Three month ago I took a English course that focused on speaking.

Two of them were college students, the others were around  my age.

The college students wanted to improve their scores on the Toeic speaking test. Three of them were working at a trade company, they had to talk to foreigners. Therefore, they wanted to learn a kind of business English.

Two of them were preparing to get a job that was related to a  foreign company. I need to improve my English as well as learn how to teach English for adults. The students  all had quite different goals.

In addition, they were at awfully different levels even though we took the same test in order to be placed in the right level. That was a problem.

The teacher was from America. When she was in America, she had taught another subject in a school. She has been in Korea about 6 months.

She was  kind of a strict teacher, although it was speaking class.

We had to take the class three times a week, 2 hours each day.

The course had 4 sections :conversation, listening, grammar and pronunciation.

The class followed a traditional system. Each unit focused on different situations, like at school, at a restaurant, in a dormitory. They were  situational conversations.

For example, the teacher explained about the structure of a dormitory, living in a dormitory and what kinds of rules students have to keep.

The teacher tried to bring a lot of examples and explanations to make you understand.

When we studied from the textbooks for each  situational dialog there were a lot of explanations and subject-related expressions studies.

Also, we were divided into several teams and discussed the things that we learned by doing fill-in-the-blanks and Role-play. We had a lot of chances to talk, but we still made occasional errors in speaking. With different study environments, we, as Korean students, had some difficulties with cultural differences. If there were chances to understand cultural differences in terms of study environment, I guess that we could learn more efficiently throughout the course.

To learn practical speaking skills, I think that there are three major elements that we have to be followed, by a teacher.

First, students need as many explanations about speaking situations, as possible. Second,  after learning we need examples. Last, story telling would help a lot in order to help student to see the bigger picture of practical speaking.

There are three kinds of teachers :The Explainer, The Involver and The Enabler. I think that the best teacher is a combination of those three personalities.

Teaching English is not just a method. Learning English is not  just studying. English is a Language. Language is not intuitive.

I think it is made  created by humans. Language exists across uncountable cultures lives. In order to teach English, the teacher has to find effective & various methods continuously.