Casey 1

What challenges do you face as a language learner of Korean? Do you feel that the teacher uses different instructional practices based on whether a student is a domestic or a heritage language learner?

I: And we talked a little bit before about the differences between heritage and u::m, domestic language learners. Do you feel, um, or what kinds of challenges do you feel you’ve had in terms of learning Korean?

C: Um, well, I only lived in Korea for two years, so I had a little bit of background and I knew the alphabet and that really helped me in the beginning of the course but um, my background doesn’t really help me now because all the other students know the alphabet, they know all the basics. And now we’re taking classes with a lot of students who have Korean parents who use the language with them at home or they came from Korea, so um, for me the challenge is now I have to cram all this stuff in my head, when before I had it easy, um, this is kind of difficult for me, is, is learning grammar because it’s so much different from English, and um, not having other people who speak it to me besides my sister who’s in the same level. So having class five times a week really helps but it’s almost not enough. And that’s probably the biggest problem is just that I don’t have anyone else speaking it to me.

I: Mm-hm. Do you think that they’re, do you perceive that the teacher uses different instructional strategies for, u:m, for you (2) u::m, and for those who come in with more Korean?

C: I think that the teacher tries to do a good balance. Whenever she says instructions, she’ll say, she’ll always say them in Korean first, and a lot of kids don’t know what she’s saying, so, um, she always says them in English second. Um, page numbers, she started out with saying them only in English and then progressively and now it’s just Korean and page numbers but most people understand that in class now. Um, sometimes I have trouble, you know, when I hear it, I have to think about it, it’s never just like, um, it’s never just going to be instinct for me to know, right away, you know, that’s page like 17, I always have to think about it, process it in my head first. But I think the teacher does a really good job. She um, she knows that this is our second or third language, it’s not easy learning a language at this age, so I think she does a really good job trying to help both heritage and domestic learners.

Reflections – Compare the student impressions of if the teacher uses distinct instructional practices for domestic versus heritage language learners (Casey 1, Sara 1, Eric 2, and Li-Ting). What is your reaction? Do you find that you have different expectations for domestic learner performance than for heritage learner performance? Do you feel students should be held to the same standards for a specific course level? If not, what strategies do you use to assess individual student progress? Is there a relationship between a student’s perception of fairness and their learning investment in the class?

Casey 2

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