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For now, I have learned the basic syllables, and I am working on the memorization of them since they are the key for reading Korean. Also, I have learned several daily expressions such as “what’s your name”. I remember the music video showed in class: the repetition of one phrase helps me master it quickly. At this point, I have not felt the impact of Korean culture on my language learning process because I am still at the beginning level.

However, I believe the culture will play a major role in my future Korean study since the language is the vehicle for the culture. In my Korean study, I experience the relationship between the language and the culture in two particular respects. At first, Korea values collectivism. In the past, Korea was invaded by several countries; therefore, Koreans deeply understand the power of unity. In traditional Korean houses, rooms are separated by wall dividers instead of actual walls because Koreans believe that the house is shared by the whole family. Also, all the people in the country speak Korean. Although there are dialects, they are so similar that people can easily understand each other. As a result, this advocacy of collectivism has influenced the language. Koreans tend to say “our” and “us” even what they are trying to say is only about the individual. For instance, they would say “our mother” and “our family” instead of “my mother” and “my family. The group is superior to the individual. Moreover, the use of honorifics also reflects the relationship between understanding Korean and the Korean culture. Besides collectivism, Koreans value Confucianism, which emphasizes seniority rules and filial piety. Hence, when Koreans meet each other at the first time, they might ask some private questions such as age and job. It seems to be a rude action; in fact, it turns out to be the opposite. Koreans hope to decide from this information whether they need to use honorifics.  

In order to improve my communicative competence, I need to delve into the culture. I figure out two ways to accomplish this goal: through Korean drama and social network services. Although I am currently learning alphabets, it is not too early for me to watch Korean dramas. In my opinion, the point of watching Korean drama is not to understand what the characters are saying but to feel the tone of native speakers. From my English learning experiences, I realized that many Chinese do not sound native while speaking English even they are fluent and can talk without accent. Because tone is also a part of language, I believe listening to native speakers will enhance my understanding of Korean in my future study. Secondly, social network is also a great tool to effectively learn Korean. As network and information sharing rapidly develop, people enjoy discussing popular topics online. In the discussion, the language is evolving. For instance, people might start using the opposite meaning of a word for irony. At the same time, new words that cannot be found in dictionary might be created from popular topics.

In conclusion, understanding the culture is essential for learning a language; therefore, delving into the culture and history is equally important as memorizing vocabularies and grammars. Accomplishing this process through entertainments can be more effective and efficient.

Learning Journal 5:  Post (a) an evaluation of your First Artifact conversation, and (b) an assessment of how well you met your learning goals for weeks 4 and 5

• (Artifacts are evaluated for accent, cultural appropriateness, and linguistic accuracy.)

(a) I think I could improve answering "I am Chinese" by connecting Cin and lim. I need to review speaking nationalities. But in general accent was not bad and the speed was not too slow. 

(b) I completed my goal of Week 4 and 5 that was studying words and sentences that I need for traveling in Turkey. I used Mango Languages Ch 2 and learned "I can speak Turkish/English (little bit)", how to give a negative answer politely, "I don't know (Turkish)", and grabbing someone's attention. 

Refliection%20paper%202.docx

Here is my second reflection paper.

Understanding the history behind a language is important and helpful to better learn the language. Knowing the history is related to one of the aspects of communicative competence, sociolinguistic, because this element describes understanding the context of the language, which can be related to the history. The history is essential to the language because it shapes how the language is used now. It is important to acknowledge and apply the history of the language to understand the rules and norms of the target language.

For example, it is important to understand the history of how Korean language was developed through the influence of different countries, such as China. This is why Korean individuals of older generations are able to recognize and understand Chinese language, such as the Hanja alphabet. Another important idea to know about the history of Korean culture is how dialects have been shaped for different regions of North and South Korea. This is especially important because the dialects can change based on where you live, near city-life or countryside, and it can be hard to distinguish the dialect, if you are unaware of which regions correspond to which dialects. Some Koreans who live in Seoul and have a “Seoul dialect,” because they live near cities, are unable to recognize vocabulary from those who live in Busan because this is a more rural area. As a result, it is important to realize how history has shaped the development of the Korean language to better understand what certain aspects of this culture mean.

