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In reflection of the following article, "A Picture of Language," I learned a lot about the teaching and learning of grammar, a component of language learning that I generally leave behind. From my experiences with Hebrew, English, Arabic, and Spanish, I've found that I am strongly apt to picking up languages and communicating successfully with native speakers. However, grammar has never been a strong point. This article has emphasized the difficulties of the method of parsing, which offers practical skills in breaking down sentences to understand tenses, parts of speech, and the number and function of conjugations. While I agree that this is tedious and not supportive of flowing speech when working on learning a new language, I think it is necessary to spend a short amount of time breaking down how sentences work in the new language. For example, one of the students I work with as a language partner, has focused the main part of the semester on learning vocabulary, and is not going back and learning about sentence structures and conjugation. Now that he is done so, he has a better understanding for the progression of words within a sentence. I think that the use of diagrams, while I have never seen it applied, would support me in grammar learning because I am definitely a visual learner. I was surprised to find at the end of the article that so many of the people the author had interviewed are in agreement.

One particular sentence stood out to me in H.D. Brown’s chapter on Sociocultural Factors – “no society exists without a culture.”  While this sentence seems obvious and unextraordinary, it has some powerful implications.  The fact every society has a culture that is unique and individualistic means that there are millions of different ways to view the world.  Our perceptions of the world are therefore subjective to our origins, and can cause us to view other existing perceptions as strange, incorrect, illogical, and even wrong.  We then oversimplify such perceptions and create generalizations about them in order to organize our worldview.  This process happens to just about everyone, but it carries an inherent danger for it leads to the thing nearly all societies have a love-hate relationship with – stereotypes.   

Due to stereotypes, most people believe there are certain Dos and Don’ts for each culture.  There are certain norms which must be abided by and certain attitudes and behaviors deemed acceptable or unacceptable.  Now what does all of this have to do with language learning?

H.D. Brown provides the answer, “a language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of a language” (189).  Language is thus the most visible expression of culture.  If we want to immerse ourselves into learning a language, we must understand the roots and causes of its construction.  We must re-orientate are way of thinking, feeling, and of course communicating.  Such reorientation cannot occur without acquiring a new identity associated with the new language; a process Brown calls acculturation.  Acculturation is not an easy process, because it puts us through an emotional roller coaster that includes amazement and adoration, culture shock, and feelings of uncertainty or dissatisfaction.  We must learn to decipher the truth evident within stereotypes and to see through their exaggerations and prejudices. 

Even once we begin to “master” the new language, we find it difficult to fully define our new identity.  How do we find a balance between the culture we were born and raised in and the culture we want to fully understand and immerse ourselves into? 

Over the course of my language learning journeys, I have come to understand the fact that learning a language involves so much more than grammar, pronunciation, and syntax.  On the contrary, language learning involves learning a new way of life.  I believe the more willing we are to fully commit ourselves to the process, the more rewarding we will find it in the end.       

So since I’ve been talking about Portuguese and Brazil over the course of the semester, I figured I might as well end talking about the two :). Here are some funny stereotypes I encountered and had to overcome about Brazilians while learning their language…

http://thegoodblood.blogspot.com/2010/10/cartoons-of-things-that-people-ask-you.html

http://haters-gonna-hate-me.deviantart.com/art/Brazilian-Stereotype-245758091

http://blog.polyanadeoliveira.com/2011/06/yes-i-am-no-i-dont.html

http://yes-butno.tumblr.com/search/brazil

The readings on "Sociocultural Factors" provided some unique insights that I had never previously considered. I found the section about stereotypes particularly interesting. The section highlighted how often we do stereotype those who come from different backgrounds and cultures than ourselves. While Francois Lierres's article regarding do's and don't's for his fellow Frenchman traveling to the United States is entertaining, it is also interesting to see how a culture is stereotyped by those alien to it.

Moreover, the concept of second culture acquisition was something I had never thought of before. Essentially, the concept claims that an individual learning a second language begins to develop a second identity; this is referred to as acculturation. The challenging of an individual's previous cultural identity by a newly-forming identity can foster issues, especially abroad. Culture shock can be even more stressful for those who experience acculturation.

