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Basque Learning Plan Fall 2016

Week 3: Goal – Be able to say “I am,” “you are not,” etc. as well as greetings and farewells

Tasks – Survival Language, Greetings, Farewells, Introductions…. Be able to greet, exchange names with a person, be able to describe a person (including myself) saying 4 things that they are (height, ethnicity, size, intelligence), and 4 things that they are not, and be able to say goodbye

Methods – Aurrera 1 – 1.3, flashcards, memrise, learning partner?

Week 4: Goal – Be able to answer very basic questions like “are you a woman?” or “is your friend tall or short?”

Tasks – Be able to ask a person if they are a student and be able to answer if I am one in return. Be able to ask what 5 things are and answer. Be able to ask about people, like “who is Dr. Scinicariello?” and answer, “Dr. Scinicariello is a teacher” or say, “who am I?” and answer “I am Maddie and I am a student,” etc.

Methods – Aurrera 1.4 – 1.9, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 5: Goal – Learn the verb “egon” to be able to say verbs like “I am sleeping,” etc.

Tasks – Be able to begin a conversation, ask how a person is, say how I am, ask about another person, and then say how other (plural) people are. Also be able to say what I am currently doing like, “I am not at home,” or “I am sitting”

Methods – Aurrera 2.0 – 2.4, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 6: Goal – Be able to describe what I do, and what I’m studying, as well as say where things are and what they are doing

Tasks – Be able to say where I am, what I do, what I’m studying, and then describe what my learning partner is doing and where they are, like, “Dr. Scinicariello is tired, she is seated in the office,” etc.

Methods – Aurrera 2.5 – 2.10, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 7: Goal – Be able to ask about time and tell it, be able to say where my partner is from and our nationalities, as well as state someone else’s nationality

Tasks – Be able to ask what time it is in order to catch a train and then tell a person when they don’t know what time their train leaves, ask my partner where they are from, state my nationality and my grandmother’s nationality, and say what time it is in my grandmother’s country, all in one non-stop conversation

Methods – Aurrera 3.0 – 3.11, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 8: Goal – Be able to say where I and other people live, including plural, and ask where and with whom people live and where they do not live

Tasks – Be able to have a conversation for 3 minutes talking about where I live, where my partner lives, and where our friends live through making statements

Methods – Aurerra 4.0 – 4.14, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 9: Goal – Be able to use the words for “this” and “that” and “with” as well as count through higher numbers and therefore be able to label items, like “20 people,” etc.

Tasks – Be able to ask about and describe 12 objects around a room without stopping, and describe them using numbers (ex. “There are 5 pens on the desk”)

Methods – Aurerra 5.0 – 5.11, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 10: Goal – Learn how to describe or ask about where someone or something is going, be able to order food

Tasks – Be able to describe my trip to a restaurant by saying where I am going, and then “ordering” food for my friends who have not arrived yet and my language partner

Methods – Aurerra 6.0 – 6.10, Global Studio Basque Books, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 11: Goal – Be able to describe where things are coming from

Tasks – Be able to describe where I or a friend is coming from, like in the context of a flight or train trip, be able to describe where an item came from, like a type of food

Methods – Aurerra 7.0 – 7.12, Global Studio Basque Books, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 12: Goal – Be able to talk about what I have and ask people what they have, both in physical objects and abstract things, like a cold, etc.

Tasks – Be able to have a conversation talking about things I have, like if I were to go shopping and read off of a list of things I have at home and things I have put in my cart

Methods – Aurerra 8.0 – 8.8, Global Studio Basque Books, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 13: Goal – Be able to talk about the recent past

Tasks – Be able to have a conversation about what I or someone else was recently doing, and what I was recently not doing, like saying, “She got up at six,” or “we did not leave the house (yet)”

Methods – Aurerra 9.0 – 9.11, Global Studio Basque Books, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 14: Goal – Finish up the fist semester by being able to describe things that belong to people

Tasks – Be able to describe a person’s dorm room by saying what belongs to one person and what belongs to another, like “the hairbrush is mine,” or, “the bathroom is ours,” etc. Also be able to describe these things, like “those peoples’ rooms are very dark,” etc.

Methods – Aurerra 10.0 – 10.12, Global Studio Basque Books, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 4: Goal – Be able to answer very basic questions like “are you a woman?” or “is your friend tall or short?”