Learning Goals:

My learning goal for week 8 is to solidify my last interpersonal communication goal by developing my previous knowledge about the second way to say the numbers in Korean. I want to solidify my knowledge about both ways to say numbers because different situations call for different uses of the numbers. For example, the first counting method can be used to count things, such as the number of pencils you have. One would be hana, two would be dool, and etc. I am more familiar with this method, but I can also work to solidify this method. The second method can be used to account for birthday dates, such as saying my birthday is February 8. I have some struggles with this latter method, when the birthday dates go past 20 because it is slightly difficult for me to remember. As a result, my goal is to solidify both counting methods, so that I can use both ways for different goals! I can accomplish these goals by learning the first standard numbers for 1-10, and then looking at what each number is for  20's, 30's, etc, because each set of 10 numbers are usually similar with the same beginning, just with different endings. This would be a good way to learn because I am familiar with the ending and just need more help with learning the beginning part.  

Create a Learning Activity:

So far, I have learned how to better communicate with my family and friends about fields of study courses and related careers. As a result, my learning activity was to teach my non-Korean speaking friend about these topics. My friend’s major is history, so I taught her how to say “my major is history” in Korean. I was able to teach her by applying how I learned these vocabulary words and making a sentence through my conversation with my learning partner. I slowly introduced her to the topic by teaching her the new vocabulary of what major was in Korean, which is jeon-gong. Then, I taught her what history was in Korean, which is yeok-sa. I also gave her the option to learn other vocabulary. After learning new vocabulary, we worked on constructing a sentence together by matching the English words to the Korean words. This was an effective activity because it wasn’t overwhelming with learning too many new things at once and was fun because of the interactive activity.

Angella_Lee_Learning_Plan.pdf

NOTE: As the title suggests, I have combined the two assignments of the reflection paper #2 for SDLC 105 and the learning journal #7 for SDLC 110 because both assignments focused on reflecting on the progress of my learning, while the reflection paper addressed a couple more specific ideas, which I will note in this blog post. 

SDLC 110: Learning Journal #7 and SDLC 105: Reflection Paper

For my learning plan, I have developed 8 goals that focused on all aspects of learning a new language, such as communication, reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I purposely shaped my goals to address each of these 5 different areas, at least once. So far, I have accomplished about half of my goals (3-4, out of 8), which is a good sign of progress because we are almost halfway done with the semester. For the first half, I have mainly worked on learning vocabulary about topics that interested me, such as majors, careers, and family relationships. I wanted to develop communication skills first, so that I can learn how to have better and more flowing conversations with my family and friends.

For the second half of the semester, I will be focusing on developing my reading, writing, and listening skills for Korean. Some of my goals include writing a personal letter, reading a Korean article, and listening and understanding 2 minutes of Korean news. These goals are slightly more challenging than my first half of the semester goals because they continue to develop what I learned earlier and focuses on different aspects, other than just communicating. Since I know that these goals will be harder to accomplish, I will work even harder on these tasks, so that I can accomplish these goals appropriately.

Communicative competence can account for my struggles in learning Korean because I learned Korean initially from my family members, who were born in South Korea. Growing up in a Korean household can lead to learning some Korean words that may be different from what is commonly taught in educational settings. This can be a problem because what I know about Korean language can be different from what I learn and what other people are taught for this language. However, since I am aware of this difference, I can apply it to my life and acknowledge these differences, which is a way that I can improve my communicative competence.

Other ways that I can improve my communicative competence is by following the 4 elements that comprise of communicative competence: grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic. Following and applying these four elements will allow me to become more familiar in my target language of Korean. For example, I must be aware of using discourse by knowing how to put things together, so that I can have a meaningful conversation with another native speaker. Also, it is important to understand sociolinguistic so that I know the context of the target language and the rules and norms of that language. This will lead to better communication and less chances of miscommunication with others who speak Korean.

