It has officially been 1 year since I've embarked on my Korean language learning journey! As like all learning experiences, there's bound to be ups and downs and times where I felt that giving up. My Korean is definitely not super fluent due to the hiccups in the learning plan, but I'm really happy that I took the first step to sign up for a course despite all advices.
千里之行，始于足下！This chinese idiom reminds me that a road of thousand miles starts with the first step I take. However much I ponder whether the journey is worth taking, I would never be able to obtain any form of achievements nor fulfilment if I do not take the first step of faith.
Let me share about my experience in learning as well as the schools i've attended.
Afraid that I was simply joining the K-language bandwagon because of my 2019 June Korea trip, I decided to go for a more affordable class at the community centre.
Braddell Heights Community Centre
My first school is at Braddell Heights Community Centre which is located near Serangoon MRT or right beside NEX. It is pretty convenient for me and it takes about <20 minutes for me to commute. Since I was a beginner, I started off with Basic 1 course which consisted of 10 lessons. The price was about $135 and I had to pay an additional $35 (? cant really remember) for the materials. I continued with Basic 2 with a marginal increase in price. Let's talk about the pros and cons, shall we? :)
Pros:
- The price point is really affordable and it is suitable for people who aren't sure whether they want to commit to learning this language and want a so called exploratory class. It works out to be around $15 dollars per class for about 2 hours. If you are a passion member and sign up online, you are entitled to 10% electronic discount :)
- If you live near the community centre, travelling shouldn't be too much of a hassle as well :)
- Able to have make up class at other community centre should you miss your class.
- of course this is subjected to the availability and also depends on the pace of other classes. May not be entirely the same according to some of the classmates who went for make up classes.
Cons:
- You cannot choose your teacher or 선생님and there is no way you could find out who the teacher is until you start your class.
- Pace of class can be a little slow and frustrating. I noticed loads of repetition and sometimes I thought that it would be more enjoyable if the pace were to be faster. However that being said, I do see the value of repetition especially when one is learning a foreign language :)
- Teacher to class size ratio is at 1:20.
- it really depends on your luck for this. My class had a ratio of 1:6-7 depending on whether there was students from make up class or not so it wasn't too big a class. However, should you get the 1:20 ratio class size, you may not have much time practicing to speak the new language or having the teacher's attention.
- This brings me to my next point which is little practice. Due to the larger class size, the teacher may not have time to focus on you and we have lesser air time to practice our korean. In my opinion, speaking a foreign language (albeit funny or wrong), is as important as studying the grammar rules and listening!
- Not much practice
- There wasn't any separate workbook for practice. Chaomugger kitty prefers somewhere where homework is given hehe. But this is just personal preference so its not really a con.
HANA korean class/ Crystal learning centre
So the hiccup that I mentioned at the start was none other than our bff of 2020 Covid-19 lol. Because of Covid, the gov imposed the circuit breaker and my advance Korean class was postponed indefinitely because of that. However, when we could resume in May, my korean teacher left the teaching post because of some personal reasons and my class was cancelled. While I did consider waiting and going to another community centre for the advance class, I thought it would be good to try out korean schools instead for the reasons mentioned above.
Thus begin my journey to hunt for another class!
I found HANA korean online via google search and I found many positive google reviews! Thus I decided to contact them and arrange for a class. The admin lady was friendly and was very serious in helping me to organise a class. After taking the placement test, we had a problem which was that they did not have any existing pre-intermediate classes available. She offered to contact me when the group was ready and had a minimum of 3 to go.
The wait was probably almost a month or slightly more and initially we were settled on a physical class. However, due to the requests of one of the student, it became an online zoom class! To be honest, it was my first time having an online zoom class so I was rather hesitant and worried. I will share more later or perhaps the next post if this post gets too long.
Let's jump in to the pros and cons:
Pros:
- One of the more affordable Korean language schools available. For pre-intermediate I paid about $275 for 10 lessons at 2 hours each. This is inclusive of the materials. This brings it up to about $13.75 per hour.
- Textbook and workbook provided unlike the community centre.
- Online class: super convenient since you are at home.
- Small class size of 1:3. There was enough airing time for all of us to read, speak and to answer questions.
- Friendly teacher and she is really patient with us!
- I guess it's the vibes? She doesn't give off the judgemental vibe which is really important for me as I get intimated easily.
- The nature of online class somehow makes the class less interactive? Perhaps I'm a little old school and thus would still prefer physical classes.
- Not as much speaking practice as I would have liked and as a result, my speaking skills is just mehh.
- as compared to the community centre, I felt that the pace of this class could be a little bit too fast instead. We complete one chapter per lesson but I felt that we could have possibly benefited more with extra practices and conversations.
- Very close to my house ~10-15 minutes walk. It is very convenient and offers both online classes or physical classes. They gave me the option of switching to Zoom should I decide against physical classes later.
- Comprehensive online website which allows you to have self learning.
- Single teacher which means that I do not have to fear the lack of continuity and commitment.
- side note, she moved to Singapore about 11 years ago and is proficient in English. This makes learning a foreign language easier :) You can find out more about her qualifications via the school's website.
- efficient admin lady :)
- provides workbook and textbook.
- Interestingly, although I completed pre-intermediate at the previous school, my standard was still far below the pre-intermediate level after taking the placement test in this school >.< I ended up with Basic 4 haha.
- interactive class! The teacher would pull out pictures and carve out time for oral, picture description and also listening. What I really enjoyed especially was that she would ask me random things in Korean and I would try to reply her in Korean as well :)
- While comparing with Hana Korean, it is definitely more pricey but I guess it explains the better quality in teaching as well!
- I signed up for the private 1-1 lessons because I wanted more attention to brush up my basic korean before moving on the higher levels/taking TOPIK exams.
- I paid $805 for 10 lessons of 1.5 hours each inclusive of materials.
- The break down of the price includes $20 registration fee, $35 materials fees (worksheet + tb) and $750 for 10 lessons.
- If you sign up for 5 lessons only, it would be at the rate of $80 per lesson.
- This isn't really a con per say, but personally it was a more expensive investment in learning korean because I wouldn't be able to receive as much attention in a group setting. That being said, if you are interested in group lessons, they have several openings which you can check it out :)
And Merry Christmas ! :)
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