Unknown Language Journal
Journal Entry 1

Before the lesson From this, my first lesson of Korean, I expect to gain, most of all, first hand insight into the experience a second language learner has during the first lesson of a language he or her has never before encountered. As I believe the class will be one of immersion, where the teacher will only speak Korean, I expect to be confused and to struggle to grasp the relation between sounds and their referents as well as understanding grammatical constructions. I do feel somewhat anxious, as one does when trying out new things. At the same time, I must admit I am a little scared of not being able to learn as fast as the rest of the class. I understand this is a possibility and I …show more content…

The importance of review was obvious at this point; many students might not remember everything that they had done in the previous class. It surprised me that most students did remember something, some more than others, even when the previous lesson had taken place a week ago. This made me think of how effective the previous lesson had been. I believe the difference between how much some students remembered could be related to their personal motivation to learn the language and, in some cases, the individuals’ abilities to learn languages. In order to explain why some seemed to not be motivated to learn, one could argue that they had never had the intention to learn Korean and therefore had not intrinsic motivation towards it. Furthermore, many students considered the “Unknown Language” module to be just a model class for trainees to see how a language to which students have never been exposes to is taught; hence, many did not take the actual role of a second language learner during class, spending more time evaluating the teaching than engaging in the learning experience. Even so, both highly motivated and not-so-highly motivated students did show during eliciting of questions that they had acquired language during the first lesson and that they remembered it. Students where able to greet in Korean, maybe not understanding the literary meaning of each word they were saying, but they had learned which expression was to be