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Complete Reflection Paper #2 (500 words) 
Reflect on your language learning so far and the relationship between understanding the target culture and the target language.  What do you need to improve your communicative competence?

So far, I have been jumping around on my learning plan, because in the 110 course, we some of the topics overlap with other dates (weeks) on my plan, so I have had to adjust some things around. However, I do think that I doing great progress and am relatively pacing myself with the learning plan. The learning plan is very effective and makes sure I am staying on track, which is usually difficult because this is a self-directed course.

All the activities I have arranged in the learning plan have been extremely helpful. The Mango languages lesson help me learn new vocabulary, and review the older ones. The videos were fun and supplemented my lessons for the week. They were also good for a study break. This is my second attempt at a self-directed language, and I feel that I am taking on a lot more than I can handle, so the videos are a fun and good de-stressor.

I think some of the topics on my plan will have to be pushed back to next semester. As I make progress in the language, the vocabulary gets more difficult as well as the grammar. There is also a lot to cover in a topic, and I don’t think that a week is enough to cover all of it. As of right now, I won’t change it, because I think I can manage it, but if it gets too difficult in the coming up weeks, I might have to modify my plan.

So far, the relationship between understanding the target culture and the target language has been quite easy. I haven’t encountered too many problems. My learning plan has, thus far, been on track with the cultural learning part, so when I am studying or learning a lesson, I find topics that overlap with the cultural aspect. But there are some culture topics that I would like to explore, but don’t correlate with my learning plan. I will most likely just research and study it on my own. I am finding myself getting more interested in the cultural aspect of my target language, rather than the actual language itself.

Communicative competence is the ability to understand and use language effectively to communicate in authentic social and school environments. To improve my communicative competence, I will need to learn more vocabulary. I currently vocabulary bank is very small, so, to be able to communicate more effectively I will need to increase my vocabulary.

Understanding more about Korean culture will also improve my communicative competence. Learning more culture will help me have more awareness in nonverbal behaviors, social rules, and cultural references.

To also better improve my communicative competence, I will need to work individually in sections of: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. After working and improving on the process of each section separately, then I can say that my communicative competence has improved.

Learning Journal 14:  Summarize your work this semester, the progress you made and the difficulties you encountered.

Overall, I think I made a huge progress in my Korean language learning journey.

When I started, I had limited knowledge of Korean. I only the Korean alphabet, simple phrases, and spoke at a really slow-pace. Now, I can say that I know the Korean alphabet, simple phrases, speak at a relatively quicker-pace, have a larger vocabulary, can form simple and some complex sentences.

A lot of work was put in to make me get this far: meeting with the language partner (in class), studying outside of class, researching on my own, using several resources to build my vocabulary. It has been a long journey. It wasn’t that easy either. I had to stay on track and follow through with my learning plan, but I also had to study other topics in class (if they didn’t already overlap). I had to do additional lessons on the Mango Languages to get practice. I had to modify some of my learning plan because I was jumping the weeks. Some weeks were easy, some hard, and some manageable.

However, I was able to complete at least 80% of my learning plan, which makes me absolutely proud of myself. When I first create my plan, I thought that I was being too ambitious, so I simplified it, but then it didn’t seem like a goal. Finally, I came up with my current plan, and I did think some parts very a little too ambitious, but I made it.

There is no learning lesson/goals for this week because of Thanksgiving Break.

I have, however, began studying for the final because it about 2 weeks after I get back from break. I have started reviewing the number systems (in both Sino and Native Korean). I practice all of the information on my self-introduction daily, so I don’t forget it. I am practicing conjugation of verbs and usage of particles for the writing section.

Overall, I am just reviewing this week, but I will give myself a little break because it is Thanksgiving Break.

On my learning plan, the goal for this week was to learn classroom etiquette and basic expressions. However, I decided to change my plans. Instead of working on classroom etiquette and basic expression, I decided to go with the 110 class’ lesson on flavor and taste. This topic was just more interesting and I think I will be using these words and expressions more often in the future.

