1st Scholarship student in Perth

I am Natalia Siauw, the recipient of 2012 KLCEC Scholarship Program. I’d been interested and wanting to learn Korean and so one day I googled Korean class in Perth and found KLCEC website. From there I emailed Ebony to enrol and managed to get into Module 1 in May 2011. It was the first class she started in Perth and I was really glad that I could become one of her students. Her way of teaching was really fun and motivated me to keep learning Korean with her. And when I finished Module 4, she offered me the scholarship of 50% of the regular (200 hours) course at Sogang University for 3 months. With the help from Ebony, I decided to take the opportunity to explore more about Korea and to practice my Korean of course. After getting accepted into the language program, and before it started, there was a placement test consisted of interview and writing test to determine which level you should be in. However, when I went to Sogang to do the test, they only required me to do the interview. During the interview I told the teacher I learned Korean with Ebony for about 60 hours (Module 1 to Module 4) and she was really surprised because their language program is 200 hours for one level and with just 60 hours I’ve managed to learn one level. But what she didn’t know was that KLCEC Module 1 to Module 4 is almost equivalent to Sogang Language Program Level 2. I was put into Level 2 and when the class started I realised that I had actually learned most of the grammars from KLCEC. I was going to try to move to Level 3 but as Ebony said, because of the lack of interaction with the native speakers in Perth no matter how hard we try to learn and speak, our speaking would still be lacking. So I went with Level 2 just to improve my speaking and I am very happy with the results! Although KLCEC’s two-hour-every-week class might be short, it was really useful especially if you do the homework that Ebony gives. They might be a lot but they really helped! So, what did I do in Seoul for 3 months? Heaps! The class was Monday to Friday from 9 am to 1 pm, but I still had plenty of time to play and travel around! The teachers were really nice and helpful. I made friends with other foreigners in class and together we learned Korean. The size of the class wasn’t too big and so the atmosphere was great and fun! If you are really interested in interacting with the native speakers, there’s always language exchange section in Sogang website that you could use to meet Koreans. If you like Korean food, you would love living there! Being able to taste the real Korean food and all those street food was awesome!! And if you are lucky, you could meet celebrities too! I came back to Perth with a wonderful experience and improved Korean. I am really glad that I took this opportunity and can’t thank Ebony enough for giving such an opportunity. I hope this will inspire other students to keep learning Korean.