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My learning plan is primarily based on the Lingua Folio self-assessment checklist for novice low/mid learners for interpersonal communication, but I have chosen to slightly modify it to fit some of my preferences.

My learning plan is as follows:

1. Greetings and introductions

2. Basic Vocabulary

       - Numbers 1-10

       - Days of the week

       - Family Members

       - Colors

3. Ask/Answer simple questions about myself/others using 1+ words 

       - Likes/dislikes

       - Abilities

       - Where I am from

       - How old I am

       - Family Members

4. Ask/respond to basic daily conversation questions

        - What's up?

        - What did you do yesterday?

        - What are you doing tomorrow?

        - Are you going...?

        - What time is it?

        - Where is the bathroom?/ May I use the bathroom?

5. Express mood/emotions

        - Happy/sad

Here is a recording of me having a conversation with my language partner about personal details. I asked him, among other things, about his country, his hobbies and what he does for a living. 

Artifacts%202.mp3

Meeting time: Thursdays 3-6 PM

The first two weeks we practiced the months and seasons using this chart from wikipedia. We ended just focusing on the seasons because the Bangla names for the months are not used as much as the English terms for it are. 

We went over numbers once briefly and decided that it'd be better to do the numbers on my own since I have a chart of it and don't really need help with that. If anything, I can practice the numbers with Sabrina and use it in conversation.

Conversations:

We try to keep our conversations in Bangla as much as possible during class time, which is a given, of course. Sometimes we do formal Bangla, but mostly we speak casually. In the beginning of each class we spend at least an hour talking about our days so that I can work on my explanations in Bangla since I'm not very good or quick at that. It's definitely been helping because my conversational skills have become more easygoing and I don't stutter or stop as much when I get into explaining. Sabrina corrects me as I speak if there's ever anything that needs fixing. The best part is that certain grammatical issues I had speaking have been fixed!

For example, I used to say "chele" instead of "chole" when talking about leaving. It's incorrect basically because of it is conjugated incorrectly making it a different verb entirely (throw instead of leave) so when I'd say "chele gisi" meaning to say "I left" what I was actually saying was "I went threw" which doesn't make sense in English or Bangla. "Chole" is the correct use. I don't accidentally say "chele" anymore! There have been little errors that have been fixed through our preliminary conversations. 

Reading:

What we've done the most of is reading Humayun Ahmed's novella "Aaj Himur Biye" (Today is Himu's Wedding). 

Link: http://www.thebanglabook.com/listing_summery.php?user=mybanglabook&listing_id=589 

This is what I've read so far: (9 pages)

The characters in this are Mejeda Khala (Middle Aunt), Hemu, and Renu. Mejeda Khala calls Hemu up and informs him that today is his wedding. She tells him that she found a girl for him and whether or not he'd be willing to marry her. He asks her questions about the girl and finds out that her name is Renu and that her aunt brought her back from eloping with another boy. She knows the girl through Hemu's uncle's acquaintances. Hemu thinks that his khalu (his uncle and mejeda khala's husband) won't agree to the marriage, but khala reassures him that she'll convince him. Khala warns him about Renu's temper, which is fiery. Eventually Hemu gets the chance to talk to Renu on the phone and finds that Khala was true to her word about her quick temper. He teases her more to make her more angry, finding amusement in her flares.  and Renu thinks his teasing is serious and threatens to bite him. 

This reading is so much better than the other readings I've done in Bangla! It's something I can follow and it's perfect for practicing. Content wise, I was surprised at some things. The one that really struck me was the sexual allusions that Hemu made towards Renu. At one part she had said that she'll draw blood meaning that she'll make him bleed if he didn't stop teasing her inappropriately and he had said something along the lines of, "what? You'll bleed? On our wedding night, maybe." I had to reread that line to make sure I got the same message I read because I had no idea that Bangla literature could be overtly sexual. Sabrina said that it's not exactly a popular characteristic of Bangla literature, but Humayun Ahmed's bold style. 

