SDLC 111: Monthly Language Learning Journal #1

[Amy Jeon]

This past Thursday, I met up with Rachel, my language partner, to discuss our lesson plan for this semester. I told her that I mainly wanted to focus on improving my reading and writing skills. I felt like I did not do enough reading assignments last semester and mainly focused on just writing diary entries and improving my speaking and listening skills. I also got assessed on vocabulary words, but I felt like this is not the best method for me in the long run because I tend to forget words that I do not use very often in my daily life. When I talked to my mom, I told her about my Korean language learning journey, and she complimented me on how my speaking skills in Korean improved. However, she still hopes for me to improve my writing skills, so she suggested that I should do more reading in Korean. So, instead of trying to improve every skill all at the same time, I am going to mainly focus on reading and writing since they tend to go hand-in-hand. After this conversation, I told Rachel during our session that I want to focus on reading and writing this semester, but I was not sure how I could focus on this. Rachel suggested that I should read Korean webtoons and write a summary about what I have read. I was very happy with her suggestion because I feel like reading webtoons fits my reading level. I was also thankful for her suggestion because webtoons would help me stay excited and interested during my Korean language journey. For writing, I will practice my writing skills by summarizing what happened in the story and my thoughts and reflection on the plot and characters. This will challenge my writing skills more than last semester since I won’t be talking about my daily life anymore. Rachel will also provide me with a couple of webtoon stories for me to read, and I am going to choose my favorite one and stick to it until I finish and continue this process. To challenge myself a little more with reading, I am going to read some newspaper articles in Korean. I will most likely find these articles on the Korean search engine called Naver. Although the news articles may be at a more difficult level than I am used to, I hope this will challenge me to advance my reading skills. Reading the news will not only help me learn the Korean language, but it will also learn about the culture and what is happening around Korea.  Additionally, because of the less strict COVID-19 restrictions on campus, Rachel and I have planned to go out to different Korean restaurants in Richmond. We plan on trying different foods that we may have never eaten before, talk and order in Korean, and speak in Konglish (Korean and English) as we eat. I am excited about this because I have not been able to explore Richmond because of COVID-19 restrictions. Although my main goal is to improve my writing and reading skills, I don’t want to completely ignore improving my listening and speaking skills. When we meet up for our sessions every week, I hope that we can continue talking in Konglish and get more comfortable speaking in only Korean. When Rachel and I watch Korean shows and movies, I will continue to watch them without subtitles to improve my listening skills. I am very excited about this semester and my Korean language learning journey. I feel like I was able to set a more specific goal this semester, which makes me feel more confident and excited to see how my journey goes.