Language competence and cultural competence are two concepts which are inextricably linked.  One simply cannot function without the other.  In other words, you must be able to interact effectively with people of different cultures in order to adequately acquire a comprehensive understanding of their language.  Cultural competency first requires that I understand my own world views and beliefs.  I must then obtain knowledge about the culture I’m learning about and simultaneously avoid stereotypes and other negative images which might prevent me from fully grasping the culture.  Of course, there may genuinely be aspects of the culture that run counter to my own personal values and/or beliefs.  Furthermore, there may be aspects of the culture which make absolutely no sense to me, because they are completely absent from my way of life.

Overcoming obstacles such as these are essential components to acquiring cultural competence.  Brazil for instance has a completely different mentality on race relations than what the U.S. has.  The United States operates primarily on binary systems of race relations.  For example, there are obvious distinctions between those who are “black” and those who are “white.”  In America, if you look black, you are black.  This means of classification emerged from our nation’s history of the “one-drop rule,” whereby individuals with any amount of African ancestry were considered black. 

Brazil’s distinctions on race are not as clear-cut.  Brazilians also classify people according to what they look like, but they use a supremely larger number of racial categories.  According to the website Psychology Today, one study in the Brazilian northeast conducted by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) – the entity responsible for the census – asked people what color they were, and received 134 different answers! 

My mindset of being a black woman in the U.S. therefore had little bearing in Brazil.  In Brazil, I was classified in numerous categories including morena/mulatta (brown), negra (black), preta (brown-black), Afro-Brasileira (Afro-Brazilian), pardo (mixed race), and even branca (white) at one point!  For in the words of one Brazilian friend, “the perception that you have money as an American ‘whitens’ your skin.”  The entire situation was completely foreign to me.  In America, you are forced into clear-cut racial lines.  In Brazil, these racial lines are dynamic and constantly blur depending on perceptions, economics, and status. 

Cultural competence is therefore imperative to understanding the target language and people.  It requires patience, understanding, and a willingness to temporarily see the world through different pairs of eyes. 

Reference:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/looking-in-the-cultural-mirror/201112/what-does-the-brazilian-census-tell-us-about-race

I had a batty teacher in ninth grade who was infamous in the school for being brilliant, but absolutely crazy. She graduated from a very respectable Ivy League school and had her doctorate, which was hard to come by in my large public school. She was an odd grader, an interesting dresser, and an unconventional teacher. 

Part of her curriculum for our freshman year was to learn grammar. She told us that we didn't really know grammar, and that we never were taught it correctly in grade school. So she made it her personal mission to make sure we knew our grammar by the time we left her classroom. She tried different methods, and I remember diagramming was one of them. In fact, I was surprised to see that it was something that she hadn't invented, because it seemed so outrageous. The class reacted in a pretty unanimous way - the diagramming seemed silly and superfluous, and if anything, a distraction. There are of course merits to unconventional and outside-the-box teaching, but this just seemed like it was not one of them. 

It seemed contrived, and quite frankly, took away from the productivity of the class, because we spent more time learning how to construct the picture than we did learning the content. Perhaps if it is implemented at a younger age in the curriculum, it could be a more feasible way of teaching grammar and sentence structure. However, it is a different way of teaching within a system that already exists and rejects it, and therefore, is difficult to adapt to and fully appreciate. 

I think this type of teaching method may be very valuable for ESL learners or young children, but it must be kept in mind that it is a method, not the solution. A teacher should experiment with other types of teaching to see which is most well-received, as each student is an individual learner. Ultimately, it sounds like a great idea, but may be a gimmick for most. 

The opinion blog on the New York Times website, "A Picture of Language," emphasized grammar in a new light to me. I never heard of parsing before, but it sounds like a frustrating task to help one learn a language. Grammar in Korea is not very strong. It often feels like I'm just plugging words into any order. It is much less complex than the English language. I can understand how diagramming may help some people that prefer learning visually. I do not personally think I could benefit from it, but that is difficult to know until I try it myself. I'm surprised at how successful the book ended up being in this time period. I can't remember how I learned proper grammar as a child, but I know it took many years of practice. The simplification of the Korean language does not require such careful study to break down sentences into these diagrams. I think the best method of learning grammar is to stick to learning the rules and applying them rather than drawing diagrams. 

