Unlike some of his schoolmates whose papers are posted here, Ko Jihoon has not lived abroad.
While he is speaking English fluently, it is a foreign language to him, and reading academic English-language
sources, writing a research paper in English, requires conmsiderable effort on his side. In order
to prove to himself and to others that he can handle it, and because he is interested in the subject,
he took on a history project, choosing the Economic Impact of the Islamic World on Europe in the
Middle Ages (11th to 14th centuries) as his topic.
Jihoon began with a somewhat broader working topic, and I worried if he could bring the project
to a proper conclusion. Jihoon likes to work on his own. For Korean students his topic is rather
unusual, because in our history class I have little time to covr the European Middle Ages. Jihoon
acquired a number of books, got access to other sources, and continuously read, 11 books in
academic English. He had about a year for his project; printed out, his research paper has 28
pages.
In history class, Jihoon regularly convinced through good test scores and solid assignments.
His research paper proves that he can produce quality work at a larger scale. Jihoon's research
paper is based on English-language secondary sources. It compares to a first year college
presentation and does provide a solid foundation for a seminar discussion.
November 10th 2006
Alexander Ganse
