Z Yoon

After sticking with Zeanie for 3 years, I can absolutely say that she is one of the best teachers I've ever studied under. I started out with very low confidence and was honestly scared to even speak (this is even after 2 years of taking Korean in college on my own). However, she saw that I had a high willingness to learn and was encouraged by it, personalizing each lesson for me. She mixed a variety of lesson plans hand-picked from different sources, which I totally entrusted in her hands - no questions asked. She would find simple expressions that I could use that I could re-use over and over and still sound natural. She is also super considerate/understanding of conflicts that may come up and was always willing to reschedule or refund in case of any emergencies. She didn't ask me to write this, but this is my thanks to her for all she's done. If anything, the more you put in, the more she gives back. If she sees that you're invested, she'll invest back. You just gotta stick to it.

I've now had 10 lessons with Ms. Yoon, and after each lesson I am excited about what's next. She knows how to customize a lesson plan so that it's difficult enough to challenge me but not so difficult that I despair of improving. I had been stuck at a high novice level because Koreans understood me well enough and didn't feel the need to correct my grammar, but Ms. Yoon has been incredibly patient in correcting my frequent mistakes and in encouraging me to develop my reasoning skills in Korean. I've had several Korean teachers over the years, but Ms. Yoon is by far the best one I've had.

윤 선생님's creativity and ability to adapt the lessons to my needs and experiences never ceases to surprise me. Today's class was focused on a new expression used to describe doing an action after a certain period of time. We practiced this by introducing vocabulary related to a recent surgery I had. I know this vocabulary will come in handy during my next trip to Korea to be able to explain my symptoms to doctors and pharmacists.

I've been studying with Professor Yoon for about two months now and I am amazed by my progress...starting from complete scratch to actually understanding and being able to say quite a lot. It already has made a huge difference in my comfort level being in Korea. My colleagues and friends keep asking me how I am learning so fast! I highly recommend Professor Yoon (and I love her sense of humor, too!).

I've just realized that I've been taking classes with 윤 선생님 for over a year. Overall, my Korean abilities have improved dramatically. In the past, I would hear the same word or grammar form and not recognize it. Now, not only do I recognize the words, but I can also use them in my own communication. She's incredibly patient and has used her own experience to help me find my learning style. When I don't understand something, there's never any shame in asking for help- I can explain my confusion, but she also has plenty of other ways to teach difficult skills. Besides that, when I have misunderstandings with native Korean culture, I ask her for help, and we work through the issue and the solution together. Furthermore, what she teaches is tailored to my life and what happens. Instead of expecting that I repeat the same textbook phrases, the words and expressions she teaches me are things that I can apply to a variety of subjects.

We've made a lot of progress in both grammar and vocabulary- I've been able to recognize it in reading and listening, and I'm slowly becoming slow to integrate it into my own speaking and writing.