2007/12/12

All Words, No Action

I'm well into my second week of level 5 at Sogang University. Maybe I should explain what the program is like for those of you who, um, aren't within driving distance of Korea. Which, presumably, is all of you.

1) Location - The tenth story of the highest building on the Sogang University campus. I'm not technically a student of Sogang, since I'm attending the affiliated language program, but I do have a student card and have access to the various facilities there, including the gym and the library.

2) Schedule - I take classes four hours a day, five days a week, making it a pretty intense schedule. This doesn't take into account the homework, of which there's a considerable amount. There are also additional classes available to those who are interested and ambitious (I suppose I may fall into category) like a pronunciation class that I took today.

3) Material - The first hour of the day is a writing class. We review the material covered in the other classes and implement it in our own free writing assignments. Next is a video class, which focuses on improving our listening skills. Right now we're watching a movie called "Christmas in August." Finally is two hours of reading and speaking, which is where we get most of the new material, including vocab and grammar. Perhaps needless to say, all these classes are taught in Korean. Since I'm in level 5 out of 6, this isn't surprising, but even level 1 is taught entirely in Korean. I really can't imagine how that works...!

I'll add some more topics when they occur to me. For now, another picture - pretty good looking, huh?