Korean School Experience PART 1 (edited)

And so I have successfully enrolled myself into another Korean school after stopping for around half-a-year while waiting for my friend.

After months of careful examination and tons of emails + replies. We or should I say I, settled on Singapore Korean School. Friend was a bit reluctant to join because of the pricing but I told her I decided on this school and won't settle for any less. She - with no other choice- (I'm sorry), she decided to enroll too, of course not without the whines of the pricing and pulling a really disheartened face.

I'm only there for three lessons, so I really can't make good substantiated reviews but I will just say what I feel about the lessons so far.

This is just a very simple contrast between the two schools that I have attended so far.

Word of caution: These are all my perspective. I have not sit for Topik yet so some of these comments may seem unsubstantiated to you guys. Take it with a pinch of salt.

Syllabus
SKS
I know many are concerned with the syllabus taught. Whether they are enough for you to go for the TOPIK Basic Test 1. I have looked through the test paper. And from the point of view of a SKS student, there is a possibility of passing the paper. The grammar tested in that level are all taught, perhaps one or two may seem unfamiliar but passing is obtainable. For the writing component, this would be a bit hard. Because in SKS , the focus is more on conversational skills and reading skills. There is few practicing students have of writing. Therefore, this section may seems a bit more challenging. Plus, vocabulary exposed in SKS are restrained in a fixed context. Thus, may find it rigid and hard to find words taught to express yourself.

Hanok
If you have completed Basic 4, there is higher chance of you passing Topik 1 as compared to SKS. Why? Because unlike SKS, the teacher made speak in Korean during lessons and have dictation every end of lessons. She will scribble English sentences and have you translate them. Of course, these words are all taught and in the textbook. Therefore, being made to write, students were already comfortable in writing Korean words and are better able to express themselves. Plus with the richer range of vocabularies, Hanok students wouldn't find writing component much of a pain.

Pace
SKS
SKS proceed at a faster pace. Each lesson, there is a fix topic that the teacher has to finish. However, because the content isn't really a lot, it is suitable for even slow pace learner. As long as you make your revision every week. I don't seem to think it will be overbearing.

Hanok
Hanok's pacing would be a bit slower. One topic maybe separated into two lessons in order to be finished. This is due to the wider vocabulary words and to revise previous grammar points taught. So for example, on lesson 8, she will teach present tense + past tense+ some vocab, then on lesson 9, she will go through these again + more vocab and maybe future tense.

Teaching
Now, here is the most important part I want to emphasis. Teaching. Most Korean schools here have lessons are conducted by native korean. The reason why I want to address this issue is because I think this is a important factor to consider when choosing a school.  Many of us have a common but understandable perception about the correlation between quality of teaching and nationality of the teacher. Of course, I would agree that a native would be a not more suitable person to teach its own language to foreigners. Being grown up in that community for over 20+ years, naturally the native teacher would be more familiar with their own culture and its tradition.

But I would like to say that LOCAL/NON-NATIVE teachers are equally good as well. The important key factor to pay attention to is NOT the Nationality but the way the teacher teach and communicate. Many native teachers here are not well-verse in English, and this becomes a huge problem because instructions are not properly communicate. It will become a common thing to constantly guess and lean in to figure out what the teacher is trying to convey. Subsequently, it becomes tiring and you start to lose interest. Therefore, don't discriminate local teachers. If they have good language background plus good teaching skills, try them out. I'm sure they won't lose out to the natives. Of course, if your teacher is a native and has good command of English, then that will be a bonus!

I will not compare the teachers in both schools yet because Hanok only has one teacher while SKS has plenty of them. Therefore I won't be playing fair.

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Hope I answer your questions~
If you have any more queries you can always drop me a comment!

Finished Exams

Finished my exams, didn't want to talk much about it. But not only did I finished my exams, I have also finished my last lesson of my Korean Class. Today, if as usual, I would be heading for my Korean class but I'm not! And suddenly, I feel soo empty.