For this week, we learned about tastes, such as spicy, sweet, salty, sour, bland, etc. It was very fun and we were able to learn the commonly spoken form vs. textbook language.

There wasn’t an associated lesson in Mango Language for this topic, so I gave myself a break this week in the homework section. But, I did watch a Korean school drama, called “School 2017” despite not learning about this topic this week. However, I did learn a lot about the schooling system in Korea, and the harsh and pressuring life of Korean high school students.

Do I regret changing my learning plan, no, I don’t. I actually find the lesson we learned in class more helpful, so it was a good decision.

My goal for this week is to be able to tell times and dates.

Actually, in 110 class, we have already started learning dates, so I’m ahead of schedule. I am now able to say and write the months, days, and dates. Though we haven’t started learning time yet, but I think we will be learning that next week in class.

This week, because I already learned the dates, months, and days, I am just reviewing these words this week. We are supposed to have a quiz on the dates, months, and days soon, so the review for this week will be mostly on these topics as well as numbers (both Sino and Native).

There is also a chapter in Mango Language which covers the times and date. So, I will complete that chapter, and hopefully, it will prepare me for the quiz and start reviewing for times.  

On my learning plan, this week, my goal was to learn how to give and ask for directions.

This week’s goal was slightly modified. Luckily, in 110, we started learning about the location particle, so my goal was too modified. Instead of learning how to ask and give direction this week, I learned how to state locations, and a relative location of a place/building/item. So, this week’s lesson in class kind of overlapped with my individual learning plan, but I was still able to learn the most important thing, the location particle.

Now, that I know how to use the location particle, I think I am able to give simple directions, like the cat is next to the house. Giving relative location isn’t too bad. Some of the dialogues in the location lesson we are learning in class has some characters asking for direction, so I can use those dialogues as examples to developing questions for directions.

Learning Journal 9:  State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

My goal for this week is to learn how to buy items when shopping, asking about price, bargaining, etc.

This week goal was accomplished mostly through Mango Languages. In 110 class, this wasn’t a topic that we were going to learn, but I still wanted to learn about this topic, so I learned mostly from the Mango Language. Surprisingly, in Mango Languages, in Korean, these was a chapter on buying and shopping, so I was able to accomplish this week’s learning goal.

(a) For my first artifact, I am sharing my self-introduction. It consists of a greeting, my Korean name, age, school, year, and major. Self Introduction.m4a

(b) I completed my mango language lessons, and for the evaluation of my self-introduction, I sent the audio copy to my language partner and classmates in our class group chat. My language learning partner said, “Great job, Teresa! Your pronunciation is very clear to understand. Thank you!” So, I would say that my evaluation showed good results.

I can’t give an exact number of new words that I have learned in Korean, so far, but I have definitely learned more than 50+ words.

Generally, I have learned most of the words from the vocabulary for each chapter from the Korean textbook I use during the 110 course.  I also increased my vocabulary by watching a lot of Korean dramas, variety shows, listening to Korean music, and interacting with other Korean students on campus. However, when I want to learn words, specifically by their roots, I use the resources available in the Global studio. Another source I use to learn new words is on the language learning app, Mango Languages.

I think I have a realistic goal for my acquisition of vocabulary. After, completely the Mango Languages’ courses, I want to start transitioning into reading simple stories. From the stories, I plan to write each word I don’t know and create my own vocabulary chart to learn from. This way I will be able to see and learn new words.

First Artifact: Self-Introduction Audio

Self-Introduction.m4a

Second Artifact: Who am I? Asking and answering questions on diversity.

Third Artifact: My Family (아빠, 엄마, 큰언니, 작은언니, 나, 여동생, 여동생)

Fourth Artifact:

So far, I have been jumping around on my learning plan, because in the 110 course, we some of the topics overlap with other dates (weeks) on my plan, so I have had to adjust some things around. However, I do think that I doing great progress and am relatively pacing myself with the learning plan. The learning plan is very effective and makes sure I am staying on track, which is usually difficult because this is a self-directed course.