In the "Sociocultural Factors," article, many relevant topics were discussed in terms of culture and "fitting in." I found the most amusing topic to be the idea of anomie. This feeling of social uncertainty or dissatisfaction is said to be heightened at the time when a person is close to mastering a language. One would assume that a person may like they fit in more because they understand the language, but it is quite the opposite. A person has an identity confusion when they don't know which language and culture is their dominant background anymore. I was intrigued by the four stages of culture acquisition as well. When I studied abroad in Argentina for only 6 weeks, I felt culture shock in such a short time in comparison to my 3 and a half months in Madrid. When I studied in Madrid, I never felt culture shock. I think the excitement and euphoria stage lasted the entire time I was there. I'm not sure why this occurred, but I just felt more at home in Madrid. My korean language learning is still at the beginning, but I look forward to my trip there to see how my culture acquisition plays out.

H.D. Brown’s chapter on “Communicative Competence” is a wonderful reminder that learning a language must occur on many fronts.  He defines communicative competence as “that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts” (223).  While it is important to obtain grammatical competence and knowledge of syntactic structures; this is not sufficient in and of itself.  It is necessary to have the pragmatic contexts of discourse, because the meaning of a sentence varies depending on how it is said and the context it is said in.  As Brown states, “it is not what you say that counts but how you say it” (237).  This simple truth tells us that language is largely dependent on interaction between participants.  Having cognitive and academic language proficiency is all well and dandy, but basic interpersonal communicative skills are most pertinent to the “real world.”    

Focusing on the social and functional role of language is therefore a key aspect of language learning.  Most language learning classrooms attempt to emphasize this aspect of language by having interactive components to textbooks and curriculum.  For instance, almost anyone who has learned a language in a classroom has done an activity such as introductions, exchanging personal information, giving commands, apologizing and thanking, identifying and describing people, asking for information, etc. 

In my opinion however, one truly acquires interpersonal language skills simply by interacting and speaking with native speakers of the language he/she is trying to learn.  There are so many subtleties to language that cannot be taught (i.e. non-verbal communication, gender effects, artifacts, etc.).  Instead, they must be experienced.  In fact, I believe I learn language best through experience first.  I prefer to learn by interacting with a native speaker one-on-one.  While these interactions have often been extremely awkward in the beginning of my language learning journey, they usually turn out to be worthwhile in the end.  As numerous Brazilians told me while I was struggling to acquire Portuguese, it doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make because in the end tudo bom (everything is alright).

Want to know more about the subtleties to Brazilian Portuguese?!?! Check out this cute video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTgPMkFWDlQ 

This week I have been working on doing research for my cultural project. 

In addition, I have been trying to identify famous celebrities and political figures that show up in the news a lot. This has been extremely helpful in understanding the news with the upcoming election year. 

Also, having done some research on the perceptions of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews at the start of the Israeli state, I am interested in possible stereotypes that still exist. The following political cartoon sheds light on this-

The guy driving in the car is asking the woman how to get to "askenazi"... there are stereotypes in that he is driving, she is walking, she seems to have been shopping at the street markets, while he is just lost in the poorer area of the neighborhood.

I've also downloaded the free Hebrew dictionary application for Apple. The app is great not only for translation use as a language partner, but great for learning some vocabulary that I do not regularly use in everyday Hebrew speaking. It also provides a quiz that tests your knowledge and recent new words you've learned, which has been great for repetition and review of their use and meaning.

Week 8 

This week our plan is to learn how to tell time. I learned this a little bit for my second artifact when saying the time to go to lunch. Time is interesting because the Korean language has 2 different ways to say numbers depending on what you are counting. The hours use one number system and minutes uses the other number system. I learned this through a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSnqli_Md2s. The instructor's accent was a little difficult to understand. I also found a different PDF online to help me learn visually. http://images.passva91.multiply.multiplycontent.com/attachment/0/R6ooZgoKCBkAAFPaK1I1/Lesson%2012%20Telling%20Time.pdf?key=passva91:journal:7&nmid=80949331 

I found both resources equally helpful. 

At this point in the semester, I am realizing the difficulty is memorizing so many topics. It is more complicated than I thought it would be. I am learning a lot, but I also forget some of the words I learned at the beginning of the semester. My greatest accomplishment thus far is understanding the culture more. I learned a lot about life in Korea and priorities of the people that live in Korea. There is a lot of research that goes behind language learning especially when I am not simply following one text book or using one learning resource. The variety of resources all help me in different ways. Videos help my pronunciation, but reading articles helps me learn the culture and reason why people say things in certain ways.

