My language learning experience

116기 Tesol

Heewon Kim

Do you have any impressive memory of English in your school days? or Do you have the teachers who made you like of dislike English?

I have the memory of a teacher who got me to lose interest about English in Korea, when I move in America, I met a teacher who taught me speaking part. She motivated me to be more active about learning English. I would share my experiences in detail in the following.

First experience at the high school in Korea was kind of bad to me. I felt that English teacher was cold hearted, and had no empathy, because she looked very strict and authoritative. She always focused on explaining and lecturing about reading, grammar, and vocabulary. She was not focused on speaking and listening skills. She just enhanced our receptive skills rather than productive skills.  She had  no materials, and resources to help us learn English. She always used the board and made us write down and repeat after her. She also emphasized on memorizing a lot of vocabulary.  It seemed to be a limited methodology. She needed more organized skill and technique for teaching, because she only followed traditional teaching style. She liked to call students by numbers, like "number 50, read the sentence", "number 18, translate this sentence"  She didn't call students by their name. At that time, I thought that because there were more than 50 in classroom and she could not memorize name of all students. Therefore these made me feel uncomfortable, and distant from her.

Some of students didn't show respect to her and had poor rapport with her.  Even some of students seemed to be not involved and under-challenged about her class. The purpose of learning English at high school was only to enter the good college. That's why English teaching style was not practical.  These traditional environment of English learning experiences in high school were enough to make feel bored and even more frightened and tense. I think that these learning experiences were totally useless in communicating with foreigners. I knew it for sure when I moved to America.

My second experience in America was very impressive to me. I had ESL classes at college. fortunately, I met a good teacher who taught me speaking, she was kind, and had an open mind. This was important to me because I didn't have good memories with Korean teachers.  I liked her modern teaching styles, which were involver type or enabler type. For example, she used a lot of materials, activities, ideas, and other teaching method effectively.  She was always ready to set up all of the activities for class such as presentation, pair works, educational games, and more. She knew very well about the subject and well controlled the class.  She always encouraged me to have confidence in speaking English, so I was not afraid of making any mistakes.  She could be a guide, or counsellor, and sometimes adviser, so we constructed rapport each other. Her characteristics and teaching styles created positive thought about English.

In the middle of the semester my English skills improved more and more, I was also able to use it in real life and kept working on English for long.

There are several factors in learning English, such as teacher's character, purpose of learning English, methodology, and individual teaching skills.

Language learning environment of Korea was more tense, unilateral, and focused on entering university at that time, so I had trouble in learning English. However I would say that my experience of learning English in America was more effective, because native speakers made me comfortable and taught naturally.