Studying Korean: TOPIK

Regardless of how you learn Korean, one way to pull it together to see what you know or missed is some sort of certification, and TOPIK seems to be the most widely used.  What's great about studying for these types of exams is that it really pools all your efforts toward one single goal and refines your knowledge.  It's a way to leverage yourself and certify your strengths.

As a beginner, I am looking at cho-geup, or beginning level, so I grabbed this book on S-TOPIK (ISBN 978-89-414-5743-5) for 13,000 weon (about $10) and I going through the practice test questions.

Studying Abroad through Cal State

In California, for the four year universities there are two public systems: UC (University of California) and CSU (California State University).  The CSU system has a very good international program called CSU IP.  Every student who attends a Calfiornia State University can apply to the program and take courses in another country and have this count toward toward courses within the CSU system.

The information and support for the program varies from college to college.  I think SFSU (San Francisco State University) has the best support with their OIP.  In additional to the availability of CSU IP program, SFSU not has a rich home grown study abroad program themselves.  They have a system that allows you to meet your GE (General Education) requirements (Segment III) abroad, where other universities, this could be somewhat of a mess and not well discernible if this is possible.

In Japan, you can go to the top prestigious private school Wasaeda, and for Taiwan you can go to NTU (National Taiwan University).   I don't know about their language programs, but the for NTU the books look well developed.  And for Korea you get to go to the top university there, Yonsei, whose motto claims they are the "First and the Best".

If you are considering Korean language studies, note that currently there are no programs in any Cal State University that offers Korean according to the 2010-2011 undergraduate majors matrix.  The last time I looked, Korean is even limited in the UC system with only UCLA and UC Berkeley offering Korean language courses.  In contrast, according to that same matrix, of the 24 CalState universities, 3 offer Chinese (San Diego, LA, and SFSU) and 6 offer Japanese.

Studying Abroad Through Yonsei

I did a one year study abroad at Yonsei, and as a requirement from Yonsei, you need to take some Korean instruction.  However, to meet this requirement, they allowed me to take a 0-unit credit/no-credit course through their graduate program called GSIS, which was just great.  I couldn't imagine throwing away 6 units to the Yonsei KLI, and instead devoted those units to things like Marketing and Organizational Behavior.

The GSIS Korean course wasn't bad; it was a self-study fast paced course, and the instructor actually spoke English, so some instruction was in English, but mostly it was in Korean.  It was very aggressive pace, which I loved because with some Japanese language background, the grammar is easy to understand.  I can piece together quickly what I needed to learn to speak and what I could revisit later.

Though, unfortunately in the end, I found myself devoting more toward business courses than language studies.  I really needed a private tutor and some serious time to keep up with the course, but then it's zero units and doesn't go on my transcript.  I enjoyed it.

Yonsei KLI Experience Part II: Avoidence

Later when I came back in 2008 for a study-abroad in Korea, I attended Yonsei KLI.  I noticed that the program had new books with pretty pictures, but the course instruction style was pretty much unchanged.  In all these years, little has evolved in developing the class instruction.

This time, as most of the students were native English speakers, the instructors had to hold up placards in English, such as "Listen and Repeat",  in order to couch the students into doing the proper thing and  follow along in the class.  These same teachers from years ago that I met before still haven't learned any English.  I wondered about the relative competence of an instructor who is incapable of learning a foreign language. Should those that cannot learn a foreign language be teaching a foreign language?

The placement for beginning levels had numerous problems.  They had to shuffle students around  more than four times, and still some students were so extremely angry as they were in a course that was too easy or too hard.  In the class, students would have to read small simple phrases.  Everyone in the class would have to say the phrase, so while one student is speaking the phrase, others waited idly.  Students that were confused as to what to do were skipped and dismissed eventually.  The overall quality of the course was just rather lacking.  I cannot believe anyone would pay for this.  A friend of mine told me that this style was suited for instructing small children, but not for grown adults.

For my study abroad, I was able to opt out of taking Yonsei KLI courses and focus more on courses more related to my major.  I felt a loss of opportunity, to study abroad in Korea and not embrace language instruction of reasonable quality and competence.

Yonsei KLI Experience Part I: Boredom

I came here long ago in 2001 to do a intensive Summer program at Yonsei KLI, and I was bored to tears.  There were no instructions in English about the grammar or what to do in class.  The majority of students, Jaemi-Gyopo (Korean Americans), were fine with the program as most of them understood Korean., and they assisted the teachers by translating to English for other students.

I understood the grammar easily enough without English instruction because the grammar is similar to Japanese.  Still though, I wasn't really learning what I felt was anything useful.  They required using only polite formal verb form, i.e. -sumnida (습니다) and -sumnigga? (습니까?) forms.  These forms are useful in talking to strangers that are of high status, such as president of Korea.  I wanted to learn how to speak with people, make appointments, etc. and I was just not getting it, and speaking this polite formal form is really awkward.  I became utterly bored and impatient with the course.  Thus mentally, I dropped out of the program, showing up, but not mentally present in the course.  I never really developed a strong desire to study the language in earnest afterward.  Yonsei KLI killed it for me.

The Adventure Begins

Curious about Asian cultures, I took a smattering of courses in languages throughout the years as I worked in technology. I decided to pursue this to the next level and look towards certification and more diligently pursue language studies as a daily ritual.

Now I am in Korea, finishing up at Sogang University KLEC program (only Level 1) and the course is awesome. I have studied at Yonsei KLI, and well, to be polite, the program wasn't for me. Many people have some more harsh words for their program.

Anyhow, enough rambling. I'll post stuff I come across in CJK (Chinese-Japanese-Korean) language adventures, places to studies, tips from myself, and others that have explored studying in California and Asia.