Essay

21st Vicky (Hwang Jung Mi)

Title   □My Experience of Learning English□

I. Introduction

A. I have learned English more than 10 years.

II. Body

A. Failed English environment

1. Traditional classrooms

2. Teacher□s style

B. Successful English environment

1. Three adults□ characteristics

2. The enabler style

III. Conclusion

A.	The four basic skills comprehensively accomplished.

B.	Teaching style has to change from explainer to enabler.

I have learned English for 6 years in middle school & high school. And I went to a foreign language institute when I was a university student. After I graduated from university, I stayed in Australia for 1 year. While learning English over 10 years, I have a successful experience. Also I experienced a failure. So I am going to tell you a cause of failure and success.

The first failure cause is traditional classrooms. When I learned English in middle and high school, we simply memorized vocabulary and grammar. Teachers focus on receptive skills. Receptive skills are listening and reading. So I became a passive student. We just copy teacher□s articles and memorize them. On that score, I got a good grade in the College Scholastic Ability Test. But speaking and writing was terrible. I think that almost Korean students are same as me. Although we had a large vocabulary, we did not tread on sure ground. As you know, speaking and writing is more important than others. Lately A large enterprise takes a speaking examination. So I think that traditional teaching ought to change modern teaching. Students must be active participants.

The second cause is teacher□s style. Teaching style has three categories. There are explainer and involver and enabler. I generally met explainer style teacher. The explainer knows his subject matter very well, but has limited knowledge of teaching methodology. They rely mainly on □explaining□ or □lecturing□. They are chalk a talk type. So teacher speaks mostly in the class, students speak only few sentences. Sometimes I never spoke English in class. Teacher who I met did not use any visuals, realia. Therefore the lesson was boring and not interesting. A teacher has to control the students and inspire them to further efforts. An ideal teacher gives more information using a variety of ways as well as he understands their mind.

A successful English learning I have experience is the fact that I am an adult. Unlike the children, adults have different characteristics. First, adults are intrinsically motivated. Learners increase that effort when motivated by a need, an interest, or a desire to learn. Second, adults are goal oriented / relevancy oriented. Adults know why they are learning something. Third adults are autonomous and self□directed. They are self reliant learners and prefer to work at their own place. When I stayed in Australia, I had a clear goal. Despite opposition from parents, I chose a way in Australia. Therefore I had to study English hard. Before I arrived in Sydney, my English was the poor. But I studied English hard, because I had a goal. By reason of an adult, I was able to devote myself to study. Also adults can save time and energy to have them without many explanations. In case of children, teacher needs many supporting materials and much time to understand them. As well as teachers I met in Australia are enabler style. They take their lead from the students, seeing herself as someone whose job is to create the conditions that enable the students to learn for themselves. They are walking around and monitoring.

Considering all these things, I have not only unsuccessful experiences but also successful experiences. Failure causes are traditional classrooms and chalk a talk type□s teacher. On the other hand, successful causes are a sufficient motivation to learn and an enabler teacher. We just focused on memorizing words and grammar. However, it is not necessarily wrong. The four basic language skills comprehensively accomplished. We are still traditional classrooms, but they are changing little by little. Also teaching style has to change from explainer to enabler. Teacher should have many ideas to make students more alive and active, and should support students to gain their goal.

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

□ Learning Teaching 2nd Edition by Jim Scrivener, MacMillan 2005

□ Times media TESOL Student Notes

□ http://www.assetproject.info/learner_methodologies/before/characteristics.htm