July. 7. 2009

Jennie(Kim Jeong Mi)

TESOL 01 Assignment: My Second Language Acquisition

I have experienced learning english which is my second language for over 10 years. This time I do often not feel problems to communicate with foreigners in that language. Until now, I have experienced both failure and success as a language acquisition. I am going to say my personal belief regarding second language acquisition related to the TESOL 01 module.

As for learning english, I would like to say about experiences at several academies and with several study groups.

At first, I started studying english grammar in order to get high score of TOEIC. Indeed, all classes were based on traditional classroom with old-fashioned teachers who look like explainers.

In the large class room with over 30~40 people, teachers were always teaching some text books. Most of the students actually seemed not to be interested in what teachers were teaching. Even though teachers all were good at teaching their subject well, most of the time students looked really uninvolved.

Teachers always let students memorize a lot of words and do a lot of homework after all classes. After studying in this way, I could learn grammar and vocabulary well, but I couldn't speak english at all. I can't say that this was not good for improving practical english skill.

Secondly, I enrolled english institutes to meet native speakers.

I was eager to talk to foreigners fluently while I was working as a waitress at a hotel where I had to treat a lot of foreigners. So I decided to practice English conversation at several English institutes like Pagoda, YBM. The size of class room was quite different from previous things. There were only 8 people. Rather than reading books, we could talk to each other too much in English.

Most of the teachers were certainly involvers. Because teachers just had a tendency to give some examples or demonstrate some proper answers to students. And then they tried to make student try what they show. It was really good because I had a lot of chances to think something in english. Moreover, I could be familiar with english conversation. Another thing good was that teacher always respected all students' opinions so that some students enjoyed sharing each other's experiences and opinions.

As for adult learners, however, they tended to be motivated to learn what they just were interested in. Adults were so autonomous and self-directed that the attendancy rate was mostly not good. For this reason, the environment of class room was sometimes not exiting.

Another thing I didn't like was that teachers had to be changed every month because of the policy of institute. In such a modern classroom, teacher should be the manager and facilitator of learning. But It certainly took long time for teachers to figure out each students' characteristics. Most of the teachers could not empathizes with student's problems.  How could they manage students well.

After all, anyway, these experiences in many institutes seemed to give me a kind of confident not to hesitate before speaking english.

What's more, It made me realize how interesting conversation with foreigners is. I became more interested in english.

Last but not least, I would like to mention about my study group experiences. I was participated in several study groups aiming improvement in english. I couldn't help talking about one study group which motivated me to study very hard. All members had special goals to get good jobs, so they could respect every member's opinion and they always tried to help others all the time.

There was only a good leader, not any teacher. She was qualified to be a good leader. She could speak english well most, was enthusiastic and well organized. Nobody complained about curriculum she managed.

Moreover, She was really warm-hearted person so that always empathized with members' problems and really listened to members.    Thanks to her, we didn't have any problem to find good place to study and some materials to study with. Even though she was not a teacher, she motivated all members to study very hard. We all were thankful to her.

In conclusion, I would like to say something about my second language acquisition based on my own experience.

When I decided to study my second language, english, I was already adult. I believed that I could control myself, and I was eager to improve my second language ability. So I made efforts to find out several methods.

Even though I can not pick out a particular method for my second language acquisition, I can say that all courses I was participated in helped me when I made an exact goal. I do not think only stat-of-the art classroom and teacher are the best. If learner is ready to attain a goal, he or she can judge what is really helpful for him or her.

As a person who wants to be a good teacher teaching english, I would like to make learners realized the goal of their life, motivate themselves.