Annyeonghaseyo. (Hello.)
It’s one of many words, KIMEP students learning Korean can practice. A handful of students got the chance on Mar. 7 to do just that in room 207 of the Dostyk building, which serves as a mini Korean library, filed with Korean novels, self-study books and other material.
The Korean Speaking Club’s organizer and lead instructor, Kim Juha, hosted the group’s fourth session of the academic year.
“This club is actually Su Jin Lee’s idea and because of my Korean language and literature major, she asked me to teach students here,” said Juha, a Korean exchange student from Sookmyung Women’s University. “This is not only helpful to my career or my ability to teach someone, but also very helpful for students, who want to practice their language skills.”
“I chose to learn Korean because of my love for K-pop and Korean culture,” said Zarina Atshabar, a third-year student majoring in English and translation studies. “The lessons at this club are very interesting, I’m learning a lot of new things and I feel like I am becoming more confident in speaking.”
The first half hour, the group practiced reading in Korean. Juha brought a picture book “Piggybook” by Anthony Brown, which was an easy to understand story for beginner Korean learners.
During the reading, Juha said all the words from the book that were new to the students, and they wrote them down in their dictionaries. After the reading practice, Juha gave each student a grammar worksheet.
“In comparison with other languages, Korean is quite different,” said Juha. “We have different writing systems and grammar. Learning the sounds of each character and how to read and write can be easy, but if you start to learn the grammar and how to make a sentence, it becomes really complicated. ”
For speaking practice, Juha hosts a Korean-themed Jeopardy! The participants looked very lively and were ready to play.
“This is my fourth time to come here,” said Christopher Hart-Moynihan, College of Human Science and Education lecturer. “I lived in Korea for 10 years and now, participating here, I can say with confidence that this club is great! It has a very good teacher and I think I learned more in four days in this club than I learned in one year in Korea.”
“We held our Korean Speaking Club every Friday at 4 p.m. but the Korean library will be open from 1 p.m., and I usually come here to help other students, who came earlier, to learn Korean personally,” said Juha. “There are usually five or six students here, sometimes my Korean friends among them. ”Annyeonghee gaseyo. (Goodbye.)