Korea-related Internship Program
(in association with the Matheson Library, local companies and associations, and Monash University Korea Studies )
Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub has established Korea-related internships as part of Monash University Korean Studies’ commitment to giving our students a head start in the job market. Our partners offering the internships include the Matheson library at Monash University, as well as local businesses and associations that will help our students develop their vocational skills. Monash Korean Studies also offers teaching assistant positions to students in the Korean Studies Department which provides the students with valuable pedagogical experience. Since the establishment of the program in 2018, Monash Korean Studies has established over twenty internship and teaching assistant positions for our Korean Studies students (as of October 2020).
Monash Korean Studies welcomes inquiries from an industry and/or community partners who are interested in hosting student placements. Please contact us for further information about the program.
Student internships
Monash Korean Studies offers placements to students majoring in Korean through the Monash Work Integrated Learning (WIL) program. While undergoing this internship the students work directly with Korea-related industry and community partners in authentic professional workplace.
Our industry and community partners include but are not limited to:
- The Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Melbourne
- The Matheson Library at Monash University
- Boron Molecular Pty Ltd
- The Korean Society of Victoria
Maki Takimoto (Monash VARS Intern)
My name is Maki Takimoto and I am a 3rd year Arts student majoring in Korean studies. I am currently working as an intern at Monash e-Solutions department in VARS (Virtual Augmented Reality Service), via the Arts WIL (Work-Integrated Learning) program from July 2022. Through the WIL program, I was given the opportunity work in a team to develop a Korean language game which will be one of the learning materials for Monash Korean Introductory units in the future. I was responsible for tasks previously managed by Eleena and I worked with Jonathan Jolie who is the main software developer of this project as well as two other Korean teaching assistants, Tae Seong Kim and Kyle Han-Menz.
For this project, my tasks involved creating and revising a list of questions and vocabs that are used in the game; adding onto the list already established by Eleena, Kyle and Tae. These are sorted into different categories and entered in excel where it is converted to csv files for Jonathan (software developer) to add into the game. It was my first time being involved in the creation of a game, thus there were many things I was unfamiliar with; such as, creating excel spreadsheets that are converted into csv files, and compressing images to reduce the file size. Thankfully, through the help of my mentors’ thorough instructions, I was able to overcome these challenges. While working on this project, my experience from studying Introductory Korean came in handy as I was able to understand the needs of students and what they may expect to see and gain from this game.
It was a great honor for me to work on this project and being able to help current and future students learning the Korean language at Monash. Moreover, this was a valuable opportunity to apply my Korean language skills in a professional situation. I’ve gained many useful skills throughout this project, and I am glad that I was given this role. It’s only been a couple of weeks since the game was released so we haven’t got feedbacks on the game yet. However, I hope this game is helpful, fun and engaging for students and they can make the most out of it.
Eleena Chang (Monash VARS Intern)
My name is Eleena Chang and I am a 20 year old 3rd year student at Monash University. I am majoring in Korean and am doing an internship for the Korean Studies Department. I had an internship at Monash University’s Virtual and Augmented Reality Services (VARS) in Research and Education Service (RES) in Academic and Data Technology Services (ADTS) e-Solutions from the 20th June, 2022 to the 15th July, 2022. During this program, I assisted a team in developing Korean games that focused on both entertainment and educational purposes. My team included 2 Korean Teaching Assistants – Tae Seong Kim and Kyle Han-Menz – and 3 software developers – Derek Huang, Jonathan Jolie, and Jacob Yap.
We decided after much discussion to firstly implement a quiz for the next semester, then hopefully focus on more technological games after. It was a fun experience, and I am happy I got to do this! I learned a lot about working in a company, as well as improved my Korean when applying all my knowledge into the quiz we have produced for the upcoming semester! Now I feel confident about working in a company in the future. I hope I can go to Korea someday and work in a company there! I would like to experience what it is like to work in a Korean society! While interning I got to improve my Korean that I feel I do not get to use much during the school holidays, so I am glad and really appreciate this opportunity. I feel like I learned so much more and did not realise how much we had learned until I had incorporated it all into the quiz. I hope this quiz game works out well and I hope to be able to contribute more to the Korean Studies Department here at Monash University!
