Kamp 1

Abigail Kamp

Dr. Cho

C & T 598

May 28th, 2024

Autobiography of my Languages and Literacy: Abigail Kamp

The first experience I had with learning a language other than English was when my

family was preparing to travel to France when I was in 2nd grade. My parents probably taught me

five French words at most, but I was still very excited to use the few words I learned. However,

when we later traveled to Paris, I wanted to spend some of my souvenir money to tip an

accordion player at the metro, but when he replied “merci,” I realized I didn’t know how to

respond “you’re welcome” in French. Though I still would not know how to reply to the man, I

did know from that point forward that I wanted to learn how to speak in other languages.

The first chance I got to learn a second language was in high school, where my very

small school only offered a single option for a foreign language, which was Spanish. Our teacher

was native to El Salvador, though she left the country when she a child, so her knowledge about

proper grammar and teaching abilities were honestly, somewhat lacking. Nonetheless, I enjoyed

the class thoroughly, and I began to practice Spanish on my own in the form of Duolingo and

other online applications. Though I had become passionate about learning foreign languages, I

had no real reason or place to apply my learning, so Spanish was a bit of an afterthought or “side

quest” in my eyes. This quickly changed, though, when my family decided on bringing a foreign

exchange student into our family for a year.

To this day, I still consider Marta Guajardo Fajardo Coronel to be “my sister.” Marta is

originally from Sevilla, Spain, and lived with me my senior year of high school. When she first
 Kamp 2

arrived in the U.S, her Spanish was not as fluent as she expected, so I worked hard to utilize what

Spanish I could to help her navigate her new home. She also quickly taught me more Spanish as

I helped her with English, particularly with practical conversation usage and more difficult

vocabulary terms that I wasn’t taught in class. Spanish had soon become a way to bond with my

new friend and introduce me into her culture, as she was being engrained into mine. Language

became more significant and purposeful to me when it was a connection to those I love, and I

worked diligently to speak Spanish to her during the span of her stay. I would expect I even

increased my fluency by 20 to 30%. I think this was the first instance I had in my life of

language learning being more than just a school subject or task, but a chance to connect with

others and build relationships, which only made me value it more.

Once Marta left the U.S and I entered my freshman year of college, my skills and drive to

learn Spanish quickly fell off. School crowded over my time for daily practice, and Marta’s time

zone resulted in few chances to converse, leaving few instances for me to practice Spanish. In

freshman year, I was advised against trying to crowd my schedule with foreign language classes,

so I also had little reason to practice at that point. Most of my memory of Spanish has now fallen

off, leaving me able to understand a fair bit of speech, but being relatively useless in practical

conversation. Foreign language lost importance to me, until my second semester at school when I

met my now boyfriend, JuOne Park, a Korean immigrant.

When we initially met, I was reluctant learn a language for someone I hadn’t known long,

but as we grew closer, I began to understand how important his culture was to him. Both his

parents live in South Korea and cling tightly to their traditional Korean values. When I began to

learn about his parents, I was initially worried I would not fit into their standard of expectations

for their son; I was especially anxious because his mom speaks broken English and had prior
 Kamp 3

expressed to him her concerns about not being able to properly converse with a non-Korean

partner. Similarly, it was also important to me to build a good relationship with his family, and I

wanted to be able to speak with his mother. This was one of the major reasons that I began to

study Korean on my own.

I also started to study because I wanted to better understand his culture and life through

his language, because I didn’t think it would be fair of me to try and navigate our relationship

and contrasting cultural values without putting in the effort to understand how his society shaped

him, and how his characteristics were linked community, customs, or Korean way of living.

Learning the Korean language seemed to be a first step towards building a stronger connection

with him, and I still believe that language is a gateway to more intimate relationships.

I also wanted to learn Korean because with his parents living 6,500 miles away, the

closest people in his daily life are his community members at church, which mainly consists of

Korean immigrants with broken English capabilities. I knew that if I wanted to get closer to them

too, that I would need to help fill in the language barrier myself. It seemed unfair to expect

everyone to learn English for me, instead of the other way around. Learning Korean while

attending church with JuOne also gave me a great chance to practice what I was learning, as

many of his friends and mentors were incredibly willing to help teach me, and they would

explain more thoroughly the practical uses of words, grammar etiquette, pronunciation, and

speech fluency than what I was learning in my online course. I think that their help, to this day,

has aided my fluency in casual conversation, slang, and “non-textbook” terms. What helped even

more though, was a member of the church being a Korean drill teacher at the University of

Kansas—Hwangbo Seonsaengnim (“teacher,” in Korean). As I got to know her, she

recommended for me to take formal Korean classes at KU the following semester.