Overall, I am proud of the progress I made so far with learning and developing my Korean skills. I have practiced what I learned in the first half of this semester through having conversations in Korean with my family and friends. My aunt in particular told me that she has really seen improvement in my Korean communication skills because I was able to have more flowing conversations in Korean. It was really encouraging to hear her mention that because that shows that I accomplished my goal for the first half of this semester, where I worked on my communication skills.

SDLC 110 Learning Journal 4

For this week, I continued to practice pronouncing words by combining Hangul.  This became my weekly routine because it is so fundamental to my learning.  I also learned a set of animals words in class including horangi -호랑이(tiger), goyangi-고양이 (cat),gae - 개 (dog), yeou - 여우(fox), hama- 하마(hippo), saseum-사슴(deer),wonsungi - 원숭이(monkey), and some others. We used these words to practice pronunciations but also to build up my vocabulary.  I also practiced dialogue with my classmates about coffee.  It is about asking whether someone wants coffee or not, and we practice both informal and formal way of speaking.  

My progress up to today has just been average. I do not believe that my progress so far has been outstanding, as I don't feel I have been able to progress much in terms of my abilities in Portuguese. I have found that although I have been practicing a lot of vocabulary on duollingo, I have learned most of my Portuguese in my Capoiera class where we sing in Portuguese. This has caused me to be more familiar with more random phrases such as jogo de dentro jogo de fora. Which means play inside play outside. Phrases like these I do not believe will help me speak with others, however, these phrases have helped me understand where and how to use certain words. For example, from this jogo phrase I have been able to figure out that jogo bonita means the beautiful game. This phrase is often said about soccer in Portuguese commentary of soccer. 

It was very interesting to hear international students and other professors share their experiences with culture shock, in the Culture Shock video. The students were describing their first culture shock experience, which was when they first arrived on campus for college, which allowed me to compare and contrast my experiences to theirs. One student mentioned that they were very overwhelmed with orientation because they had to learn in a short period of time everything that people who lived in America learned over the course of their whole life. This provided a new way of visualizing things because as someone who is Korean, but born in the United States, I can definitely say that I felt comfortable with orientation because they just reinforced what I already knew, but I can see how that is different for someone who is new to the whole scene.

As a Korean individual, who grew up in the United States and not in South Korea, I did not experience culture shock by moving to another country. As a result, my first experience of culture shock was similar to the students in the video because it was when I moved to University of Richmond for my college experience. I’d like to admit that this move is not even a huge change because I am originally from northern Virginia (NOVA), which is only about 2 hours away. Although I cannot speak for everyone, I think the tiny details of culture shock that I experienced is how the people in Richmond are so much friendlier than those in NOVA. It may be because people are coming from all different states and countries, but I definitely realized that people tend to be nicer and more encouraging in Richmond. Although I have not experienced a huge culture shock, I think ways that we can cope with culture shock can include having a good community, joining clubs, and having opportunities to explore and not being stuck in the “UR bubble.”

My learning goal for week 6 was to continue developing my learning of the different fields of study/majors. In the previous week, I learned the different types of majors, such as Chemistry, Geography, and English. I wanted to learn about science-related majors especially because this is the type of field that I want to go in. I also wanted to link the majors I learned in week 5 to different types of careers, which is why this was my learning goal for week 6. Through this goal, I was able to learn different career paths, such as pharmacist, geographer, and dentist. I was also able to learn about careers that my family members are currently pursuing. I really wanted to learn about these types of careers too, so that I could have a better conversation with my family about how their career is going and how I can help. It was also cool to learn how to call my learning partner a proper title of “teacher” and/or “tutor.” I am now able to have conversations about different career paths, so I believe that I have accomplished this goal.

Although I am aware of what the greetings and farewells are in Korean, it was helpful to document this action through a recorded artifact because I was able to listen to it again. This helped me identify which words I struggled on and how to more smoothly integrate these ideas. I believe that I articulated the words carefully and slowly, which will allow me to improve my introductions and farewells in conversations with others.

