Even after the first week of being given materials and resources on how to self-teach, I realized that I did not know how to effectively self-teach in my past attempts. I did not exhaust all the resources out there, but I just thought sticking to one book would be enough. However, beginning this semester and having so many resources and different ways to go about learning, it was difficult to make a coherent plan. I tried out different websites and bought the Korean from Zero book and I ended up going weeks just doing different lessons on each and I was only learning bits and pieces here and there. I made my learning goals and I thought they were reasonable for a semester’s time, but I really forgot about what I had on my list. I originally wanted to cover all of the general topics that you could find in a beginner's language course. I was using Korean from Zero and I just wanted to go chapter by chapter because I was really just looking for structure, which I felt like my learning goals were not structured enough. At first I really liked using Mango languages, but I quickly realized I was not going to go anywhere in terms of my learning goals because I was just going lesson by lesson covering what Mango has already structured. I never used diigo to bookmark anything, I just preferred to use my web browser's bookmark tool.
I was and I think I still am more accustomed to the structure of learning languages in the classroom where there is a set list and going through topics seem to flow naturally. But even with my learning goals, which are topics that a lot of beginner’s Korean books cover, I felt like I was jumping around and not really grasping everything I needed to know. So from here on out, I think if I learn another language or continue Korean, I will find a course to take that has all the important topics based on level laid out. The topics seem to flow and I feel like I can move through them easier in a class setting. I like that in a course, the teacher will have activities where allowing you to learn by interacting with others. I do not know many Korean students on campus, so I did not have a language partner, which is something I really value when learning a language. When I was studying abroad, tandem language partners was a big thing. It is where you teach your partner English and they teach you French, for example. I learned better French abroad in one semester than I ever learned in six years of Spanish classes and although my grammar was not the best, I was confident in holding conversations. For Korean I am nowhere near that level of confidence.
I think the way I ended up learning as much as I could to complete my learning goals is sufficient for learning survival conversation topics for a short trip to Korea. I ended up just using online sources like Talk to me in Korean and Korean word/phrase lists to learn the basic vocabulary for each topic I listed and I liked those sources the best. The last 2 weeks of class the IOS version of egg bun came out and I started trying it. I think it would have been better if I was able to access it at the beginning of the semester, but the format was interactive, where you learn vocabulary words and phrases by chatting in the app. I think when I created my learning goals, I had it in the back of my mind that I would go more in-depth than what I ended up learning for each goal, but in the end I just wanted to learn at least something in each topic. For most of the semester, I was learning more of the grammar rules and how to construct sentences using the Korean from Zero book and I was getting stuck and frustrated.
I ended up learning half of my learning goals going through that book, but it was a much longer route because of the detailed grammar. If I was stuck on a topic I would google it, but unlike in a class if I could not find the answer myself there was not really anyone to ask. I was getting confused because the book would say a phrase in one way and then another source would say it differently. In the end I realized there are multiple ways to say a sentence in terms of the formal/informal endings and I think I have heard enough of the different ways to be able to piece out sentences I want to say. Another frustrating part I encountered was just feeling like I could not really ever have a conversation. For each learning goal I learned the essential phrases and vocabulary, but if you asked me to have a full conversation on food, I could say I like this dish, and not be able to elaborate further. I think phrase by phrase learning is definitely helpful for survival learning, but eventually I would have to focus on learning how to construct sentences with ease. I definitely did not realize how much I really learned till the assessment. I felt like I was able to say a lot of different words and phrases but when I did the language assessment, having to actually use it my mind went blank. If I continue Korean, I would like to learn past and future tenses so I can be able to expand the range of conversation to talk about future plans and my past experiences.