Writing: 

We did a few dictations, which I'll post later as an artifact. Writing doesn't need that much improvement aside from some spelling errors, but as I continuously write the little errors should go away. I wrote my mom a letter for her birthday! It's more sophisticated than the card I made for my parents last year. I'll post that, too. 

On Skype over spring break me and Sabrina messaged each other in Bangla. Actually, it was me messaging her in Bangla and her answering me over Skype because the script wasn't working on her computer. I talked about random things and school and she corrected my spelling as I wrote to her. That too shall be posted! 

Goals this Semester:

1. Reading: Humayun Ahmed’s novella, “Aaj Himur Biye”

The text in this isn't difficult and it's actually interesting...especially in comparison to the other dense articles and readings we've worked on. There aren't as many (new) conjuncts in this, but that's okay because I want to work on my speed of reading now. I can learn the conjuncts as I encounter them in this reading or other readings. 

Text link: http://www.thebanglabook.com/listing_summery.php?user=mybanglabook&listing_id=589

2. Writing: Once a week emails

In order to practice writing, emails or working with Bangla front/script on the computer will be helpful in familiarizing myself with regular conversation via social media. I will also try to talk to my cousins on Facebook for this reason.

3. Dictation: In-class writing

From time to time we'll do dictation to improve my spelling.

4. Learn numbers (remember to add millions), months and seasons.

I can count up to 20, but not the rest. And I don't know months, seasons, or days of the week properly. 

Links: 

http://www.connect-bangladesh.org/bangla/Numbers.html

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bengali/Months

5. Look at websites (airport sites, other information sites)

For practical reading and comprehension practice.

We'll still use Epar opar (Online: http://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/bengali/) for reference as we need it. 

I started the semester with very little knowledge about Korean: I was able read the alphabet and also to introduce myself when meeting someone for the first time. Along with that I knew few phrases and words related to gaming.

My objectives for this semester are very high since I included the following goals in my learning plan:

-Being able to read fluently, understand the signs (combination of characters) and their pronunciations

-Being able to handle a conversation when meeting someone for the first time (advanced questions)

-Furthermore I would like to be able to express my emotions and my background

-Which also means being able to understand basic conversation

-Being able to make transactions (buy/sell items) which means being familiar with numbers

-Being able to read the date and time (days, month, hours, minutes) to be able to set up meetings

My instructor and I started the semester with by reading and pronouncing the most common signs use in Korea, the difficulty remained in the combination of characters and in the originality of the sounds. In order to be successful in that task I would do many reading exercises with my instructor until the suitable pronunciation was reached. Listening many times to the correct pronunciation in online vocal exercises helped me a lot getting ready for my Korean meetings.

Then we focused on phrases and word to use when meeting someone for the first time in different settings. Additionally, I learned how talk about my background: my nationality, the languages I speak, my age and what do I do in life. By repeating the exercise during several meetings, I started to become more familiar with these phrases and other common korean expressions which ultimately increase my understanding of korean conversations.

Lastly, we worked on numbers. In korean, it is important to notice that there are two types of numbers: the ones used to talk about time and age and the ones used to talk about money and other math problems. Each type is distinct and have different symbols and pronunciation for each number. It took me a while to learn both set of numbers and to become capable of using them in the appropriate context.

I just started to become familiar with the dates and hours so the goal for the next few meetings is to be able to set up a meeting when talking to someone (on the phone, by email or in person) which can be extremely useful in real life. 

I began learning Korean vocabulary starting with adjectives. Since I am a visual-imaginative learner, I tried to remember the adjectives by speaking them out aloud and then visualizing scenarios where I could use them. For example, while eating something spicy, I could say, "mae un" which means spicy in Korean. At this point I can remember about 25 adjectives off the top of my head. Some of them are colors, others are emotions, and then there are some descriptive adjectives as well. I am trying to learn at least 2 new words everyday, and then revising them at the end of a week. Vocabulary building is one of the toughest parts of learning a language, and therefore I am doing it slowly and steadily, and with repeated revision.

