January Language Learning Journal
Since this semester started mid-way through January, I was not able to get started on as many tasks as I had wanted to. Nevertheless, meeting up with my language partner did allow me to start practicing my interpersonal communication in Korean; a task that I had hoped to start in January. Although I have not yet used any outside language-learning tools, my language partner has become a great resource for me to verbally communicate in Korean.
Last week, Ben Lee, Jannette You (my language partner), and I went to grab dinner at a Korean restaurant to start off our SDLC and practice speaking Korean. We read the menus in Korean, ordered our dishes in Korean, and reflected on our experience studying abroad in Korea last fall. When I ordered my food in Korean, I was glad to see that the waitress (an older Korean woman) did not have any difficulty understanding my order, despite my English accent. Seeing that we all spoke Korean, she spoke in Korean to us, as well. This small interaction was an encouraging success for me.
Having Korean dishes and being immersed in a Korean environment was also a good way for me to re-experience Korean culture while learning. As we ate, we had a conversation in Korean about how eating in a restaurant in Korea was much more affordable than eating in a restaurant in Virginia. We also discussed how the food in Korea was much tastier than the Korean food in Richmond; an observation we all shared. Having a light conversation surrounding a topic like food was an enjoyable and effective strategy for me because it allowed me to retrieve and use words that I hadn’t used in a while. It was also a good way for me to practice my pronunciation and listening skills.
I plan to speak in Korean to my language partner as much as possible during our meetings and I plan to build my interpersonal communication skills as I learn new words and start integrating these into my conversations. As of right now, I do not have any revisions to make in my learning plan and my goals are the same. I plan to accomplish eight tasks that will help me improve all four aspects of my Korean language ability. Overall, I am feeling enthusiastic about my language learning journey. I know that I may be frustrated as I come across obstacles in my more challenging tasks later on, but I am excited to see how much I will have accomplished by the end of the semester.
Comments
I also shared the problem of not being able to start as quickly as I wanted due to the timing of the start of classes. Also, my language partner had ended up getting sick during that first week of classes which put me behind a little bit. But that did not discourage me at all. I am still extremely excited about my journey.
Hey Grace, this was very well written and insightful, so thanks for sharing. Looking back on this first journal it seems like you had a very well thought out and detailed plan for your learning. I'm sure this laid a great foundation for you and I hope you were able to do a lot of these things!