I have been going for Korean Class at the same date for almost 8 consecutive months and suddenly to not go feels completely weird.

As this is the last class, my classmates decided to buy a cake (only a slice though!) and a card where we all wrote our wishes on it- in Korean! To prevent myself from making a mistake and saving teacher the hassle of correcting it,  I have already drafted out my message and post in on lang-8.com to have it corrected.

Even though I have already changed my mistakes, teacher still managed to find ONE small error. Strange though. I got it corrected by a native Korean. Guess even natives made mistakes huh.

Anyway, our Teacher was very happy when she saw the card was filled with Koreans. I guess that's the kind of satisfaction you'll get, like watching your baby walking after many practices.

Our teacher was kind too, she bought as some Korean delicacies from the shopping mall just beside. Honestly, I am not a big fan of Korean food. I have tried them all and the only one that I super like is barbecued pork- (Samgyeopsal)

Taken from somewhere

So I can't say I enjoy the food but I did eat and I found a new love! Kimchi fried rice!

taken from somewhere

I don't like kimchi but kimchi fried rice was okay. She also bought as bibim ramen and beef bibimbap. Each table was two set of meals so we just share it among ourselves.

We don't eat beef so we just eat the rice. It was nice. Hee hee and we took lots of pictures- for keepsake

Sorry if the picture is blur. Can't be help. No matter how hard we all tried to take the photo , it's just blur.

I guess I will really miss teacher, her lessons and the classmates I have made in these wonderful lessons. Since she won't be teaching higher levels, we all have to source for other alternatives to further our studies. I have a pool of resources right now and I didn't know which to choose. I guess have to sort things out quickly before our Korean deteriorates.

So anyone who have good recommendations please leave a comment!

Pepero day!!

Sorry for being on hiatus for sooo long~

Anyway, Today is Pepero day (빼빼로) !!

What is pepero???

Pepero is a sticklike biscuit. It is coated with syrup with favours like strawberry or chocolate.

PEPERO(S)!!

Pepero day is named after Pepero itself as the 4 '1's resembles much like the 4 peperos. On this date, people celebrate, much like valentine, exchanging or giving pepero to their friends. Rumour has it that Lotte ( a big company which also sells pepero) created the holiday but Lotte denied it stating that it was just a coincidence that there was a bump on the pepero sales figure on this particular date. And then, they just start to grasp this promotion oppoturnity and advertise pepero using several promotion tools. Therefore, Pepero Day is born! There are many other versions of Pepero origins, you can look them up on other websites as I am not going to explain everyone of them.

Honestly, looking at those Pepero does make your mouth watery doesn't it?

So what have I been doing??

1)Working

Well, straight after exams, I went for work! Crazy isn't it? But since the bargain wasn't too bad, and I deseperately needed money so I just went ahead. Anyway, I just need to work for two weeks plus its an admin job so it wasn't too bad. I am hoping that these two weeks pay will manage to cover up some of my expenses that I will be spending.

2) I will be going for MAMA awards!

HAHAHAHA! For those who know what MAMA awards is, envious don't you?? For those of you who don't know what it is,  it's Mnet Asia Music Awards and they are hosting in Singapore Indoor Stadium. It is a music award ceremony and this year , they are holding in Singapore. There will be lots of Kpop Artist flying over to attend this award ceremony. So if you got the tickets, you can go and see them walking on the red carpet and live performance. Isn't it cool? You get to see all the Kpop artist at a price of ONE! HAHAH Although , we still do not have official list of who is coming. I bought the tickets right on the first day of sales! But since I do not have the confirmed list, I bought the cheaper category so I might not be able to see the idols up closely but I guess it should be good enough. Anyway, I got a from a super reliable source, as reliable as MAMA itself that Super Junior is coming! HAHA! THANK GOD!

So for those of you who didn't manage to go, I will post updates on the show!! HEHEE

Since I had promised to update on some of the events stated in the previous post, I will update those post but.. on a later date. It's pretty late now and I have to get my beauty sleep. Till next time~