All the activities I have arranged in the learning plan have been extremely helpful. The Mango languages lesson help me learn new vocabulary, and review the older ones. The videos were fun and supplemented my lessons for the week.

I think some of the topics on my plan will have to be pushed back to next semester. As I make progress in the language, the vocabulary gets more difficult as well as the grammar. There is also a lot to cover in a topic, and I don’t think that a week is enough to cover all of it. As of right now, I won’t change it, because I think I can manage it, but if it gets too difficult in the coming up weeks, I might have to modify my plan.

Why are bilinguals smarter? Are bilinguals smarter?

I don’t think that bilinguals are necessarily smarter, but their brains’ do function differently. I think that being bilingual makes you utilize parts of your brains that make you seem smarter. In one of the reading, they mentioned things like multitasking and cancelling out distraction is very common amongst bilinguals and make them seem smarter.

People think that being bilingual makes it easier to learn additional languages. However, most bilinguals have good habits in building vocabulary and learning language structures, which makes it easier for bilinguals to learn new languages. This is a great, but sometimes it can have a negative effect. For example, in one of the article, it said that because bilinguals have to create two separate vocabularies, they may have a smaller vocabulary bank in both languages. Overall, their vocabulary is great, but individually, their vocabulary may be lacking. However, I think that you can always add to your vocabulary bank, so it isn’t too bad to be a bilingual.

Being bilingual makes it easier to make international friends, which can open their world to new perspectives and unique philosophies.

So, are bilinguals smarter? I don’t think so. We’re just normal people that speak two or more languages. Some of us could be smart, but the rest of us, I think we just have better learning methods.

I think that knowing a language’s history is helpful in learning the language. Because learning Korean, I first researched a bit about the language’s history. Because the Korean alphabet came to be, the Korean use to use Chinese characters. King Sejong invented and published the Korean alphabet (used now) in 1446. However, it became the primary Korean script after Korea’s independence from Japan.

Understanding and knowing a language’s history was especially helpful because I was able to see the root of each characters and the root word/character it could have been derived from. And, I am able to understand the reason why Korean characters/words are structured the way they are.

I have my own experiences of culture shock. Before coming to the University of Richmond, I came from an extremely diverse, kind of shady, neighborhood. Using curse and slang words was a cultural norm growing up. However, I has a slight cultural shock to find that is VERY little use of curse and slang words at the University of Richmond.

In elementary school, I went to a predominantly African American and Caucasian school. My family was possibly one of maybe three Asians family in the school. I remember experiencing a culture shock when I was asked why I was so tan, and if I was either a light-skinned African American or dark, Caucasian. Because I did attend a Vietnamese church and school on the weekend, I knew that my family wasn’t they only Asian family around, but as a child I was just shocked and couldn’t say that I was neither. I just remember laughing it off and not answering the question.  

Because I plan to study abroad in Korea, I do expect to encounter some culture shock. Some positive ones that I’ve heard of are couples’ wearing matching outfits, restaurants and food stalls that open till very late, so I’m really excited. However, I have also hear of negative ones, but I am mentally preparing myself to not be too shocked.

For week 4, on my learning plan, I had plan to continue to do what I had plan to do during week 3. This was a great because I wasn’t able to complete my goal from last week.

For week 5, my plan is to learn proper grammar structures, and begin to form sentences.

The resources I am using these weeks are Mango Languages and videos with lessons on self-introduction in Korean.

For how I will evaluate my success, the completion of the 2 Mango Languages lessons will be graded by the course completion, and the self-introduction will be read to other classmates and native speakers to determine its success.

My Korean Language Learning Plan:

Korean%20Language%20Learning%20Plan.docx

Everyone did extremely well on their presentations. It was so cool to see everybody’s specific culture interest in their target language. I thought that we would overlap on our topics because so many students are also taking Korean, but surprisingly, there wasn’t. Everyone’s presentation really reflected their interest in the target culture (because everything was well researched and organized).

