Resources:
Because I have a background in Korean, I couldn't really use any beginner textbooks, or any of the resources that many of the other students have used like Mango. Therefore as resources, I read articles online and watched the news and different video clips online. These were great practical ways to improve my Korean skills, and I feel like they were very beneficial to my learning. For example, just watching the news clip would result in having to look up at least 10 words. Throughout the semester, I feel like doing this definitely improved my vocabulary which was one of my main goals. In addition, when I read news articles, I would sometimes also write them out after summarizing them which improved spelling which is one of my biggest weaknesses in Korean.
Working with my language partner:
I thought it was really helpful to work with my language partner for several reasons. First was because meeting with him every week gave me weekly goals and kept me motivated. Second, it was great to have someone to speak back and forth with. One of my goals for the semester was to improve at and also feel more comfortable speaking Korean. Speaking with him every week gave me the opportunity to practice doing so while improving my vocabulary. I was also able to ask him how to say certain words when I couldn't think of it, or how to form sentences when I wasn't aware of how to which was also very helpful. He also gave me news articles to read out loud and summarize and he would correct them. This was very helpful to get immediate feedback and figure out what difficult words meant without having to google anything. He also gave me some tips on how he thinks I can improve such as talking to myself about a certain topic when I am trying to improve on my own.
Effective/not effective
The most effective exercise of the semester was speaking to my language partner as well as watching Korean videos and reading news articles. Through doing this, I improved my vocabulary, and feel a lot more comfortable speaking Korean. This was also a lot more fun and interesting, as well as more applicable than reading from a book which made the learning a lot easier. I don't think anything I did this semester was particularly ineffective, but if I had to choose one it would be watching Korean dramas because I feel like I learned a lot of vocabulary watching news clips. However, I did think it was effective in teaching myself slang terms I was not aware of.
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