Examples:

Colors- (saek means 'color')

Blue: parang saek

White: hin saek

Yellow: norang saek

Red: balgang saek

Black: geomjong saek

Emotions-

I am-

Happy: hangbokhaeyo

Sad: seulpoyo

Excited: Shinnayo

Nervous: Bulanhaeyo

Afraid: Museowoyo

Descriptive adjectives-

Beautiful: yeppeun

Easy: sheowoyo

Difficult: eoryowoyo

Boring: jiruhan

Mysterious: shimdihan

Wedding Ceremony In Pakistan : 

A Pakistani wedding is a traditional ceremony which rejoices on the wedlock of a bride and groom. It brings together the families of the bride and groom in the many occasions that take place. In Pakistan the wedding ceremony is of immense importance. Various cultures have distinct ways of celebrating the wedlock of two individuals through different traditions. Pakistan being a Muslim country situated in South Asia and the greater Middle East has a vibrant culture with many customs. A Pakistani wedding is a festive arrangement, with a lot of fun. It is a celebration that is looked forward to by everyone; there are many pre wedding customs and rituals. Many of the customs that are practiced in Pakistan have no roots to Islam and these customs have been embraced from ceremonies and traditions of the Hindu culture.A typical wedding in Pakistan would be a night and day celebration. They will have the Henna night and the wedding day, the bride and groom will cut the cake and other people will throw flowers on the bride and groom. The friends, relatives, and neighbors will be joining the wedding and will bring gifts and congratulate both families. 

Here is a like to the story of Snow White in Urdu and i short summery of my understanding from the video.

http://youtu.be/EWNb0lSQ0Go

The Summery:

At the beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall. The queen wishes to have a very beautiful daughter. the Queen gives birth to a baby girl who is very pretty. They name her 'Snow White', but sadly, the Queen dies after giving birth to her.

After a year has passed, the King takes a new wife, who is beautiful but also unutterably wicked and vain. The new queen  possesses a magic mirror  which she asks every morning: "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?". The mirror always replies: "My queen, you are the fairest in the land." The Queen is always pleased with that because the magic mirror never lies. But, when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes as beautiful by the day and even more beautiful than the Queen and when the Queen asks her mirror, it responds: "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you.

This gives the queen a great shock. Her heart turns against Snow White and hates Snow White more and more each day. Envy and pride, like ill weeds, grow in her heart taller every day, until she has no peace day or night. Eventually, the Queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the deepest woods to be killed. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest. After raising his knife, he finds himself unable to kill her as she sobs heavily and begs him: "Oh, dear huntsman, don't kill me! Leave me with my life, I will run into the forest and never come back!". The huntsman leaves her behind alive, convinced that the girl would be eaten by some wild animal. He instead brings the Queen the lungs and liver of a  bird. The snow white survives and get married with the a prince who finds her in the forest. 

Today, I taught an Arabic speaking friend the Urdu alphabet. The task was not too difficult, since the Arabic and Urdu alphabets are very similar. However, he did have some trouble with pronunciation. This was an issue for me in the beginning of the semester as well. My friend said that when he looks at the words, his brain automatically processes them as Arabic words so when he wants to pronounce them, he's inclined to pronounce everything similarly to Arabic. Practice will make perfect, I told him. 

I have been reflecting on my progress for this semester, and to be honest, I'm not completely happy with where I am. I have had some accomplishments of course. I can now read and write easily in Urdu. I can ask questions about a person's day and identity and have a basic conversation.  However, I have underestimated the difficulty of self directed learning in the beginning of the semester. In my meeting with Dr. Sharon, I mentioned how difficult it was to motivate myself to learn while there's so much to do for my other classes. Her suggestions were extremely helpful. So far, I've been incorporating them into my learning plan. One of the most helpful ones was to schedule 15 minutes of learning Urdu in between my other work. This serves as a nice break from my normal business school workload and a way to motivate myself to learn more Urdu. 

