Disclaimer: I’m writing this based on my personal experience, and it may / may not be accurate. Feel free to disagree but be polite.
Disclaimer 2: The experience may be the same or not if you are attending Korean lessons in summer school or the real Korean Language Program.
Disclaimer 3: If I make comparison to the Yonsei lessons, it’s the international summer school that I’m talking about, which may or not may be the same with other programs.
Disclaimer 4: Korea University offers Korean lessons, Korean Writing, Korean Reading, Korean Speaking modules for the exchange / regular students. I am reviewing the ‘basic’ Korean modules.
Facts: I’m taking Korean lessons which are offered to regular exchange students in the afternoon. We share the same textbooks, the same teachers but perhaps less intensive than the Korean language program lessons.
This is going to be a long review as I am *ahem* not writing very nice things and I want to emphasize that this is my own personal experience and a few factors may have led to how I felt about the lessons. (sorry I don’t want to attract anti-fans)
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Placement Test
I have blogged about this before, but let me go through it again. Basically, we were asked to register for the appropriate level of class together with the rest of the modules during course registration. Which I think is ridiculous.
First, course registration is a high stress period where you are trying to coordinate your timetable, making sure that there are vacancies in the classes etc. There was a vacancy limit placed on each Korean class level and they didn’t tell us if they would open more classes should the numbers exceed the limit.
This creates a lot of stress. It’s difficult to pinpoint your own level, particularly for those who have never taken TOPIK, who has never taken formal Korean classes. But the levels in our home countries usually don’t correspond to that in Korea, so nobody actually knows where they stand (unless for the real beginners and the real advanced…) This means that you have to be very careful of which level you choose, and if you end up being in another level, you have to de-register your course, and re-register the correct module, which is a pain in the ass when everything is done offline.
(bah i wrote alot more and due to an error, everything was gone… now I have to re-write again.. in a more concise manner)
Okay, so I went for that horrifying placement test and my confidence got shattered when the teacher pointedly told me that I clearly belong to level 3.. maybe a level 4 at best and she obviously thinks that I’m crazy to register for Level 6 in the first place. So ridiculous. I know I still have loads more to learn, but I definitely don’t belong to level 3. But I thought KU’s lessons were really THAT INTENSIVE and that the teacher should know best… so I re-registered for level 4.
The next day, interviews and placement tests were still on-going and technically you have to report to your new class and take the placement test again if necessary (I forgot the details). I met another girl in the same situation as me and we decided to go for the Level 5 placement test.
The level 5 teacher was busy conducting interviews etc and we told her of our situation and that we already have the TOPIK 4 certification and would like to try for the level 5 class instead. The teacher looked at us, and in an exasperated voice, told us that TOPIK level 4 doesn’t necessary means that you are qualified to be in the level 5 class. If the level 6 teacher tells you that you are in level 4, you should go there. *shrug* but if you want to try for level 5, you all can take the interview after I’m done with the rest. Her attitude wasn’t the most encouraging. We were suffering from shattered confidence then and after looking at the level 4 book, we decided that perhaps we can still learn something in the classes since we weren’t that familiar with the vocabulary and perhaps it would do us good if we can learn how to use the grammar points more appropriately.
So I decided to stay in the level 4 class.
The class / the textbook
Let me put this straight. I liked my Korean teacher. I think she’s nice and a relatively good teacher and she puts in effort in her teaching. But I’m sorry to say that class is horribly boring and ineffective and draining. I attribute that to the textbook, the teaching system in KU and perhaps that fact that the class is clearly below my level.
First, the textbook. I seriously haven’t seen a worse university textbook series. Yonsei Level 6 was awesome, sogang is pretty good, kyunghee is a little dry but still covers good ground. I’ve seen quite a number of textbooks and usually I have something good to say about each. But I clearly have got nothing nice to say about the KU textbook.
Each chapter comes with an opening dialogue / passage, which I think is super simple for a level 4 textbook. (I may think so because it’s below my level.. but I still think it’s easy for a level 4). Then you get additional notes/exercies (very minimal) and then LOADS OF DRILLS. Seriously, the whole textbook is about drills. Each example comes with at least 5-6 practice erm drills to ermm solidify the grammar point and learn new vocabulary at the same time. Horrifying. And the drills aren’t exactly the smoothest sentences or the most useful.
Followed by grammar explanations. Very minimal explanations and a few example sentences. And the textbook is mostly in English.. Seriously, I would think a Level 4 textbook should be completely in Korean. -.-
Our lessons are supposedly less intensive than the Korean Language Program in the mornings. So we cover a chapter every 2 weeks (8 lessons, 1hr 15 min each) and by the end of the class, we should complete about half the book. And we skip alot of each chapter, so basically we are just doing the drills and the grammar points (so interesting…)
I spend every lesson being bored, unmotivated and downright sleepy. Which is a stark contrast to my attitude in Yonsei. I would pay 100% attention throughout the lessons, prepare for classses in advance everyday, be very motivated to learn and enjoying each moment in the class. Korean is my favorite subject and I love learning it. But I can say that I didn’t study at all for any of my tests (I just flipped through the chapter and be done in 15 min or so) and I still managed to get an A+ for my final grade and a perfect score for my presentation.
These Korean classes are supposedly aim at improving SPEAKING and haha i don’t think any of us improved. Seriously. I don’t even think doing drills is helping much to improve our speaking. We did have several exercises where we are supposed to prepare for a topic (using formal language) and then go up to present it in front of the class the next lesson. I would appreciate it if such excercies are given more weightage and importance in the classes.
Oh, did I mention the level 6 teacher told me that students in Level 5 are already fluent and well-articulate and able to express their opinions on several high-level issues such as economy, politics, culture etc. Most of the exchange students stay for a year, meaning that my classmates will probably be in Level 5 next semester. Let’s just say that I doubt any of us are able to fit that criteria. -.-
I’m not saying that I’m too good or anything. I clearly know that my Korean is still very limited and I have a long way more to study. My goal this semester was to really improve my Korean (especially speaking and listening) and I’m really disappointed to say that the Korean lessons did nothing at all to help. I love challenging lessons and would rather struggle a little in a high level class and learn loads than simply getting excellent grades in a class clearly below my level.
I did improve, but I attribute that to my Korean friends who would speak to me in Korean and treat me as any normal Korean. I’m really grateful to them.
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For all its claims on ‘how intensive the lessons are’, KU’s Korean classes are such a disappointment. All in all, the lessons left me unmotivated, and reduced the beauty and fun of languag learning to drills and grammar points. I can safely say that I learn loads more self-studying. Definitely not comparable to Yonsei.
In case you wonder why there aren’t any photos of the textbook etc, I threw it away straight after the exam. People who know me knows that my Korean textbooks/books are my treasures and I am very very particular about keeping them nice and neat. I simply tear KU’s textbok apart (since the whole book is too annoying to carry around) and threw it away after the classes. I didn’t even open up the CDs -.- whereas I listened to Yonsei’s CDs every single day.
All in all, I’m disappointed in the lessons. Not sure if it was due to the fact that it’s below my level, or the lessons themselves are horrible or a combination of both. But it’s not my fault that I’m being placed into this level.
I did think for very long whether I should write this post, but being honest and sharing my experiences is how I have been running this blog. ^^
I welcome all feedback, and feel free to share your experiences with Korean lessons that you have taken. I would also love to hear something nice about KU, so feel free to disagree. But be nice. ^^
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