Ellen Binion (Matheson Library Student Intern)
My name is Ellen Binion and I am a second-year Arts student with a Korean Studies major and Linguistics minor. As I have been completing the internship online this semester due to the pandemic, the Korean Studies Library Internship has been an eye-opening and truly unique experience. It has given me the opportunity to work on the online content of the Korean Studies Library Guide. I am also involved in creating online displays for Korean Studies seminars, which means I collect various sources of online information and resources to collate into PowerPoints that will direct students to further information they can access from the library on the seminar topic. My work was supervised by Anita Dewi and Jung-Sim Kim who have been integral in making my internship such a wonderful experience. Anita has made me feel part of the team, enabled me to meet as many of the team as possible, and treated me like I was employed there. Jung-Sim has been incredibly patient with her guidance as she supervised my work on the Library Guide. She taught me useful skills in creating PowerPoint presentations and advised me on working techniques and skills that I can take into future employment. All the Sir Louis Matheson Library staff were incredibly accommodating and welcoming and the experience has opened my eyes to the many avenues that are open to me. It was a pleasure to sit in on weekly meetings and hear the updates of what people are involved in. I hope to have further association with the Matheson Library beyond my internship and would recommend this internship to anyone given the opportunity.
Anusha Thirumalavan (Former Korean Consulate-General Student Intern)
My name is Anusha Thirumalavan. I’m undertaking Engineering and Arts majoring in Environmental engineering and Korean Studies at Monash University. Over the summer of my second year, I had the wonderful opportunity to intern at the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Melbourne. It was a unique opportunity that’s taught me many things and is an experience I will always look back on. Working at the Consulate helped me to further develop my Korean skills through interactions with the other staff and gave me an insight into the Korean-style working environment. It was also a very supportive workplace. All the staff were friendly and welcoming and always there to provide a helping hand when needed. I was able to try new things, such as writing media reviews and helping with organising important events, as well as honing my writing and reviewing skills through daily writing and proofreading. I was also able to help design posters for events and was lucky enough to be offered to be a part of a range of new experiences. I was able to build my professional network and still keep in touch with the people I met and worked with during this time. It was a very valuable experience that I would highly recommend to other students.
Korean Introductory 1 & 2 student teaching assistants
As previously noted, Monash Korean Studies offers teaching assistant positions to Korean Studies students to give them valuable pedagogical experience within the Monash University Korean Department itself. Since the establishment of the program in 2018, Monash Korean Studies has established over twenty internship and teaching assistant positions for our Korean Studies students (as of October 2020). Recently, our teaching assistants helped teachers during interactive workshops in the ATS1171 Korean Introductory 1 & ATS1172 Korean Introductory 2 units.
The teaching assistant positions are supported by the Core University Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2017-OLU-2250002).
Nicole Harley
I am a third-year student currently completing a Bachelor’s/Masters double degree, majoring in linguistics at Monash University. This semester I have been employed as a workshop assistant for Korean Introductory 2.
Although I have not studied Korean Introductory 1 or 2 at Monash (I was placed into Intermediate 1 & 2 in first year), I understand what it is like to be a beginner speaker of another language in this environment. It is a time wrought with foreign language anxiety and thoughts of making mistakes in this university setting seem overwhelming. That is why it was my role to assist students if they had any problems or questions with the tasks they were asked to do. Students often asked me, or the other language assistant Keith, questions about how to properly form grammatical sentences they had in mind or the vocabulary they needed to complete these sentences. Another of my roles as workshop assistant was to model a sample dialogue for the students. This gave students an idea of how to form their own dialogues and doubles as additional listening practice. We were essentially additional resources for the students to develop their Korean language skills further.
I think that this experience will not only help me find employment, whether it is a teaching job or otherwise, but also it has helped me with my current studies in linguistics, especially my class specialising in second language acquisition. For example, it has helped me understand both the perspectives of the learner and the educator in the language learning context.