This opportunity seemed like an obvious decision for me because I was already losing

motivation to practice Spanish and had no person or initiative to connect the language to. At the

same time, a new reason to learn Korean had walked into my life, and I had many available

resources to better my skills. I began to minor in Korean at KU in the fall of my sophomore year,

with Hwangbo Seonsaengnim as my teacher three times a week. Plus, I had a great chance to

practice my listening comprehension every Sunday morning, which now, is arguably quite better

than any other area of my Korean proficiency because of that practice.

Nonetheless, I was still nervous to commit to such a course simply because of a short-

term boyfriend. Today though, we’re coming up on a year and a half, and I’m so glad I began to

learn the language in college. At this point, I’ve connected myself with the language and culture

outside of just JuOne, and Korean to me has become a gateway to many of my own friends that

I’ve made along this journey, and something I’m passionate to learn about simply because I

enjoy learning it. I’ve grown closer to my other Korean teachers and built personal relationships

through the Korean program at KU that I’m incredibly grateful to have. I do think though that

without such a close personal connection, I would not have had the opportunity to identify as

strongly with the Korean culture and language as much as I do now. I’m also thankful for this

insight into another culture so deeply because I think that through learning the language, I’ve

learned many aspects about Korean society and practices that have shaped me to be a more

empathetic, accommodating, and perceptive person, along with being a better partner. These

aspects of learning Korean has warped language learning, for me, into something much bigger.

Language is a connection, a friend, an act of service, or even a shared point of love.

Though Korean has been, and is, a difficult language to learn as native English speaker, it

is a challenge I continue to dive into headfirst, and can hopefully someday consider myself to be
 Kamp 5

fluently bilingual in. The biggest struggles I endure are due to the vast differences in the two

languages, like with sentence structure, levels of formality, fluency in the alphabet, and general

lack of word similarity; this was unlike learning Spanish, where there is a large overlap between

the romance languages, and picking up the language came quite naturally to me. In some ways,

this makes learning Korean more engaging for me—more like a puzzle I must work to

accomplish, or a pattern I can try to replicate. I think that luckily, no matter the outcome for

JuOne and I, Korean has become something that will stay with me and will want to continue to

practice far into the future.

Around the time when my interest in Korean began to warp from an external motive to

learning by my own self-determination, I was also made aware of the program to teach English

in Korea. Taking the step into this program likewise solidified my desire to learn about Korea

because of my own passion for the subject, and I think having been here for less than two weeks

has already transformed how I associate with Korea and the language. I’ve personally connected

myself more to the country, to teaching students, in adaptation to the culture, with empathy for

the Korean community, and now with wanting to learn more about what I don’t know. I’m

thrilled to teach about my own language in a way that will connect me to others, especially as I

learn Korean myself.

Though I worry about the students learning English due to practicum expectations and

not finding joy from the act of learning a foreign language, they do seem excited that English

teachers are here. I hope that I can turn that excitement to talk to us into excitement to learn

English so they can talk to us, and therefore find their own passion in the subject, since many

seem not to. I think that being able to view learning a foreign language the way that I do is a

privilege, and I want to share the passion I have for it with others in attempt to contrast the
 Kamp 6

“English fever” that seems to tire the students in Korea. I hope with my enthusiasm to converse

with them, that I can instill a similar motivation in them, and bring light to the idea of learning a

foreign language. In my stay here, I would love to share the meaning I find in learning Korean

and connecting with those I care about to exemplify to the students the beauty of sharing a

language, a culture, and putting in the effort to create a community with one another.

I’ve always thought, but now more than ever, that crossing the bridge between languages

and cultures is one of the highest forms of discipline to show your care and appreciation for

another. A difficult task, but one you’re willing and working to do for someone, displays an

unmatched form of love that I’m excited to bring to Kyunghwa, and going forward, an endeavor

I hope to pursue long into the rest of my life.