Tasks – Be able to ask a person if they are a student and be able to answer if I am one in return. Be able to ask what 5 things are and answer. Be able to ask about people, like “who is Dr. Scinicariello?” and answer, “Dr. Scinicariello is a teacher” or say, “who am I?” and answer “I am Maddie and I am a student,” etc.

Methods – Aurrera 1.4 – 1.9, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

Week 5: Goal – Learn the verb “egon” to be able to say verbs like “I am sleeping,” etc.

Tasks – Be able to begin a conversation, ask how a person is, say how I am, ask about another person, and then say how other (plural) people are. Also be able to say what I am currently doing like, “I am not at home,” or “I am sitting”

Methods – Aurrera 2.0 – 2.4, flashcards, memrise, learning partner

I'll be evaluating my results by having Amaia (my learning partner) test me on my knowledge by quizzing me about basic questions and also the verb "egon," which acts similarly to the Spanish verb, "estar."

It was interesting to see the presentations of my classmates and learn about cultural aspects of different countries and cultures that I hadn't before known about. I liked the Korean blood-type presentation, and found it particularly pertinent because of the blood drive that had been visiting the school over the same week. I also really appreciated the presentation on Turkish coffee. I am a huge coffee drinker, coming from Seattle, so learning about how another culture has a completely different way to prepare it was very interesting to me. I also really enjoyed the presentation on how some Koreans broadcast their eating of food. I found the presentation really funny, and also really interesting because it reflects on our own culture of social media, but brings it into a whole new sphere that I hadn't thought about before. I also liked the presentation on Diwali, because it was something that I had already heard of, but didn't understand, so it was nice to get a better understanding of where it came from and how it's celebrated. The presentations on alcohol drinking and the veterans memorial in Korea were also very informative, because I had never really considered the way other cultures treated the same things that American culture does in a different way.

There are many things that I need to learn about the structure of Basque, but because it is such a complicated language, it is difficult to learn most of them. Unlike most languages, Basque switches from using SOV and SVO depending on the context of the sentence, so it is very difficult to make one without knowing first the word order. An example is "ni Maddie naiz," which means, "I am Maddie." While this is in SOV, I could negate the sentence by putting it in SVO and saying, "ni ez naiz Maddie," or "I am not Maddie." Likewise, one could use SOV to say, "ni irakaslea naiz," or "I am a teacher," but subtly change the sentence to SVO, "ni naiz irakaslea," to say, "I am the teacher." Because of the many intricacies of Basque, I can definitely say that I have a lot to learn, but it is difficult to know what exactly, because the rules are seemingly so inconsistent.

With my language partner, I viewed a lot of videos of segments from the popular Korean show SNL (Korean-ized version of US’s SNL). Although this show has a lot of comedy and parodies, it is instructional in several ways. For instance, I watched an episode of confusing words in Korean that combine two different words. This combination of two or more words results in a new word that does not maintain the same definition as the two separate words.

For example, the Korean word for “heaven” is Chun-Gook. Those two words separately mean something completely different. “Chun” means one-thousand while “Gook” means soup. Together, they form “heaven”. This is a very strange combination but that is why some words in Korean are difficult to interpret just by looking at its individual syllables or words. 

Having easy access to articles pertaining to my target language on Diigo will be extremely useful to me. I plan on reading several articles per week on business in Korea and Diigo will help me keep track of the articles I have read or will decide to read. I will research and discover articles on Naver.com or sites like Daum to bookmark. These articles will help me get a better knowledge of Korean business terms and ways of speaking.

I started to read articles in Korean about the economy not just in Korea but also in America and the rest of the world. I also started watching videos on Korean culture and Korean lifestyles especially in the college scene. Having conversations with my language partner and my friends who are also taking Korean has been helping me with grammar as well.

As an intermediate user of the Korean language, I want to become better at it so that I can easily hold a conversation with any Korean at any level. More specifically, I want to expand my vocabulary. There are a lot of words in Korean that use words derived from Chinese characters. These are the words that I have trouble comprehending.

Additionally, I want to learn the way business people talk, write, and speak. I want to be able to understand articles in the business or economic area. As an accounting student, I want to be able to understand business topics in both America, Korea, and other countries as well. Lastly, I want to learn how students my age conversate in Korean. This is so that I can improve my skills in Korean and hopefully be able to develop relationships with solely Korean speaking college students. 

Viewing a lot of presentations on the Korean culture and language was very interesting. I learned about Korea’s strange phenomenon of the popularity of eating broadcasts called “Muk Bang.” Koreans tend to have a unique and strange sense of humor but of course, they may view American sense of humor strange as well. I also was reminded of Korea’s obsession with blood types and their belief that blood types correlate to different individuals’ characteristics and personalities.

