culture and understand the roots behind a language. For Korean, one must understand the age hierarchy to know when to properly use formal language, which is culturally important. Throughout the semester I realized how many aspects of the language there were that I was having difficulty with. For example, spelling turned out to be much harder than I expected. I lost almost all the knowledge I had when I learned Korean at a younger age. I thought I could come back to where I was before I stopped practicing Korean, but it was much more harder than I thought. I forgot a lot of Korean words and I realized the words I do know are very basic. I realized that I forgot a lot of what I learned because I wasn’t being consistently exposed to the language. I plan on continuing my learning by talking to my parents a lot more without the use of English and watch Korean media. I think more exposure to the language will be beneficial for me. I also plan on going to Korea for study abroad, so I expect to learn a lot there because I will be constantly exposed to the Korean language.
Interacting with our language partner, Minkyung, was the most helpful. She provided the class great resources such as a YouTube series that taught Korean lessons on a variety of topics. She brought worksheets on the related lessons that helped reinforce what it taught. The worksheets also allowed the class to interact with each other, so it was beneficial to be able to actually practice what I learned. I thought the first few readings on developing good habits to learn a language were helpful because they were very practical and made sense. Those reading are also what made me come to the conclusion that I need more exposure to the language. I hope to expand my knowledge on vocabulary words because that is one of the biggest barriers I have that prevents me from comfortably communicating in Korean. Overall, I am glad that I had the opportunity to take this class.
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