Post #1

I like to share my experience of learning Korean from the perspective of behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Social Constructivism.
I took two Korean courses in my freshman year of college. On the first day of class, my instructor firstly taught us how to greet a stranger by demonstrating one time to us. Then ask us to walk around in the classroom and greet three classmates.
This is the first time I’ve encountered Korean in a cognitivist approach to learning.

At the very beginning of learning phonetic symbols, our instructor would play a Korean children’s song that was designed for children to learn the language. Each phonetic symbol would repeat many times along with the rhythm in that song. After it has been played repeatedly, I could hum it out without trying to memorize it. I see it as a behaviorist approach to learning phonetic symbols. Along the course, she showed many songs and provided us the name of the songs for us to listen at free time.

In the later stages of the class, we were taught grammar and use what we have learned to group simple sentences. Our instructor would show us clips from Korean dramas. By watching them, I was able to have a sense of what is my tone should be like when I say this sentence. In the meanwhile, the class becomes super fun.

For our last assignment, we were asked to form a group and create a short show just like the clips from a drama show. Every group would need to perform it in front of the whole class. I see this assignment as a constructivist approach to learning. To look back on this enriching learning experience, we experienced greeting without knowing the language, and the people I talked to perform the show in a new language in the end.

References:

Image. https://amphigean.com/2020/08/24/learning-theories/