Cheyenne Lim
I am a fourth-year student at Monash University, currently studying Zoology/Linguistics and minoring in Korean Studies. I enjoy listening to music, learning languages and was interested in education (teaching) and therefore thought it was a good opportunity for me to apply for the teaching assistant position offered by Korean Studies. I can speak three languages - English, Korean and Mandarin. I used to live in Korea for 5 months as an exchange student and really enjoyed my time there. It was a great experience!
On a weekly basis, as a teaching assistant (TA), we would teach only to Korean Introductory students (beginner’s) twice a week, one hour each class. We spoke mostly in English but examples were done in Korean to give students a gist of the pronunciation and intonation of the language. We would use microphones or simply project our voice to the class when modelling to the class e.g. reading from a script, or showing how an activity should be done. The first three rows of the lecture hall would be left empty for late students to fill. Worksheets are handed out almost every class that allowed students to apply what they have learnt.
In all lessons, during student pair work or discussions, we would monitor students and be aware if help was needed, and to observe if pronunciation, intonation, writing etc. is done correctly or if it needs to be amended/corrected. If help was needed, students would raise their hands and we would assist.
In the final lesson, YooJin (the other TA) and I took charge of the class, forming a revision worksheet and a Kahoot revision game for students in preparation of their final exam.
YooJin Lee
My name is YooJin, a third-year student studying Primary Education and Arts (Japanese and Korean). I was born in South Korea but moved to Australia with my family at a young age.
Through the opportunity of being a Korean Language Assistant, I was able to have various experiences and develop many skills. Twice a week (every Monday and Tuesday), myself and Cheyenne, another student teaching assistant, met with our lecturer thirty minutes prior to the workshop times to go over the workshop materials and discuss any potential improvements that could be made. The level was at an introductory level, and the position involved activities such as modelling conversations and examples from the Korean language unit in front of the students, along with the distribution of class materials and worksheets. Instructional language was used to direct students in how they were to do the activities, and language that encouraged students to sit close together to pair up for practising conversational dialogue was commonly used.
We monitored the class to make sure that if students had any questions, we could assist them immediately. Also, we assisted in assigning seats to students that came in late, so that they could be seated straight away to minimise disruption.
In the final lesson of the semester, Cheyenne and I were given the opportunity to lead the workshop with the content of exam revision. We prepared PowerPoint slides and materials that followed the format of the exam, and handed out worksheets with practice questions. We gave the students time to work on it during the workshop, and went over the answers together. We also created a Kahoot quiz for the students for enhanced engagement within their revision for the exam.
Through this experience, I was able to learn a lot about the processes in running language classes, and how feedback given by students were taken into account for the improvement of the unit. I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with not only the teaching staff but also the students, and being able to assist and give them the help that they needed was also very rewarding and enjoyable. It was very encouraging to see the gradual improvement in the students' learning of the Korean language.
Keith Wong
I am currently in my 3rd year of a BA/BSc at Monash University, majoring in Mathematics and Korean. As I had self-studied Korean, the methods I used were very much attuned to my own learning style. Thus, it was very enlightening to experience Korean being taught in ways that were suited to many.
Even though I had only undertaken Korean Proficient at Monash University and was unfamiliar with the lesson plan of Korean Introductory, I could still relate to the struggles the students experienced as I too had undergone similar difficulties when I first started learning Korean. The students seemed to have difficulty in understanding particles like 이/가, 을/를, and 은/는—possibly because English does not mark subject, object, and topic in sentences. Many of them also struggled with distinguishing 「일 인분」 from 「이 인분」 since the final ㄹ in 일 is a flipped consonant and it is almost imperceptible if one is not used to the sound. There were a few students who had trouble conjugating verbs from the dictionary form to the casual present tense form; the most common mistakes were conjugating verbs with incorrect vowels (찍다 → 찍아) and conjugating irregular verbs (자르다 → 자라). As for the students, I found many of them would readily ask me questions and were eager to learn; however, some are still hesitant to ask for help and will only accept it if I offered assistance first. And through having to explain certain grammar points to the students, I believe that my understanding of those grammar points has increased.
Assisting as a teaching language assistant has been a valuable learning experience for me to observe how language can be introduced and taught to a sizeable audience. It has given me much insight into how I might teach my own students in the future as I intend to become a language teacher.