SDLAP 105 was a comprehensive and interesting introductory class on language acquisition. Because I am concurrently enrolled in the SDLAP 110, I was able to apply SDLAP 105 material that was learned to SDLAP 110. One of my favorite aspects about the half-unit course was the discussions. Dr. Marsh-Soloway effectively lead our small group of students to discuss about language, and this is a topic that many of the students could offer additional insight to. I believe most of the class are bilingual speakers, so we all have something to offer about learning a language whether that be English or their native language. Through this class, I support my opinion that the best way to learn a language is through immersion and acquire social competence. My goal to learn a new language is to have effective conversions with the other party, but if a language learners’ goal is to gain professional/business level in that language, then perhaps grammatical competence may be more suitable.
SDLAP 105 helped me feel comfortable speaking out aloud and sharing my thoughts because our class has seven students. The small group allow students to participate frequently and be inquisitive about language learning. One of my favorite topics that we briefly touched on was on bilingualism. I wish we could investigate bilingualism in terms of how the brain functions when different languages were spoken/heard. Cantonese is a dialect in Chinese, but the pronunciations of characters are so different that I don’t believe a Mandarin speaker could easily deduce what the Cantonese speaker is saying. This is also vice versa for Cantonese speakers. I speak fluent Cantonese while I can speak intermediate conversational Mandarin. However, my reading and listening skills in Mandarin is at a much higher level than my speaking. I wonder how Cantonese, Mandarin, and English is stored in my brain and which areas are activated when using these three languages.
The one activity that we did in SDLAP 105 that I found was the most useful was recording our learning plan presentation on Panopto. This recording revealed how I am not that confident with public speaking as I hope to be because I produced too much unnecessary hand movements and eye movement. Nevertheless, this activity gave insight into how I can improve myself to speak comfortably in front of another and in front of a crowd. I need to start becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable because speaking a Korean is the most effective way in learning Korean.
I hope with the materials and information that I learned in SDLAP 105 I can apply that to future SDLAP classes. Through SDLAP 105/110, I found iTalki tutoring service to be quite useful in learning Korean or any other language because I can hear feedback real-time from an expert. I am quite pleased and satisfied with the outcome of both courses and hope to continue my Korean language learning journey during the school year and during summer break.
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