I am attaching the lesson I created for a friend in a photo on my page. It was very effective because my friend learned how to say numbers 1 through 10 in less than 5 minutes. First, I went through the numbers and helped her pronunciate each word. Then I gave her a worksheet I made that you can see on my page.

Week 9

This week the goal was to learn numbers and dates. There are two different counting systems that are used depending on the situation. One is known as pure korean and the other is known as sino-Korean because it is based on Chinese numerals.  As I wrote in the discussion post, time uses both counting systems, one for hours and one for minutes. I practiced numbers by a few online activity sites I found. I learned about the counting systems on this website: http://www.learn-korean.net/learn-korean-classes-viewarticle-16.html.

I also discovered Chisanbop, a Korean counting game. It is known as finger math and helps with addition. The instructions can be found at this website: http://www.ehow.com/how_4861020_finger-math-basic-addition-counting.html. There was also flashcards on the Before You Know It application on my computer. Numbers are important to learn also because of the culture of Korea's heavy reliance on comparing ages. I find it hard to keep from mixing up the two counting systems. 

Week 10

Food is an essential part of many conversations in Korea. I worked food into my second artifact conversation with my mom to reflect this. It is the most common thing to plan one's day around in Korea. If you go to a friend's house, one of the first things people do is make sure everyone is well fed. I decided to incorporate food into my cultural presentation because of how often I find food coming up in my research. Every festival also revolves around a certain meal or type of food. A rice cake soup is served at many festivals. Korea is also known for their barbecue which is the basis of many traditional restaurants. Bulgogi is a thinly sliced grilled beef that is a popular menu item. There is also gimbap which is served as a snack or quick meal. I thought the concept was interesting because it is basically like Japanese sushi but not considered a meal. Gimbap is seasoned riced with fried egg, julienned carrots, julienned ham, seasoned ground beef or fish cakes, pickled radish, seasoned spinach, and cucumber. It seems like a very interesting combination. The most shocking food I learned about was how restaurants will serve live octopus while it is still moving. The culture of eating at Korean was something I researched as well. The eldest male is always served first and no one should pick up their chopsticks until everyone is served. Drinking etiquette is also interesting. Each diner is supposed to face away from the eldest male and cover his or her mouth when drinking alcohol. The first drink should also never be refused when the host offers it. I am going to research more about restaurant behavior before I go to Korea to make sure I don't seem rude.

Week 11

The personal goal I have for this week is transportation. I wanted to understand how transportation works before I travel in the area. We will be taking planes to travel throughout Korea and probably walking a lot so I thought it would be smart to learn about directions. I started by researching what popular types of transportation are in Korea before looking up the vocabulary. There is an extensive network of railroads, highways, bus routes, ferry services, and air routes. There is also a subway system in Seoul and the other 5 large cities. I also watched this video to learn more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9-dWqyjxA. I found another website that has "pre-made" flashcards. It's called flash card exchange and had an entire list of Korean transportation vocabulary. After studying this for a while, I concentrated more on giving and following directions. I found a website with an interactive game to learn left/right, up/down, etc. http://genkienglish.net/speakkorean/koreanleftandright.htm This was good for hearing and identifying the word. I think is a good way to learn so I know I am pronouncing the words correctly before trying to read them on my own.

Below I have attached a video I made with a few common greetings, farewells, and introductions in Persian; in Dari, specifically:

Farsi Learning Activity Sheet

I filled out this worksheet and gave it to my brother who already knew a few Farsi phrases from Islamic school ( 15 years ago). He had a hard time writing his name, which is "Khalid Mohammed Hart." The main issues were the full and half forms of letters. I tried to make the worksheet basic, but the alphabet is  a bit much to pile on I've learned. He almost spelled "chips" correctly in Farsi and did spell "chai" correctly. If I had to make another worksheet, I would just focus on the alphabet. I would make whoever is filling it out write the alphabet over and over. The best way to learn,in my opinion, is through repetition. 

I stumbled across this Farsipop artist. His name is Ali Lohrasbi. The music had the feel of Latino pop, maybe channeling Marc Anthony, J-Lo's ex husband. I thought the similarities were pretty intriguing and I have posted a song below.