The presentations on India and Basque were interesting as well. I learned about how different towns in Basque did not associate with each other too much. This is interesting because in small countries like South Korea, the people usually bond together and have common goals or interests.

The Korean language has different structures when it comes to using it in a conversation. For example, Koreans love to emphasize adjectives especially when describing something big or small. Additionally, most conversations in Korean involve the formal way of speaking the language so I should be more comfortable with that style of speaking.

I do not believe that a reference grammar will be useful to get better at Korean. Not a lot of languages are similar to Korean when it comes to speaking. However, learning a lot Chinese characters and knowing their meanings can help one figure out the definitions to many difficult vocabulary words in Korean.

The Korean language is very specific to the Korean culture and shapes the way Koreans act, speak, and communicate. The Korean language has a very unique structure even though it is somewhat similar to the Chinese or even the Japanese language. The Korean alphabet is made up of 14 consonants and 6 vowels that can be combined in numerous ways to make different sounds and meanings. In Korea, it is often rude to speak loudly so Koreans have a calm demeanor when speaking.

The language of Korea is also very rich in its history. Once written in Chinese, the Korean language changed drastically when King SeJong introduced Hangul, the Korean alphabet. As decades went by, the Korean language also changed and adapted to the changes that the Korean culture experienced. The language is still changing little by little even today. 

In the reading, the writer talks about how different cultures have different ways of interpreting personal identities. South Korea has a respect system where older individuals are accorded with honor. Anyone older or of a higher status is always addressed differently than that of younger individuals. The use of honorifics reflects the differences in social status between Korean speakers.

Koreans utilize non-verbal ways of communicating and expressing different behaviors. Similar to many other Asian nations, Korea has an important aspect of bowing. A bow must be almost 90 degrees and one’s posture is extremely important. Additionally, Koreans treat direct eye-contact as rude or impolite. Koreans also use both hands when handling drinks or receiving and giving objects to show respect. 

Document (a) your goals and tasks for weeks 4 and 5, (b) the resources and activities you will use to achieve your goals, and (c) how you will evaluate your success.

a) Goals and Tasks for weeks 4 and 5:

• Week 4: to fully grasp greetings, goodbyes, thank you's, and apologies.
• Listening -- to understand conversations that involve greetings, goodbyes, apologies, and thank you's
• Speaking -- to speak using greetings, goodbyes, apologies, and thank you's
• Reading -- to understand a simple email, to understand greetings and farewell expressions in an email, and to understand the structure of emails in Bahasa Indonesia
• Writing -- to write a simple, informal email

• Week 5: to begin self-introductions, that of others, asking for information of others' identity, and survival language
• Listening -- To understand a monologue of others' self-introductions, to understand conversations that involve self-introduction; and, for survival language, to practice listening to a conversation that is mixed with Bahasa Indonesian and English.
• Reading -- to understand an Indonesian ID card
• Writing -- to write some descriptions about people / places

b) Resources and Activities

For week  4, I used a unit from the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education's resources. I wrapped up my goals for this task (greetings, goodbyes, thank you's, and apologies). I practiced my listening via dialogues from the unit as well as from videos on youtube such as Travellinguist. Next, I learned how to read a simple email in Bahasa Indonesia. I worked on the basic sentence structure of an email -- such as greeting and farewell sentences -- as well as sentences that would be the "core" of an email. For writing, I wrote an email to my learning partner's sister about her recent graduation from university in Indonesia. In it, I wrote: (Translation) "Peace and my respect, Hi Chacha, How are you? I am doing well. I hope that you are also well. Congratulations for graduating from university! I am learning Bahasa Indonesia! And I hope to meet with you this upcoming year. Peace, Brad" This email is my first artifact. 

For week 5, I used Let's Speak Indonesian and another unit from thhe Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education's resources. I learned simple self-introduction phrases, as well as soliciting identity information from others. Next, I learned how to read an Indonesian ID card. Every Indonesian has one. It is helpful to learn the language because it includes date of birth, marital status, occupation status, place of residence, etc. Moreover, I worked on my survival language from online videos (see below). From these videos, I learned basic directions, helpful phrases in a dining context, helpful phrases in case of an emergency (Where is the doctor and help!), as well as sentence structure. Furthermore, I focused a great deal on culture. Helpful videos from youtube allow me to gain insight into Indonesian culture. Some topics include etiquette, job availability, relationship advice, weather, food, etc. I also read about Indonesia's history from places like Foreign Affairs. 

