Tuesday was day 1 of my return to Sogang University's Korean Language Education Center. I will be in Level 2 for the summer term which goes until late August. Here's a quick rundown:
Day 1 was all supposed to be review of Level 1 material but as with any classroom, all the students are at different individual levels and most likely excel at different aspects of language learning (reading, speaking, etc). Sogang's program is focused on verbal communication and speaking so that's what is emphasized with every lesson.
We got lists of verbs, nouns, phrases, and such that we should already be familiar with and also played a game to review. It is still really difficult to explain a word to another person in a foreign language (at least for me). The game was similar to CatchPhrase...one student would sit with their back to the displayed word and then their team had to describe the word to them...in Korean.
After the word review and game there was a quiz on Level 1 grammar. Basically they said if you don't do well on it you should consider dropping down but I doubt anyone would do that since almost every student in my class had studied at Sogang previously.
We were instructed to preview the next day's lesson the night before so we would be able to use and converse about it within class. Also during orientation, the staff member said we should set aside 2-3 hours per night to review, study, and preview material. The program pace is fairly quick and intensive, sometimes covering a whole chapter of material in one day. I hope as the term continues I can become close with my classmates so we can all comfortably speak more Korean together.
On a side note - it rained cats and dogs all day which made for a very humid and wet first day of school...
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Hello! I stumbled upon your blog while trying to google "first day in Sogang" :)
ReplyDeleteI will be starting class in fall at Sogang, and had my placement test over the phone. Where should i report on the first day to know which is my class room? and it wasn't mentioned which level i was at on the phone, will i only know this on day1?
Thanks!
Gwen
If you go to Arrupe Hall, on the 4th floor on the bulletin board outside the elevators they will post the class rosters. Go early though because your classroom may not be in Arrupe (especially if you are in level 1 or 3). They should also email you with a document maybe a day or two in advance that will have the subject along the lines of "2015 Fall Term Level 2 Welcome" or something like that. Let me know if you have anymore questions.
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