Sheidaee

I am not sure what the name means exactly, but I will post as soon as I find out. I do know that this song has something to do with the meaning of love based on YouTube comments.

Lohrasbi also has a Facebook fanpage ( http://www.facebook.com/Ali.Lohrasbi.Music). 

He sounds very emotionally connected in all of the songs that I have listened to, which is a  nice contrast from American music these days.  I wonder if Susan has heard of this artist and if she has, does she like him. It would be interesting to hear her preference when it comes to Farsipop versus pop in the U.S.  I will definitely ask about these things tomorrow and update if possible. 

I once took a global music class, so music in different countries is awfully intriguing. I find that a greater emphasis is placed on lyrical content and instruments are used more often than in the U.S.,where we have autotune or computer-created beats. I really do appreciate this take on music because that is how it should be.

Also, I want to do some research on how much music is censored in the Middle East. I doubt anything political can be incorporated without the artist being reprimanded. That is the complete opposite from the U.S. where people mention Obama and Bush all the time in lyrics, specifically rap artists.

I think music is a powerful outlet to voice any opinions and the question is how subliminal does one want one's messages to be?

Goals for Weeks 4 and 5

Susan taught us many verbs and how to conjugate them for each subject. We learned the past tense of each verb and the present/future tense.  The verbs are listed below:

To Come:   امدن

To Go:  رفتن

To Do: کردن

To See: دیدن

To Write: نوشتن

To Study: خواندن

To Buy: خریدن

To Sell: فروختن

To Sleep:  خوابیدن

 I want to memorize all of these verbs, so I can be more fluent in conversations during Farsi practice.

I plan to look over my notes and write out each verb, so that I have a better chance of memorizing each verb.

I will evaluate my success by trying to hold a conversation using these verbs without having to constantly look at my notes or ask Susan for help.

             My topic for my cultural presentation is the Misconceptions of Afghanistan: In the

Eyes of a Young Adult. I was inspired to pursue this topic in talking with Susan about visiting

the country and safety concerns. It is deeply ingrained in the minds of most Americans that

Afghanistan is a dangerous place to be and your safety is always a major concern. The

media always shows bombings and never the reality of life in Afghanistan to natives. I want

to focus on finding the truth on daily life aside from preconceived notions. I will make this

topic relatable by limiting it to young adults and a daily routine for a young adult in

Afghanistan. I will talk to Susan and maybe find another native to connect with to get a

varying viewpoint. I want to compare and contrast young adults’ lives in the U.S. and

Afghanistan. Are there malls? Do people go to concerts and movie theatres? Is college an

important factor? What colleges are the best and are they in safe areas? What are the

common aspirations for young adults in Afghanistan since Americans have the “American

Dream?” What are common jobs in Afghanistan? People in America look down on people

working in fast food, since Afghanistan has a KFC, does it have the same social stigma?

      My learning goals are highly cultural when it comes to this topic. I hope to answer all of

these questions and more. Also, I would like to incorporate Farsi into my presentation, so I

will learn some important phrases regarding this topic.

Goals for the semester

Meet with Susan two times a  week (Monday & Friday from  10-11a.m.)

Each goal is bulleted instead of organized by week because I am in a class with newer learners,so activities may vary.

• Learn Basic Farsi sentence structures (Subject  + Noun + Verb)
• Learn how to form my own sentences in Farsi (basic)
• Learn compound sentence structures incorporating Dari phrases from handout
• Learn how to tell locations ( basic directional phrases)
• Learn how to say my favorite items
• Learn how to say what I like/love/do not like/do not love
• Learn how to negate verbs  ( add “nun” to beginning of each phrase)
• Learn the past, present and future tense of verbs
• Discuss what I did over the weekend/ what I plan to do this week
• Review days of the week/learn how to refer to months
• Learn about Farsi New Year ( completely different structure from America)
• How to say interesting facts about myself
• How to say what I am studying and my year in school
• Ask questions regarding all of the topics to other Farsi speakers
• Learn more about culture in Iran/Afghanistan

Week 1

The first week of class I spent looking into new resources to use for the Korean language learning. My goal was to try out a few different resources to see what helped the most. I found that youtube was a great resource so that I could listen to native Korean speakers. The Before You Know it application was great for memorizing words also. Diigo is a useful tool for bookmarks, but I probably won't use it as much as the other resources. I often study by making note cards so that is a technique I will most likely use often. I filled out the Language Partner Questionnaire and will look forward to meeting my new partner. 

