Well at least a vague idea of what the teaching was like for media classes in general as well as Korean language classes.
Personally I believe KU's education is not that hard in comparison to the University of Leeds (UoL), perhaps even on the same level. Of course, this is coming from personal experience, it can differ amongst others doing other majors/classes as well as those in other universities.
It's nothing to be afraid of. Although the professor's spoken English is not that great, you can still understand it. Additionally, the common belief that Korean education is tough does not necessarily apply for us foreign students. Apparently only High Schoolers suffer in Korea, especially during their last year. But once they get into university they become more lax since everything is less intense. At least that what some of the KUBA Korean buddies have told me.
Professors (Teachers)
Or seonsaengnim's as Koreans would call them. Often very friendly, but don't give off quite the same vibe as the ones at UoL.At UoL, it feels like you can be more open and closer to the teacher, like friends who are on the same level. However, at KU although you can be friendly with the teacher you can never be friends on the same level. What do I mean by same level? The thing is with Korea in general is that social relationships have heirarchies. The older one is, or with more experience in a certain field, the higher they are in the social heirarchy. I'm sure you can Google all this yourself, but in this case, the professor will always be of a higher level than you so you must still be respectful to them. You have to always be hyperaware of manners and make sure not to drop formalities, even if they are acting like a friend to you - because they can since you're younger. But don't worry too much, you can still make jokes with each other. Plus you can play the foreigner card.
Their English are not always perfect. There are times where their grammar could drop, some words pronounced weirdly, and pauses where they try to mentally translate something in Korean to English. It can be difficult for them to express certain things at times because the two languages are different, so they tend to offer long-winded explanations and hope you would understand them.
 | |
| My Korean class: last day of lessons with Park Jiwon seonsaengnim! We didn't quite know when the picture would be taken... |
The teachers who teach Korean classes are the most interactive, animated, and enthusiastic teachers you could probably get. Of course, this is most likely a given since they need the students' full attention and egagement. But if you compare them to language teachers back in the UK in general, they are so much more animated.
They tend to be hired because they have limited knowledge of English - or at least that's we students are told. Meaning they will be more likely to teach the entire lesson in Korean, which is something you shouldn't be afraid of because if you start from beginners things are pretty easy to understand. These teachers will use extravagant body language and enact somewhat funny scenarios in order for the class to understand certain things.
It's uncommon to find a student asleep in this class because of the intense interactivity going on between them and the teacher, as well as amonst the students themselves when we have to 이야기 (talk) with each other in Korean to practice.
Classes
Classes are typically taught in 1 hour 15 minute blocks, with 15 minutes break in between each one to allow students to travel from one class to another. Some classes may last longer than the typical time slot and clash with the following slot, your professor will inform you about that during the first week of lessons.Classes that begin from 5pm onwards are listed on the timetable as longer classes that passes the 1 hour 15 minute duration. If you're lucky, the class may actually be just 1 hour 15 minutes like my Korean class. However, for a class like Mass Media and Popular Culture in Korea, which my friend took, it lasts from 5-8pm - 3 hours! In such classes the professor will let you bring snacks in to eat since you'll have to wait for a long time for dinner.
The classes - at least in the Media Hall, are taught in typical classrooms. Never had I had a class in a lecture hall - apart from maybe the cinema hall (KU Cinema Trap) for Film & Crit. as pictured on the right.
All 3 of my media classes were taught in the Media Hall. All of which were taught in a large classroom settings. My New Media class was taught in a room on the 4th floor with perhaps no more than 40 students in the class.Whereas my Consumer Behaviour and Media & Social Change classes were taught in the same large double room on the 6th floor. This room held probably around 80 students, with 6 rows of desks - every 2 desks were raised higher as it got further back since the floor was raised in 3 levels.
Meanwhile in Wudang Hall for my Korean classes, it felt slightly more like a lecture hall only that it wasn't as large as a typical lecture hall and was more like a large classroom. The chairs and desks were fixed and in long rows, and every 2 rows were raised it got further back - more raised than the one on the 6th floor in Media Hall.
