As I progressed through this semester, I learned a lot. The freedom to learn Korean in whatever way I saw most fitting gave me a lot of room for experimentation. After a lot of experimentation I’ve really grown as a language learner and cultural explorer, and have been able to identify what works best for me.
One thing that I learned was that I’m usually very excited to learn about the music, dance, food, and games of a culture. This is why I really love playing the 뽀숑 game in class to learn the Sino Korean numbers. I also loved learning a Korean traditional dance that goes with 아리랑 (Arirang, a Korean traditional folk song). I find it very easy to learn new words and expand my vocabulary by listening to K-pop. Also, learning about Korean food was extremely fun and I was even able to make 비빔밥.
Another big thing that I understood is that I learn best when I’m learning directly from another person who is present by my side, and I retain information best when I’m able to use what I learned to interact with someone by my side. So, having someone as approachable as Professor Sumi Kim teach me Korean and knowing that she will answer any of my questions to the best of her ability without any judgement really helped. Also, at the start of every class she would ask us how we had been and what we had done during the week, and we had to try to use what we had previously covered in class to figure out what she was asking and reply appropriately in Korean. This simple activity at the beginning of every class really helped with my vocabulary retention. I also observed that I would be most enthusiastic about learning something that I can put into use immediately. This was because every time I learned something I could immediately use it with my friends, my friends would praise me, and then I’d want to go and learn more, and come back and impress them more. While this was really motivating, it sometimes drew my attention away from learning the fundamentals of the Korean language like particles or grammar. This would be fine if I solely intended to learn conversational Korean, but a part of the reason why I’m learning Korean is so that I can lay the path for possibly having a job in Korea in the future. So, just learning sentences that I can use with my friends is not enough. I need to be able to have formal interactions with professionals and that would most likely require a good understanding of grammar. Therefore, while receiving instant gratification was amazing, moving forward I need to reorient myself towards my career goal and keep learning Korean with it in mind.
Reflecting on my language learning journey so far, I still feel like I struggle with strategic competence in Korean. I personally think that developing strategic competence very important for one to be able to comfortably and effectively communicate in a language. Every time I don’t know the specific word for something, I get stuck and become unable to form a sentence instead of trying to find other words within the range of my current vocabulary that can be used to communicate the same idea. Therefore, going forward in my Korean language learning journey, I will develop a plan with a good balance of goals that are dedicated to furthering my strategic competence, satisfy my willingness to immediately communicate with my friends, and properly prepare me for possibly having a career in Korean.
All in all, I’ve come a long way since I first started learning Korean and I really loved learning. I hope that I’ll be able to continue making a lot of progress towards achieving my goals.
Comments
I one hundred percent agree with the idea that information is more easily retained for me when I am able to learn directly from someone and have conversations with them. It helps a lot more than just trying to push through material alone.
I see that having motivating factors is a big part of your learning journey as it was in mine. I saw that the excitement that my language partner and Professor Marsh-Solloway had really inspired me to keep putting in effort when the semester got busy. Its cool to see that you are even thinking of working in Korea! Best of luck!