Finding ways to learn English

TESOL CLASS

138th WKND

SOYUN CHONG

For years and years I tried to learn English. Because I had a strong motivation about learning English. I really wanted to communicate with foreign people. As a beginner I started learning English at middle school. My English teacher taught alphabet at first. He read the letters and made students memorize writing from A to Z. So I wrote and wrote letters to memorize them. I’m sure that he had knowledge about phonology but he did not teach how each letter had to be pronounced. After studying alphabet he taught words and grammars. He explained in front of students and students had to listen carefully. So he was an explainer and traditional teacher. Nevertheless thanks to his lecture, students could progress in writing and understanding lectures as time goes. But after learning for three years in that way I still was not able to speak even a word with foreign people. Because I never learned to speak and pronounce correctly. I think maybe it was not easy to find effective ways of teaching English methodology at that time. However he helped learning to happen in some ways because I could progress in lexis and grammars.  Anyway I was not still content just to have knowledge about them. I needed something practical.

There is a saying “dreams come true.” And it occurred to me. I could have a chance to learn English in different way that I have learned before. My parents decided to immigrate to Ecuador in South America. Finally my parents, my sisters and I immigrated to Ecuador when I was 18 years old. We lived in Quito and I could make friends from many countries. One of my foreign friends’ name was Gabe (shot name of Gabriel). He was from Chicago – I remember that his father was the owner of the church of Chicago that appeared in the movie “home alone 1”  and he wanted to learn korean language. So we had an exchange class about for one year. He taught me English in Spanish and I taught him Korean in Spanish, too. And he tried to teach me to pronounce correctly the words and to talk using idiomatic expressions. I was so excited that I could learn how to pronounce english words and use idiomatic expressions. He used auditory mode in the class. For example, he recorded his voice reading some interesting articles from a magazine and made me repeat it over and over again. For I had musical intelligence, I was very happy and could learn fast when he taught me using english songs in the class.  Learning in those ways I could be an intermediate level student. His teaching style was involver. He tried to make me participate in various activities in the class. I learned from him just for one year but during that time I could have self-confidence in speaking English. I think he could create the conditions in which I might be able to learn. I’m sure that his class was very effective for me.

I still feel very much a lack of English language skills -in writing, speaking, reading and listening. And now I’m already an adult learner. As Malcolm Knowles who is father of adult learners mentioned, I am autonomous and self-directed so maybe I will need some another way to learn English. However I won’t stop finding more effective and practical ways to learn English for all my life. Because I really want to communicate with people without language problems and help students to have self-confidence in doing it. And I expect very much to happen so in TESOL class.