Reflecting on my first few weeks of school, I was very eager to start improving my Korean once more. Before my first meeting with my learning partner, I wanted to brainstorm different ideas about what I want to work on this semester and how I can approach these goals. After some thought, I narrowed down what my current language skills lack the most. Some of these were writing, vocabulary, and reading. Writing seems to be one of the more problematic skill since I rarely get a chance to practice writing. I often get to speak and listen to other Korean speakers, but writing is something I do not get to do very often. Because of this, writing at a higher level and spelling can often be an issue for me. To practice learning, I wanted to start with diary entries. Since it is for a diary, the content should be very informal and easy to write about. I then want to move onto writing letters to others. Since letters should be more formal depending on the recipient, it should help me practice more formal writing. To work on vocabulary, I think the best way to practice is just memorization. I hope to utilize flash cards and other memorization methods to start memorizing harder vocabulary that are not used often enough for me to know well. In addition, I want to practice vocabulary so I can read the Bible in Korean more proficiently. I have recently started a Bible study with other Korean speakers. Since we all read and discuss in Korean, I run into a lot of vocabularies that are unfamiliar to me and have to look up the definitions. I want to take these words and memorize them as well so that my reading comprehension will improve. Bible reading will also help with my reading skills. Since much of the Bible is in more formal text, it can help me improve my vocabulary as well as my reading speed and comprehension. I found myself to be struggling to read at a quick pace and was misreading words quite often. I want to get more practice reading Korean so that I can read more difficult texts such as the Bible, newspaper, or technical writing.
On my first meeting with my language partner, we discussed went over some goals I had brainstormed in advance. We agreed that these goals were reasonable and within my skill level. In addition to the skills mentioned previously. I discussed that I wanted to learn more about culture. Unlike my previous self directed learning experiences, I wanted to devote some lesson times to learning more about Korean culture. Since culture is a very broad topic, I would think about an aspect of Korean culture I wanted to learn more about and discuss with my language partner in advance. My language partner and I can research about the topic and take time during the meetings to discuss the topic. Doing more research on culture in advance can also be helpful for the cultural presentation at the end the semester.
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