Because there were so many Korean students, it was very nice to see their presentations and what they specifically liked in the Korean culture. After watching some of the presentations, I found myself wanting to research more on my own.

I also appreciated the Turkish and Hindi presentations. It was very interesting to learn about other countries’ cultures, even though I am not learning about it on my own.

Although it was quite a shame that I wasn’t able to see all the presentations in person, being able to watch it through the Panopto was still nice.

Before talking about the culture in Korea, I want to separately define the differences between “Culture” and “culture”. “Culture”, with a “big C” refers more towards the visible aspects, such as food, literature, architecture, etc. Unlike “culture”, with a “little c”, which is more the invisible type, like communication styles, language symbols, cultural norms, etc. In Korea there are many evident examples of both “Culture” and “culture”.

Linguistic aspects, such as body language, is part of the Korean culture. For example, when the drinking/social culture, the older person will pour the drink into the younger person’s cup, and the younger person receives it with two hands. Then, when the younger person drinks from the cup, they must look away from the elder person. This is the proper and respectful way to drink in Korean culture. As a foreigner, if I were to forget to drink away, the native people wouldn’t mind, but will still tell me the proper way to do so the next time. However, if a native person were to disregard this, they would be heavily scolded by the elder. Here, we see that even though it isn’t a written law or rule, it is a norm in the drinking/social culture.

Another overlooked culture, is removing your shoes before entering a Korean home. In some Korean homes, they eat, sit, and even sleep on their floors, so it is considered extremely rude and disrespectful to wear shoes into their home (unless told otherwise).  

I do not think that Korean language is a difficult structurally. I believe that Korean and Japanese language are similar structurally. Because I have taken Japanese, I haven’t really encountered any too difficult grammar structures or word constructions. However, in Korean there are three types of vowels, light, dark, and neutral. There are vowels that cannot be combines to make a new vowel, like a light vowel cannot form with a dark vowel, but it can be formed with a neutral vowel.

I know that there are several resources in the Global studio available to use. I do think a reference grammar can be useful, especially since I am a beginner in this language. As I am beginning to write words and forming (simple) sentences, a reference grammar will be extremely helpful for me to make sure I am making correct, complete sentences.  

My learning goal for this week is to learn how to say family members (i.e. mom, dad, sister, etc.). This goal was accomplished my quickly. I actually learned these terms a few days ago when I was watching a Korean drama. In the drama, they were talking about the family members, so I was able to pick up some of the terms like. However, I had to do some additional research because some words in Korean are gender-related terms. But, in the end, I was able to learn more than I anticipated. I learned:

Father - 아버지 / Dad - 아빠

Mother - 어머니 / Mom - 엄마

Older Brother – 형 (male) / 오빠 (female)

Older Sister – 누나 (male) / 언니 (female)

Younger Brother - 남동생

Younger Sister – 여동생

Summarize your assessment and goals in a blog post in your learning journal and on the first page of your learning plan.

Based on the Levels of Competence, I am a Beginning 0 Novice. I am able to recognize phrases by ear and by seeing the Hangul characters, but I will categorize myself as a complete novice because my understanding of the phrases is still limited.

To summarize, my goal by the end of the semester is to:

1. Master Hangul
2. Engage in a 2-3 minutes conversation with a native speaker about topics ranging from:
   1. Self-Introduction
   2. Greetings, Gratitudes, and Goodbyes
   3. Names and Introductions
   4. My likes and dislikes
   5. Drinks and Dining (Ordering food at a Korean restaurant)
   6. Getting Around (location, direction, etc.)
   7. Numbers, Dates, and Currency
   8. Shopping and Payment
   9. Classroom Expressions
3. Watch an episode of a Korean drama and understand 20% of it without English subtitles
4. Use proper grammar and conjugations when writing in Hangul.