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I attended the first Post-Advanced Korean Language course at NUS Extension yesterday afternoon. Including this course, I will have Korean lesson every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. With 6 hours of Korean lesson every week, I have never been studying Korean in Singapore so intensively before.

When the lesson started yesterday, there were altogether 11 students. I was excited to be in a class with so many fine students. There are two Korean language teacher assistants, one Japanese language scholar, one Yonsei University exchange programme student, two Kyunghee University 3 week programme students and two English language teachers. All students have already completed or going to complete level 6 course.

After learning about the background of each student (from Ebony Bae), our teacher, Ms Chi Seo Won (지서원-池緖媛) gladly told us that she harboured high hope for the class. However, I am not too sure if I can live up to that expectation after she sees my test paper. We sat for a 1-hour test before the start of yesterday lesson. I was quite confused by the irregular verbs.

This course is supposed to be taught by both Ms Chi and Ms Ebony. Apparently, still shaken by an unpleasant incident that happened earlier, Ms Chi appealed to us not to approach the reception counter to withdraw from course if it happens that Ms Ebony cannot turn out to teach due to her busy schedule. Poor Ms Chi, I hope she can recover from the earlier incident. It is so rare for a class, as a whole, to threaten to withdraw from a course if they do not get their preferred teacher.

This Post-Advanced course focuses on both conversational and listening skills. The lesson theme will revolve around Korean culture and that means we will learn more about the Korean culture as we practise our conversational and listening skills. For the first lesson, there was not much practice on these two skills yet though we were introduced to Insadong and given one A4-size paper filled with words associated with the place. Next week, we can expect half an hour of presentation with the rest of the time given to listening and conversation. I think it is going to be an interesting course.

Everything was good about the course. The only gripe I have is that it is conducted in a Saturday afternoon. That is normally a period when I take my afternoon nap. I hope I don't get drowsy and sleepy during class in the coming weeks just in case Ms Chi thinks that her lesson is boring, which is of course not true.