My goal for this week is to start learning basic Korean words that will come in handy no matter what the situation is. I learned that yes and no have several different forms depending on the formality. I will look further into differences in formality as a goal for next week. I'm still getting used to all the resource I have been signing up for. We learned a few interesting tools in class for recording voices. These will come in handy for the artifacts. I have not had a chance to meet with my language partner yet. The Korean language learners have a unique situation where there are two language partners that we could be meeting with. We are trying to find times in everyones' busy schedules that will work out best. 

Week 2

I had my first class with my language partner, Joon Kim. We decided to meet Wednesdays and Sundays at 7pm. I started to study the writing system of Korea. It is called Hangul and is made up of 14 consonants and 10 vowels. They combine to make new "characters." I want to memorize the sounds associated with each character soon so that I can pronounce more words. I made note cards to do this. The hardest part is that the sounds do not necessarily reflect a letter in the English alphabet. One character makes a sound between an R and an L making it very difficult for me to pronounce. I'm also having difficulties with all the vowels because many sound similar to me. The note cards are less effective than I thought because I need to hear the sounds of each character and not just read it. I found a lesson on youtube that I watch for additional help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djB05a4ntQ4

This was much more effective than the note cards. My language partner was also helpful in reiterating the sounds of each character and to practice with.

Week 3 

I looked further into the differences of Formality and Informality this week. I learned that there is a huge difference in formality depending on what age a person is. One must ALWAYS be formal with someone that's even just a year older than them. Joon Kim was telling me about the way birthdays work in Korea. It seems confusing, but from what I understand, everyone has their own birthday, but they consider themselves one year older on the Korean New Years. A common way that most words became formal was adding "yo" to the end. The more formal phrases were usually longer or just had additional words added on to the informal phrases. A lot of my learning just came from researching the topic online. I learned several words while doing this which will help me get ahead for next week when we study greetings. Joon Kim also put two textbooks on a USB drive so that I can research more information through that as well. My first language tasks this week were to learn the alphabet and greetings, farewells, and introductions. I continued to use the same methods as last week to learn the alphabet. I practiced writing more also. Each character is written a specific way whereas I would normally just write it the way that seems the quickest. I researched why it was supposed to be done a specific way and learned that it would help later when combining the letters into the characters they can form. Joon taught me many greetings and also helped me figure out what greetings are most commonly used. I hope to learn things that will be most beneficial when traveling in Korea so if no one uses a certain phrase anymore, I would rather focus on other words. 

Week 4

This week's goal is to learn more conversation topics that go along with introductions, greetings, and farewells. Small talk can cover a variety of topics so I tried to learn what would be most interesting and useful for when I travel and meet people. I also like to learn things that I can ask my grandma at home. I used the textbooks on the USB for more information and they were really helpful. I just have trouble memorizing all the phrases. I make flashcards often and have to practice so I don't forget it the next week if I move on to a different topic. Flashcards help me evaluate my success because I can test myself until I get it right, but at the same time, I'm afraid of forgetting the information so I want to look into other ways to learn. I found an iPhone app that is similar to flashcards and the BYKI software. It pronounces the words so I think that hearing it helps me learn it easier. Our first artifact is due so I'm making something I can use in real life. I made my grandma a birthday card and sent it to her. In order to do this, I had to learn the formal ways to say Happy Birthday and other things like "I miss you" and "I love you." I researched what common birthday cards would say and found a lot of information. Joon Kim also taught me that it is normal to wish someone a year in good health so I learned how to say and write that as well.

Week 5

I took out a bunch of blank paper and practiced writing letters. I combined consonants and vowels in all the possible combinations. I downloaded an iPhone application where you practice writing by tracing the letters. This helped a little, but it was not as effective as just practicing writing over and over again. My learning goals for week 4 and 5 went well. I learned a lot, but there is always more to learn with the greetings, introductions, and farewells. Some phrases are used less often than others so I tried to narrow my learning to master the most commonly used phrases. My writing has improved greatly in just two weeks. I went from looking at the Korean writing system and thinking it was going to impossible to understand to being able to combine all the consonants and vowels in less than two weeks. I'm proud of this accomplishment. My artifact of a birthday card with a greeting to my Grandma was very appreciated. I am glad she could understand everything I wrote. I am going to continue writting letters to her for the practice and she can help evaluate them.