The following activities I have been doing in order to practice and finally improve my Hindi skills:

Week 1 (Jan, 27-Feb2):

At the first meeting with my tutor Niyati we spoke about the main feelings and emotions. It was interesting for me to see the parallels to the many bollywood movies I had watched. Especially, I could relate to the songs and memorize the emotions vocabs well beause I can precisely picture the scenes where feelings like sadness or happiness is expressed. I watched some bollywood songs among which the most memorable for me was 'kabhi khushi, kabhi gam'-

'sometimes happyness, sometimes sadness'. Besides I revised all the other emotions vocabs (happy, sad, smile, suprised, angry, etc.) 

Week 2 (Feb 3- Feb 7): 

In the second week I did some analytical activities. To be more specific, I watched- I know, again- some bollywood songs and tried to translate the lyrics and understand how the song fits the movie. At that time I noticed that certain vocabs were used more often than others. They mostly were about love stories and feelings. So this activity was a good revision of the first week of studies.

Week 3 (Feb 10- 16):

Unfortunately, I had no meeting with the tutor this week as we experienced difficulties finding a date. However, I focused on verbs and phrases used for smalltalk. 

Week 4 (Feb 17- 23):

At my meeting with the tutor we did grammar, namely conjugation of main verbs in present and past. Those include: t be, to say, to take, to walk, to live etc.) Surprisngly, in Hindi there is no verb 'to have'. Instead, 'to be' is used in the third case. This is nothing new to me as the same construction exists in Latin (Dativus possesivus).

During the rest of the week, I memorized these verbs and tried to form simple, but proper sentences.

The goals of this week were to memorize and understand the conjugation of verbs in present and past. I practiced the conjugation of common verbs and paid attention to the suffixes. I can say, that I now know how to conjugate verbs, both in present and past, which is essential to build sentences.

Week 5 (Feb 24- March 2):

At the meeting with the tutor we spoke about the human body and the names of the bodyparts. Later in the week I revised what I have learned.

This week was more relaxed than the one before.  I just wanted to name and be able to address the parts of the human body. For example, I wanted to know how to say, "Give me your hand." or "Close your eyes.". Also, those words are important as they are often used in Bollywood songs. Niyati showed me the different parts of the body by painting them down on the blackboard. Later, named them, which worked pretty well.

Week 6 (March 3- March 9):

I did not meet with my tutor since the day we had our meeting on, classes were cancelled. Nevertheless, I focused on how to describe a typical day in my life. (getting up at 7am, having breakfast, going to classes, studying, lunch etc.)

I have watched a documentary about Malala Yousafzia's life. It was interesting because it showed a real of a whole family specially a life a young girl. From the video i was able to understand good enough. Here is some of the things that i understood from the video. And also please find the link below to the document because it is a very good and interesting story. 

Malala Yousafzai was born on 12 July 1997 into a Sunni Muslim family.Yousafzai was educated in large part by her father, who is a poet, school owner where his daughter goes as well. She always wanted to become a doctor but her father encouraged her to become a politician instead since her was like 13 years old.  She lives in a small village, called Swan. The life in her village is very different from other parts  in Pakistan. Her village seems to be rural but very peaceful and green at that time. She goes to school every day and has few good friends that hangout with sometimes. Malala is a bright student in her school and started speaking about education rights as early as September 2008, when her father took her to Peshawa to speak at the local Press Club. That is how her news of talking about girl's education and herself broadcasted and caused her to be shot by the Taliban

Here is the link to the documentary. 

Malala Yousafzai Story: The Pakistani Girl Shot in Taliban Attack     

artifact.m4a.webloc

In the first few weeks of this semester, i basically had a general review for what i have done through out last semester to just make sure that i have all the basics that i need. Secondly, I worked with my language partner through some questions that i had and some reviews such as prepositions. In addition, my language partner had sent some great videos for  pronunciation which found them very helpful. I have listened to three short videos several times to get the great pronunciation and conversation.  It was very helpful both for my listening and pronunciation. Here is an interesting video about a lady and her chats with her neighbors. It is interesting. She talk about how the rents sucks in their neighborhood. 

http://youtu.be/6jhYbsbPRb4

Words used:

Rent: Kiraya

House: Kar

situation: halat

people: Mardom

very bad: Acha nahey

• What is your ultimate goal?  What is your goal for this semester?

