Creating your Korean Study Plan: a How-To Guide

Creating a study plan that works for you is an essential undertaking for any Korean learner. Whether you're an advanced learner or a complete beginner, having an effective study plan that supports your goals without making learning a chore is the best way to consistently further your progress.

Before creating a study plan there are 4 things you must do:

1. Gather your study materials - making sure to cover the 4 main skills.

2. Map your goals.

3. Understand how you learn.

4. Don't forget the importance of review.

Gathering your study materials:

Before figuring out how you are going to study, you must first figure out exactly WHAT you are going to study! It is much easier to plan the breakdown of your week when you have lessons/exercises to plan around.

It is important that you schedule a time to practice each of the 4 main language skills at least once a week. This is the best way to ensure consistent progression. Everyone has a skill they like less than the rest (for me it's listening) and we often find ways to 'forget' to study that skill when we aren't feeling like challenging ourselves. I myself am incredibly guilty of this!

Finding study resources that make practising the 4 skills easy and, more importantly, enjoyable is the most important part of your Korean journey. With the right foundations, anything is possible.

For our favourite study resources, you can check out our Chingu Study Corner. Here we have links to the study resources we swear by, plus a whole lot more because we both have an addiction to buying textbooks...

Mapping your goals:

Now that you have chosen your study materials, it is time to map your goals. For me, this is a very fun process as I love to organise, so hopefully, you will enjoy this part too.

When it comes to mapping your goals you can follow a very simple process:

1. Decide what you want to achieve.

2. Decide when you want to achieve it.

3. What do you need to have studied to achieve your goal?

4. Work backwards from there!

For example:

This year I have set myself the goal of taking the TOPIK 1 exam in October, aiming for a Level 2 qualification. (TOPIK = Test Of Proficiency In Korean)

In order for me to feel confident going into this exam I would like to have reached Level 6 in the TTMIK syllabus (Talk To Me In Korean) by October. I am definitely an over-preparer! For me to reach Level 6 by October I need to study 3 TTMIK classes a week, ergo I have a goal to plan for in my weekly study schedule.

This is a very time-bound goal, which in general, tends to be better for creating study plans, but please feel free to set your goals to be more vague than this. Perhaps you want to be able to read a short Korean story with no issues by the end of the year - this is also a perfectly acceptable goal, now all you need to do is plan for it!

Understanding how you learn:

Now that you have your materials and your goals, it is time to understand how you learn. Now, be advised, this may change over the course of your time learning Korean.

It is important to learn at a pace that is right for you and your brain, if you're a crammer that would rather get all your learning down on one day, do that. If you like spaced repetition, plan for this.

I myself, try not to have to do too much on any given day as I have a busy work/life schedule to work my studies around (totally not a nightmare!) As such, I do a little bit of learning almost every day of the week. This allows me to tick things off my study plan at a steady rate, though it also means that if I fall behind it takes me a while to catch up!

Once you have decided how often you want to study/what study style suits you best, you can now start pencilling things in your diary/pretty Canva study plan, whichever you prefer. Pin your study plan up somewhere in plain view, or carry it with you on a daily basis if it is in a diary. This will help remind you of the commitment you have made to yourself to learn the language.

Don't forget the importance of review:

So, you've finally found your study material, decided on your goals and figured out how you learn. Surely that is everything by now?

It is, almost, but there is one last, super important, aspect of studying a language that you MUST plan for. REVIEWING YOUR LEARNING.

I am a year into my studies and I am only just planning for this in my weekly study plan, and boy, do I feel silly for not realising its importance sooner! Factoring in time to review your previous study is the best way to check your understanding and boost your memory. If you're anything like me when I first started learning, all you will be worried about is progressing through the levels. You will soon find, however, that you're learning level 2 - level 3 content with absolutely no recollection of that grammar pattern you learned in level 1... So infuriating. This is why regularly reviewing your understanding is so important.

I save the workbook questions associated with each chapter of the TTMIK books for a weekly review every Monday. I find this helps iron out the kinks in my memory and means that the ideas are fresh in my head for the rest of the week. Using workbooks to review your knowledge is a great way of testing how much you know without being able to go back and just read the answer from the class, thereby giving yourself the easy way out. Your review must be as honest as possible as this will highlight which areas you have understood, and which you could do with a refresher on.

And there you have it - my tips on creating the perfect study plan! I hope you found this blog useful, and I'd love to see what study plans you come up with. Please tag us on Instagram if you decide to share them, and happy studying!