Goals and Expectations: Language skills, and more

Entering the program, my OPI proficiency level was Intermediate Low. I'm actually really grateful for this because it just barely got me into the level 2 class, where I am far below the language level of my peers. They push me to try harder and I learn so much from them everyday. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

"If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room."

By the end of the NSLI-Y program, I aim to be at an Intermediate High or an Advanced Low level. This way, I can cotinue my Korean studies throughout college starting from an advanced level class.

As of now, I'm only speaking Korean during class and while doing homework for class. I find speaking the hardest part of Korean, which is why I want to speak as much as possible while on the program. I plan to only use Korean with my host family, speak to my classmates in Korean while on cultural excursions/outside of class, and use Korean in ALL public places (market, subway station, restraurants, etc.)

I know that I'm going to make a lot of mistakes, which is why I chose this quote for our virtual cultural excursion for today:

"원숭이도 나무에서 떨어져요"

"Even monkeys fall from trees"

This was the quote I wrote on the back of my 민화 art piece. Since 2022 is the year of the tiger, our cohort got to draw tigers in the 민화 art stye, which is a Korean traditional art style.

To the left, you can see my work. Below is an example of real 민화

"Don't be scared to make mistakes! It's how we learn!"

I know we all know quotes like these from Disney Channel. But it's a LOT easier said than done. I'm going to be constantly reminding myself throughout the program to not be so hard on myself, and laugh off the mistakes. Fall down. Try again.

After learning about the ACTFL Can-Do Statements, I found out what I'm pretty comfortable with, and what I want to work on.

One of the goals I picked out based on the statements is: "to maintain spontaneous spoken conversations across various time frames on familiar, as well as unfamiliar, concrete topics, using series of connected sentences and probing questions."

For example, I want to be able to talk about topics beyond what I'm familiar with (school, hobbies, and day-to-day life) and have discussions about more specific things like pop culture, stories, opinions, etc.

I plan to reach this goal through reinforcing what I've learned in class by practicing speaking with my host family, practicing and reviewing vocabulary words regularly to remember long-term, asking questions in class if I need help, and speaking in public places like restaurants, stores, and museums with native speakers. This way, I can become more comfortable with speaking and have a wide variety of topics I can discuss in Korean.

Again, probably easier said than done, but I really want to push myself during the program!