(Light) Workload
At first I was intimidated by KU's requirement of 4 courses (classes/modules) per semester since I was too used to having 3. But depending on the course you choose, the workload is pretty light.3 of my classes did not require weekly homework/assignments, the readings we were suggested to read were optional, and there was no need for a reading response like UoL. However, for my Media and Social Change class we had to do a reading at least once in the semester for an assigned class dicussion.
Only my New Media class was the most demanding and required more workload, since the professor was essentially a slave driver who jokingly/metaphorically referred to himself as a "King" in our first introductory lesson. Every week we had 2 classes for this course at 10.30am. Per lesson we had to prepare beforehand by doing a reading along with either a printed out reading response or answer case study questions. Most of the readings were easy, very few academic chapters/papers were assigned. Instead, they were more like online articles, news reports, and short easy-to-read academic chapters. Probably to make things easier for the domestic students.
Strangely enough, this highly demanding class was perhaps the most challenging and interesting out of all my other classes. Despite the rocky start, where I failed to hand in a printed copy of my first assignment because I didn't know where to print it, as well as finding difficulty in understanding the technical side to mobile technology, I eventually came to enjoy it as things moved onto the user-side.
(Generous) Marking
Korea's educational system works like the US, they have mid-terms and finals, meaning grading is equally spread out across the the semester, perhaps making it less likely for one to fail.Additionally, it appears that most English taught classes are based on grade boundary marking like the UK. Usually they would follow the US system where relative marking would be used. However, KU is very considerate of the fact that some domestic students' English may be lacking and can affect their grades if they were to be competitively marked against foreign students with higher levels of English knowledge, hence why they use grade boundary marking to make things easier for them. Thus, this makes it even easier, perhaps, for us foreign exchange students to pass.
Yet, I have heard that in some English taught classes at KU do do relative marking, so you many want to double check when you're applying for courses - they do say on the courses list. So far I believe all media classes are boundary marking based.
Once again, using my New Media class as an example, I easily scored high marks on every homework assignment. Out of a mark of 10, I once got a 7, a few 8's, but I mostly received 9s and 10s. I guess this was because I've been doing reading responses for 2 years at UoL - I had practice, plus I usually get very good marks in doing them.
But as for the exam I scored average, even though I felt that I understood most of the questions. I was prepared to lose a mark or two for the first question since I absolutely had no clue about 3 of the 10 mobile tech acronyms.
Meanwhile I scored pretty high marks for my other classes' exams. Media and Social Change's mid-terms and finals were take home assignments. Consumer Behaviour and Stratetigic Communication were both easy exams that involved a lot of multiple choice questions and about 7 short written response questions. Beginner's Korean was exam based also, testing our knowledge in reading and writing.
Downsides
- Extra credit lectures outside of class are in Korean. My New Media class offered extra credit lectures and seminars outside of lesson but all were spoken in Korean.
- Review lesson may be helpful, but these lessons are actually more optimised for Korean students who were unable to fully understand the English spoken lectures. This is why it's pointless to even think about attending these review lessons, because it's done in Korean. This happened with my Consumer Behaviour class.
- Group projects are a popular form of assessment, they can either be alright or downright stressful - I shall discuss about this in detail in another post.
- Can, at times, be difficult to follow what the professor's saying - some may be kind enough to let you raise your hand to request for them to further explain or repeat slowly.
- Sometimes feedback on your work from professors can be lacking or vague, or aren't given at all.
Stuff I've Heard About Classes Other Than Media
- Business Studies is easier at KU (what friend heard from other people)
- Engingeering is really hard at KU
- Sometimes they prefer you following their methods than the methods you learnt at home (friend doing engineering from Dominican Republic)
- Some teaching assistants (TA's) don't know English (happened to engineering friend)
- Some professors speak in Korean at times during an English taught class and don't bother to translate (friend doing accounting, also happened with my Film & Crit. class during introduction week)
- Some professors pass handouts in Korean without English translations (accounting friend)
0 comments:
Post a Comment