My learning plan will follow a more, "day in the life" format. Meaning, I will plan activities to do in the morning until night in chronological order.
In the mornings I hope to incorporate podcasts, with a specific podcast from TalktomeinKorean being helpful in the past. I hope the podcast will allow me to focus on the words themselves to a degree greater than music or watching content since visual or sonic elements can easily distract me. Following weekends, I intend to have a conversation with my parents for about an hour or so strictly in Korean. If I do not know a word, I will use circumlocutions until my parents tell me the specific word, and from there I can restate said word to add it to my repertoire. This will occur on the weekends mainly, as well as once during the week. Additionally, I work at the global studio, which houses an impressive collection of Korean textbooks and resources to aid my learning. Using Yonsei textbooks and Korean-to-English dictionaries will be a concrete resource at my disposal during my week. Apps are also a tremendous aid, and one app in particular, StoryKorean, has children's stories along with comprehension quizzes at the end to not only improve reading speed but also comprehension.
As for the reasoning behind these methods, I strongly believe in immersion. For instance, I have changed my phone settings to Korean, to add an additional layer of immersion throughout quotidian interactions. Speaking with my parents who are native speakers is a major bonus since I have already found native speakers to converse within a comfortable environment. Resources such as the TalktomeinKorean podcast serve a similar role in hearing common conversations beyond a textbook. Auditory elements are crucial in hearing intonation and prosody, which are particular to each language, and will help me sound more native, which consequently gives me the confidence to speak in the first place. Motivations regarding my interest in learning Korean relate back to my heritage, visiting Korea never ceases to put me in a state of awe and reverence for my ancestors and culture which has shaped some of the most important people in my life. Knowing there is a barrier between me, and some of these loved ones is a motivator rather than a deterrent.
Comments