Week 6

The language tasks for this week are to ask questions about identity and to also talk about your own family. I learned that there are different ways of calling people depending on formality/age. The same person will either be called one of two names depending on if the person speaking is older or younger. It is a form of respect to identify someone correctly. I learned how to say what I am doing or what I already did. The form of the sentence stays the same, but now there are just many verbs and nouns to learn that you can insert into the sentence. I'm learning the words that I would use most like I am going to class, I am hanging out, etc. When someone asks you a question, the response usually involves repeating the question. A question and statement differ by the tone of voice you use. If it is a question being asked then the voice will get higher as opposed to a statement where the voice generally stays the same pitch. I determined that my culture project will be about weddings. I wrote about that in a cultural post.

Week 7

I used this week to review a lot of the things I already learned. It's difficult to remember the things I learned in the beginning so its always good to review. I practiced by reorganizing my notes and rewriting the notes into a more organized form. This is a study technique I often use because when I rewrite things, I tend to learn it faster than just looking at the words. Since my first artifact was a card that I wrote to my grandma for her birthday, I chose to make my second artifact a recording of a conversation between my mom and I. I will post this on the website next. The conversation entails saying hi and asking how each other is doing. We talk about going out to lunch at a korean restaurant and incorporate telling time. 

The topic of family is extremely important in both Jewish and Israeli culture. The background of Jewish history of assimilation, diaspora, and persecution, makes being Jewish a very familial thing. This summer I will be doing research on the Former Soviet Union and immigration for religious freedom to the U.S. and Israel. From the conversations I've had these people were scared to be publicly Jewish, and thus religion was something that was only shared among family. I feel like this culture of familial importance and emphasis has spread to Israel. Since Israel is an immigrant nation, people arriving in Israel not only spoke different languages, but brought with them different ideals and and practices. While over time Hebrew and an Israeli culture dominate, Israelis still hold close to them the unique traditions of their families and pass them on throughout the generations. For me, as a child of mixed ethnicities (ashkenazi and sephardic), I can very much appreciate and mesh these differing values from my both my mother and father's families. 

I spent this week studying political cartoons and the meaning behind them. While those on Ha'aretz.com that I've been looking at are only in Hebrew, I found a lot in my searches that were in English. I believe part of the message in them is targeted to be persuasive to a wider audience and educational on political views in Israel.

Below is an interesting one:

While much of international media portrays Israel as overly aggressive against Hamas, and Hamas as unorganized and terroristic, this cartoon portrays the two as equally destructive to one another, both bleeding, both baring their teeth, and both hiding behind sunglasses and finally proud of their cause by wearing the drums.

The chapter on Sociocultural Factors had a number of interesting points on language learning and experiences outside of ones own cultural background. The first one that I could really relate my academic work to was the section on linguistic imperialism. In modern day, English is accepted as a universal language, however this is not a concept that was just born one day. Over years of imperialism and colonialism, English speaking nations have dominated the global arena not just militarily and economically, but through the spread of language, ideology, and values. These latter ones thus undermine the native culture and norms with the domination of Western ideals. I think this is extremely important to consider today as Westerners plan their travels and recognize the value of learning about the behaviors and culture of the country they are visiting rather than expecting to be accommodated in English by people who have adapted to Western culture. Being in Israel, all street signs are posted in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. I have never stopped to think how it must feel as an Arab or Israeli to have all three languages. On the one hand, this promotes tourism, however, on the other, it undermines the value of having a distinct and unique culture. This leads to the question of the Whorfian hypothesis of whether a language reflects a world view or whether it shapes one. I believe that there is truth to both, however, as an international studies major I can argue the latter better. I think the Cold War struggle of containment/liberation between communism and democracy was very much at the same time a struggle between different ways of life and understandings of the world. Much of the rhetoric used in the Cold War served to export these  ideologies by promising a better standard of living. You started seeing personal televisions, bathrooms, and later cell phones, valued in societies that were no where near as developed in infrastructure or economy to necessitate these commodities. I think that the topics above are a perfect representation of the "Stage 3 of Culture Shock" discussed in the chapter. The exciting euphoria of Stage 1 wears off once people realize that the language has thus also channeled a cultural discourse away from one's native cultural values and associations.