I believe that I have met my learning goals pretty well because I learned about the variety of majors and how to match them to career paths. Although I mainly focused on learning about the topics that relates to me, such as Chemistry, I made sure to learn about the whole span of majors and career paths, so that I can have a flowing conversation with others. My meeting with my learning partner was very helpful because not only did we solidify the majors and careers, we also constructed ways that we can make sentences with these words and related topics. For example, I learned how to say “my major is chemistry” and to link it with “I am a second-year at the University of Richmond.” I was able to incorporate the latter sentence in my introduction section for my first artifact. It was helpful to practice these conversational skills because I can apply this to the actual conversations that I have with friends and family members.

Korean is known for their clothing and fashion industry. Even in the past they had garments that are very unique and bright. The Koreans in the past wore hanbok that was a traditional apparel everyday. However, due to the change in time and trends people no longer wear hanbok on a regular basis. Instead it has revolutionized and changed a lot to fit the more casual everyday trend. In addition, the traditional hanboks are only worn for special occasions like weddings, ceremonies, and funerals. They also have different designs and color depending on what type of event it is.

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.

For weeks 4 and 5, my goals are to introduce a place for traveling and to be able to buy cloth at a clothing store respectively. The resources I will use for introducing a place for traveling is that I will find some traveling blog or magazines in Korean, and learn the way it introduces and also the vocabularies. For the other task, I will find some vocabularies about the types of clothing, and also find some clips on the Youtube to learn the way to ask for a specific size or the specific color of the cloth in Korean. I will evaluate my first task by introducing my recommended place to a Korean friend, and if she can understand it then I think I probably do a great job. For the second one, I will also evaluate this by talking to my friend, and I will act like I am a customer and want a bigger size of the cloth I want to buy.

My learning goal for this week were to learn some more soccer vocabulary and also work on my portugese accent. I completed this by actually googling a soccer vocabulary page which has helped me tremendulously. In terms of working on my accent I worked on this by saying some of my words allowed, and comparing my pronunciation to that of some soccer commentators.

I wanted to work on starting a conversation in Turkish. We started with greetings and farewells and learned a number of each for different situations. While I like learning a variety of greetings and farewells to have things to choose from, for now I will pick the most generic ones that will work in all cases and memorize those. In addition, we learned how to ask people's name and say "my name is". Introductions are important as they are the first step in relationship building.

In the Global Studio, there are lots of travel brochures and small books about Istanbul. I would use these books to help learn some of the travel terminology I would need to get around or to learn about the city so I could recognize things should I ever visit. There are also a few different audio lessons which would be useful but I'd need to find a CD player since my computer doesn't have a disk drive. Mango languages only has one course in Turkish and it is Turkish conversation. While this one video is very useful, it is the only resource I could find for Turkish on the site making it kind of useless after I've finished learning that lesson. BYKI has a good list of vocabulary, but does not focus on the construction of sentences or phrases. The Diigo group has mostly basics and a lot of repetitive information. I'm going to start with the alphabet song!

• Second Artifact:  Show that you can ask and answer questions about identity

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1vpeMq2bJXZ

Based on my research, I realized that Korean culture has a significant influence on the way of talking, so the language always reflects their culture. Compared to people from western countries, Koreans tend to have an implicit mind because they care what other people think. For instance, when Koreans hope to decline an invitation, they try to provide a reasonable explanation so that they do not hurt the inviter’s feeling. Instead of simply saying “sorry”, they show why they fail to accept the invitation. In addition, Koreans value etiquette and manners, so they often use honorific while talking to people who are older than them. Honorific applies not only in family but also at school. It is used when underclassmen talk to upperclassmen. Teachers also use honorific while talking to students, showing their respect to their students. In terms of body language, Korea is a touch avoidance country, so Koreans might prefer a bow or a handshake rather than a hug.

For my third artifact, I wrote a letter to my cousin in Korea. I asked her how she was doing and I told her I have been busy with mid-terms and that I was learning Korean from Joora. I also wrote that the weather was warming up and that Spring was approaching in Richmond. I wished her good luck with her studies and told her I will visit her in Korea soon.