Cindy Yang

June.10.2014

TESOL 101

My Journey of English

Do you like to travel? Probably most people like to travel. Traveling Makes people happy and joyful. What do people do before they go on a trip? They have to do lots of things for that trip. If it is a short trip, maybe they don't need to spend much time to prepare. However, if it is a  long trip, they need many things to prepare. For example, people have to make plans to have a good trip. They have to think about the place, traveling expenses, transportation and personal belongings etc. Even though people prepare perfectly before they take a trip, all people are not happy. They might argue each other or they might have a difficult time because of the weather or they might be sick etc. Therefore, I think learning English is like to go on a trip. Sometimes, we are happy to learn but sometimes it is boring or we have a hard time to learn. It takes a long time and sometimes we need to spend a lot of money to learn English. So, next I am going to write about my long journey of learning English. Sometimes I was happy to learn it but sometimes I wasn't happy.

First of all, I have a good memory of learning English about my childhood. Whenever I played with my sister, my mom always turned the English songs and stories on. Therefore, I was surrounded by English stories and songs automatically. I didn't concentrate on them but I just had fun to play with my sister. Even though I didn't concentrate on and I didn't memorize the song earnestly, I think my brain absorbed English naturally. Eventually, I did both playing with my sister and learning English automatically. I think that is very important thing to learn another language. If learning English is boring, nobody will not like to learn it. I think my mom is very wise to educate me and my sister. Because of my mom, my first memory of learning English is very good. I am so thankful to my mom.

Next, I have a bad memory of learning English when I was in middle school. When I was young and elementary school student, I really liked to learn English very much. Learning English was not studying to me but just playing. However, learning English was not fun at all and it was boring in middle school. My second grade English teacher was a man. His pronunciation was bad, and he just focused on grammar a lot. There were no games at all and there was no conversation time at all and we just studied grammar and reading. Also, students had to take lots of tests. In order to learn English, people should learn listening, speaking, reading and writing. But, when I was in middle school, my English teacher just taught especially grammar. I am not saying that we shouldn't study grammar. Of course, people have to study grammar to learn another language. However, we should not only focus on studying grammar. Unfortunately, because of my English teacher, I started to not like English.

Last, my last experience of learning English was in America. It was totally different to learn English in Korea and in America. When I was in Korea, learning English was just studying in middle school and high school. Also, it seemed like students had to study English to go to university so I didn't have chances to speak English. However, when I went to America, I had to speak English to live. English was not studying but it was real language to communicate each other. I had to use four things every day such as listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to communicate, study and live. When I first went to America, I had a hard time. But, times went by so fast. I became getting accustomed to culture and language and everything. Learning English in America was a new and fresh and interesting experience to me.

Then, how can I affect my future teaching with these experiences. First, I had a happy experience because of my mom. Second, I had a bad experience because of my English teacher. Last, I had a new and interesting experience in the new world. First of all, I want to mention learning English is not studying but playing. Nobody was stressful when people learned Korean. Learning English is the same thing like learning Korean. When I teach English in the future, I want to teach listening, speaking, reading and writing together appropriately. Also, practicing conversation is very important so I want to use communicative language teaching skill. I learned CLT the other day, so I think CLT is very informative teaching skill. According to Stephen Krashen, he said “Reading is not the best way, it is the ONLY way!” He emphasized on the importance of reading. In my experiences, I liked to learn English when it was fun. Therefore, I want to teach English joyfully instead of boring.

In conclusion, there is a proverb that I like. “Experience is the best teacher.” I had three experiences and I was happy and unhappy through them. However, all of these are my precious experiences. This is my special journey of learning English. I am not done yet. I still have to go far away because I love my journey of learning English forever.