Recording presentations and talking about about our target cultures was, indeed, a great and meaningful experience in my Linguistics class. I thought, it gave everyone an incentive to do more research on the language and culture of their choice. I particularly spoke about Turkey and main aspects of Turkish culture. In my recording group another person spoke about Turkish cuisine by stating the common dishes and drinks and the ways how they are made. I found that really interesting, since cuisine may reflect a lot about a certain culture. Another person studying Hindi talked about the famous Hindi festival Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. He mentioned the countries, that it is celebrated in, the decorations that people use, the history of celebration and other creative aspects of the celebration and much more. Majority of my classmates are learning Korean and their presentations talked about several aspects of Korean culture, such as history of Korean language in relation to Russian, Korea in general in relation to World Wars, beauty and fashion trends in the country, traditional royal cuisine, food, economy, Korean hip-hop, and even the history and role of the Samsung industries in Korea. Other language learners shared about Israeli defense forces, mentioning the mandatory 2-year army service for males and females, the history and exceptions behind it, as well as Japanese colonialism and its history.
I thought all of these presentations were important in understanding the cultures and the languages that we are learning. Some of us mentioned the importance of understanding the culture while learning a particular language. We also engaged in discussions after the presentations, and asked questions to each other to get a deeper understanding about certain cultures. My language partner heard my presentation and gave his feedback as well. I was glad I was given a chance to explore and talk about my target culture, and I'm sure most of my classmates valued this experience as well.
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