  
  

  As I am a beginner learner, my ultimate goal with Urdu for this semester is to eventually learn how to have proficiency as intermediate level in the language. I do hope to increase the following areas of my Urdu knowledge: reading / listening comprehension, writing and pronunciation, and mostly speaking or have basic conversation

   What basically i have planned to do for this semester is as follows:  

• Goals:

       a.goals:

• Vocabulary that is related to themes, such as education, school, marriage, holidays and so on. 
• Any form of grammar or language structure, that I do not yet know, that is good for my proficiency.
•  Listen and watch some of the following: video clips about daily issues, specifically education, situation of schools,  broadcast of a game in Urdu and watch news segments related to village live vs city live, marriage ceremonies, schools and education. 

      b. Listening: 

• Understand phrases and commonly-used vocabulary related to personal and family information, shopping, ordering food and directions. 
• Catch the main point in short, simple messages, discussions and conversations. 

      c. Reading: 

• Read very short and simple texts.
• Understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences.

      d. Speaking: 

• Can communicate in simple and routine tasks such as asking for information, shopping, asking for and able to understand directions. 
• Capable of handling short social exchanges and talk about me interests, I will not be able to keep up a conversation on my own.

      d. Speaking: 

• Able to use a series of phrases and sentences to describe my family and about myself. 
• Able to describe things using simple adjectives and talk about other people. 

      e. Writing: 

• Able to write the letters of the alphabet.
• Write basic words and phrases related to myself.

   f. Grammar: 

• Conjugation of the most commonly used verbs in the present. 
• Basic sentence structure
• Asking and answering questions

I thought the cultural competence article was interesting- particularly when it addresses the function of language. When I think about the purpose of language I often just see it as a way of communication- as the interactional function, but it serves many roles and functions. I think in learning a language we often utilize it's representational function. For example, we have been learning about how to say different family related phrases such as "I have a sister" which utilizes language as a way to represent facts and express knowledge. Ideally as I become more proficient in Hebrew I would hope to utilize more of the functions of the Hebrew language such as making jokes, using slang, cultural mores etc. that characterize the interactional function of language.

The section on corpus linguistics was also interesting because of how it analyzes the words that are most important to learn based on their frequency of use in the language. The article makes the distinction that frequency is not equivalent to usefulness. I think this is a noteworthy difference because for example the word "the" appears very frequently in English, but only knowing how to say "the" without any noun is not very useful. The word "bathroom" may not be as frequent as "the," but it will be much more useful and you can convey more meaning with "bathroom" than you can "the."

Upon watching the Culture Shock video, I realize the greater challenges that other international students [who do not natively speak English] have to take. At the University of Richmond, the majority of courses, excluding foreign languages, are taken in English. The entire city is in English, and you can get by with just knowing English. An international student at UR would need to learn English, which is to them a foreign language, and take all the courses at the University in that language. That means that not only does the international student have to know the ins and outs of his science class, but he also needs to understand the parallel English words associated to the subject. Other than English, I would not be able to learn about another subject in Chinese or Korean.

If I were studying abroad in Korea, there would be no "time out." If I am trying to buy food from a market, I can't tell everyone to stop speaking Korean and switch to English. I need to know all the Korean equivalents of words I want to say in order to survive. In some ways, not knowing is what will cause the frustration and feelings of loneliness. In addition to being required to know the native language of the country, you must also know the culture. Actions that are accepted and expected in America may be totally different from that of Korea. "What's up" in America represents a casual "hello," but in other countries may be an invitation to sit down and discuss.

From this situation, I now understand why sometimes it is easier to just stick with peers who speak the same language as you do. It is a common complaint on our campus that international students just stick together and "do not" want to associate with the American students. However, as described by one of the international students in Culture Shock, it is only because it is a more comfortable environment and they often feel embarrassed for speaking to us in non-fluent English. When one experiences culture shock, the video describes an individual experience homesickness and frustration. I believe that is why when you finally meet someone who can speak the same language as you do, it is an oasis, a safety hub where you can take a breath and recuperate from culture shock.

