My friend, English!

YURI JEONG

"Language is experience." Like this saying, learning language is

naturally acquired with our experiences. While we are contacting with

the world, we can learn language without trying to learn it too hard.

It can come to us by nature. When it comes to my learning English in

korea, it was all about studying grammar and reading something

written in English. We had to just focus on studying it as a university

enterance exam. That is why korean people who have been studying

English can not speak English when some foreigners come to them to

ask a direction. In order to try to learn English as an experience, I

headed to the U.S.A in 2008. While I was in usa, I could make

English my best friend. Now I want to talk about my experiences of

English.

I was luck to meet this teacher.

As soon as I arrived in the U.S.A, I could not speak English well

right away. No doubt! I got so frustrated at first, however, when I

went to ALCC language school and met this teacher whose name is

miss Smith, speaking English as learning was not so far away from

me. She was the teacher who was an involver type. She was

enthusiastic to teach English and loved her students. So, everyday

she tried to find out new activities for us and ask us about many

questions to elicit from us. After she spoke her opinion, she made us

small groups and left us to tell our thoughts and discuss. During this,

she just listened to our talking and gave some comments a little bit.

Also whenever the special holiday came, she threw a party with us at

the class. At this time, we just enjoyed the time having fun with one

another instead of talking about serious stuff. Because of her, I could

get interested in speaking English to people and I could communicate

with them as well as improve my speaking skill. I think this kind of

teacher makes us closer to learning language.

I love my foreign friends.

While I was with my foreign friends, they really helped me to be

free from my lack of confidence. One of the reasons that we can not

learn language by only studying it is that we can not use it to

converse. Learning English at the class, just looking at the teacher

and getting what the teacher said are the receptive ways to learn. As

an English experience, I tried to make lots of friends who are from

different countries, they were more active, welcoming me as their

friend despite my shyness. Whenever I wanted to chat with them,

they always listened to me and helped me correct my mistakes. After

a while we could understand each other in English. Learning

English was not difficult but fun. It just came to me naturally. I did

not need to push it at all.

I could do everything besides learning.

I could not be satisfied to just go to school to learn English.

Therefore, I decided to get a job to develop my skills. This job

became my another facilitator. During working as a part-timer at the

subway restaurant, I had to deal with many different people who

were nice or mean in good or bad situations. while I handled this

things by giving my opinions and trying to talk with them, I

could be more alive and confident to use English. Accordingly, I think

it is necessary to be surrounded with English environment and

speaking people to learn English. With this work, I could have various

experiences to learn English as a daily life.

In conclusion, by tasting all these things with English, I could

learn it more effectively. The social and respectful instructor,

invaluable fellows, and responsibility as an employee are the highest

English conditions that I have experienced. Since then, English has

been my greatest companion. On the basis of these experiences, I

want to make teaching English more natural and fun to the students

as a teacher in the future. Lastly I want to say to the people in

korea who are concentrating on simply studying English grammar.

Go out, Connect with people, and Meet the open world!