Second Language Acquisition

Name: Kyungjin No

Class Number: TESOL 62 Class

Learning English as a second language is not an easy one. When people learn their

first language, they begin to hear the language unconsciously and they are immersed

in their first language. However, when people learn English as a second language

they can't be in the same environment unless they go abroad to study English. In

addition, when people learn their first language, anyone around them can be a

teacher that means people can have teachers who have variety of teaching styles. In

contrast, when people learn English in Korea, improving English communication skills

depends on which type of teachers they meet while they are learning. The way of

learning and teaching English has been gone through lots of changes. From my

English learning experiences , I'd like to suggest that what kind of a teacher I will be

in the future.

For Korean people, learning English is much more difficult than others who have

much similarity with their mother tongue, because English is totally different from our

mother tongue. The students will feel it's very hard to learn English and don't even

know how to make sentences although they know a few words in English. The first

time I was exposed to English was when I was 2nd grade at an Elementary school

in Kenya. Learning English was not an option to live there and to make friends. I

could hear English in anywhere and I could apply what I learned in real-life. I could

learn authentic English. When I taught English to kids at a private institute, the

teaching method was a direct method. The students was taught English like their

mother tongue. So only listening and speaking was emphasized and believed that

grammar and lexis was induced by great amount of inputs after watching movie and

book DVD. I believed this methodology at first, so I thought I also could improve my

English by teaching with this methodology. Even for me, however, I couldn't improve

my English speaking skills through teaching with this methodology. That was because

I didn't have a chance to practice what I learned in real-life. Even though the

students got a lot of inputs of English through this methodology, they couldn't

improve their English communication skills because they couldn't practice it in daily

life. And even young students, they already got hindered by Korean, they needed to

know the grammar and lexis by learning to improve their communication skills.

When people who already acquired their mother tongue want to learn English as a

second language, they should focus on learning all types of English language skills

such as speaking, listening, writing and reading.

According to language skills, the teaching style will be different. When I were a

junior and high school student, the teaching style was one-way teaching. Almost all

teachers were explainers and used a GTM(Grammar Translation Method). They just

gave us information about English grammar and vocabularies and students memorized

them. In that result, most of people in my generation can read things written in

English but it's hard for them to speak in English. Nowadays, teachers and students are often using multimedia when they learn and teach English. It can make teachers

and students to interact easily. When I taught English at a private institute, I used

DVD and also text books. While studying, teacher and students did game also. I

encouraged students to participate in the class by doing games. That means we

don't want a teacher who is explainer anymore, we prefer involver or enabler.

Because those teachers can give students more opportunity to speak.

There are many ways to teach and learn English. We should consider that if the

students want to improve their English, balance is important. We can see many of

Grammar teachers can't speak English and a lot of teachers who teach an English

speaking also make grammar mistakes. Of course, it could be possible and they have

their own expertise. However, teachers can lose their reliability to their students.

When we learned English at our school days, there were a lot of students in one

classroom. These days, we have a smaller class when we have a conversation class,

it could be possible to apply various methodologies.

So far, I considered learners and teachers to learn English as a second language.

I think to be a good teacher, first, teacher should recognize each student's

deficiencies and lead to be complemented. Second, teacher should lead the students

to participate in the class with an interest. At last, teacher always keeps learning

about new methodologies and language skills and gets a feedback from students to

have a good rapport with students. I want to be a teacher with all these qualities.