It is difficult being an international student, and I can now see why Australia or any other native English-speaking country is a heavily sought after location for UR students to study abroad.

I don't have a set number of words counted out in terms of how much I have learned. However, I plan on learning based on different situations and scenarios I want to cover this semester. This semester, my goal is to learn reading and writing to a level of which I can decipher sentences at a basic level. My plan is to walk away after graduation with a stronger grasp on speaking. Reading skills are something I can develop on my own; however, the actual opportunity to learn how to speak from a native speaker is something that I believe I should focus on.

As said before, my goals are to cover a specific set of scenarios. Some include: ordering food, giving directions, greetings and introductions, addressing elders, discussing hobbies.

I plan to approach learning these words by learning a set of sentences and vocabulary words that fit my personal preferences. Then I will put the words together in dialogues. I found that insofar in my studies, it is easier to learn words in a dialogue so that I can associate the words to a scenario and specific memory.

This week we primarily focused on what major project or assignment we should do over break. We decided that we should continue to look up and summarize articles. Which I am have not decided if that really helps me that much. I think I tend to be more confused than competent when it comes to understanding the articles. Although it could just be that I am choosing the wrong articles to summarize. Last time I chose one that was about poetry and most of the terms they used in Swedish I didn't even know what they meant in English. So hopefully that one will go better.  Then we have to look up rules on verb conjugations. This one makes me nervous, because I know there are so many ways to conjugate a verb and I forget when you use which. After Molly and I should skype twice over break to talk about what we have done over break. This one is a good one but one I am reluctant on. Just because my fear of speaking swedish aloud is still very real. And lastly we will have to write a mini essay (one page) about a Swedish tradition. It will be very similar to our cultural blogs we have to do for 111 but this time it will be in Swedish. I think this is a lot to do but forces us to continue using and learning Swedish over the break. Because if we don't practice it, we tend to forget it.

After viewing the Culture Shock video in class last week, I couldn't help but reflect on my own experiences traveling abroad and dealing with culture shock. The video discussed the challenges that come with living somewhere new, especially the first two weeks of living there. I could relate to this statement when thinking back to my first two weeks living in Prague. I remember feeling very lost and alone and unsure of myself. I was experiencing a new language, a new location, and a new culture. Tasks that used to be so simple at home, such as going to the supermarket, always seemed to be a lot more effort and tiring. The way people checked out after shopping was confusing to me and I always felt like the woman checking me out was yelling at me for doing something wrong. Instead of getting frustrated by the situation, I tried to understand the differences in culture and how I could adjust my ways to fit into the Czech culture more.

Something that stood out to me during the movie was how many of the students being interviewed talked about how much harder the schooling is in America. I can understand how this is absolutely a huge challenge for a student studying abroad here. When I was in Europe, I found that I only really needed to do my work at the end of the semester for finals. There was no homework or exams throughout the semester, rather just at the end of the term. This would be a huge challenge for someone to come to the US and have homework, projects, and exams each week!

Finally, I found the idea of flight vs. fight to resonate quite well with me. The person in the video described flight as “I will go home in X days” versus fight as “I will resist the urge to want to leave.” One of my friends studied abroad in Hong Kong last year. She was miserable the whole time and I think that is because she was unable to embrace the culture differences and was instead focused on counting down the days until she would be back in the US. I think this is negative mentality to have while living in another country. Whenever I would feel homesick abroad, I never thought about leaving. I embraced the cultural differences and enjoyed learning about a new country. To me, different does not equal wrong.

Third Cultural Post: Learning how to read the time

Being able to read the time is a necessity in the business world and this cultural post is written to teach how to read it.

In order to read the time correctly you will have to learn the two different set of numbers used in Korean: one for the hours and one for the minutes.

KoreanTime_CulturalPost3.jpg