c) Evaluation

For these two weeks, I met with my partner for a total of 4 hours. There, my learning language partner tested me via speaking, writing, and listening tasks. I practiced not only vocabulary recollection but application as well. Lastly, to evaluate my learning progress, I watched a ton of videos. Slowly but surely, I am getting there as I can understand where words end and start, as well as introduction phrases and farewell phrases as well as some basic questions. This also allows me to hone in on my accent and listening skills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydIv8nvZHnQ&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDuOSAxOQDk&index=2&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFMrIjNRioU&index=4&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr-ikig2a1I&index=5&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19IIBscA5as&index=6&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GNP6PuN2qE&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30&index=8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-qhMlVU-JQ&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30&index=12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msodQF1XR9E&list=PL5932C77CEDE9BE30&index=17

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artifact%201.band.zip

Coming from a Korean background, I have to say that there wasn't anything that stood out for me during the presentations since a lot of the presentations were focused around the Korean culture. However, the other cultures that were presented: Basque, Turkey, and India, were all extremely interesting and new. The idea that Basque words, albeit a language I had never had knowledge of before, was so diverse in such a small piece of land was surprising. However, I do see some connections in that to the Korean language because despite Korea being a small piece of land, it has a lot of different accents and different uses of words throughout the country. But it was still very interesting to see how the Basque language was so heavily affected by the surrounding countries. Although she gave a simple example, it represented a much bigger idea that despite the size of the country, Basque is a language of a culture that is extremely diverse and reflective of surrounding countries yet unique in its own way. 

The turkish culture was also interesting as well as I had never thought that coffee would play such a big role in a country's culture. Seeing how heavily coffee was incorporated in the daily lives of the Turkish, I was surprised to see just to what extent they involved coffee. The most surprising fact to me was how coffee was involved in the relationships of the people in Turkey and how it had a role in marriage. I had never thought of coffee holding such a great value that people would not marry over how their roasted coffee tasted or what kind of snacks they ate with coffee. It was an idea that I had never been introduced to, and so it was fascinating to see such different practices in different cultures. It really widened my perspective on the world. 

The first week of class with my language partner, I learned basic adjectives to describe people. This will help in my task of being able to have a fluent conversation in Korean. My language partner showed us a music video that gave us a glimpse of Korean culture along with listening skills that are needed for learning the language. After, we played an activity where we described our class mates using the adjectives we just learned. Through this, I learned how to form sentences correctly using subjects, verbs, and adjectives. Although this was not extensive, it was enough to expand my vocabulary as well as my syntactical skills. Since my language partner assigns us online lectures to listen to, I can go at my own pace to learn the material. These lectures are what structures the next class and gives me a foreshadowing of what we are going to learn. With the written homework that the language partner gives us, it gives me a chance to increase my skills in writing Korean and spelling.

I started learning the language through my Korean language partner. She assigns us lectures to watch for every class that is informative on the grammar and sentence structure of the language. This helps me expand my Korean vocabulary as well as my knowledge in grammar. My language partner does a great job at teaching Korean because of her experience as a high school teacher in Korea. The class is interactive and informative. These classes form a basic foundation to help me succeed in my tasks that I have set in my learning plan. Since this class with my learning partner is more of a traditional class, it helps me to go step-by-step and actually learn the intricate details of Korean as well as the more colloquial Korean that is used in today's culture.

I have bookmarked two websites that will help in learning the language. howtostudykorean.com does a great job dividing each lesson into levels of difficulty and explains in both English and Korean. While learn-korea.net is more for a basic Korean lesson and does not go in depth. The website is good for reviewing the foundations because of the lack of actual Korean that is used. 

SDLAP_learningplan213.docx

In order to learn my language, I need to understand the difference of hierarchy in the structure of my language. Since there are formalized ways of saying things to the elderly, I need to learn the correct structure to not offend people. There are also different grammatical structures in the Korean language compared to English. In English, we would say, “I like to eat pizza,” but in Korean we would say “I pizza like to eat.” Different phrases like that along with different idioms and different ways of saying things will be important to learn.

I already have some basic knowledge of the Korean grammar, along with the formalized sayings; however, my knowledge of the language is still minimal at best. I will learn more about the structure and grammar of my language through mainly my language partner.

Although a reference grammar might be useful, I believe it will not be useful for me. Since I learn better by listening and actually applying the concepts, I believe that it will not be an effective method of learning.