My first English Teacher whom I Never forgot

In 1984 when I entered the middle school I learned English for the first time.

So I started to learn A,B,C...s and it was a some kind of new world to me. I was interested in learning foreign languages.

I never forgot my first English teacher.

She was a middle aged woman being pregnant. In those days my classroom was in 3th floor and she had hard time climbing the stairs. Whenever she got into the classroom she was breathing hard. She was always in front of the classroom and didn’t talk too much. She sat down on the chair most of time and ordered to read  some sentences to the students. All I have to do was just listening and writing and saying yes or no in Korean. The English class was so boring but no one complained her teaching method. There is an four characters idiom in Korea.

君師父一體 (A king, a teacher and a father are respected as equal beings) The idiom was based on Confucian tradition from the period of monarchy so that might not be properly applied in modern society. But the sprit still remains everywhere in our traditional manners. No matter how the teacher is boring students should not complain it.  I became loose my interests.

Now I got to know that the kind of teacher called ‘explainer’ in Tesol. Most of teachers in Korea are characterized as ‘explainer’ ‘traditional teaching’.

They tend to use the boards and explain things. After the explanation the students often do some practice and exercise to test what they have understood and what have told. As above teaching method called ‘traditional teaching’.

Though it might depends on teacher’s own character and special circumstances traditional teaching would not be easy to won student’s favor. the students want to learn more easily and more enjoyably.

I read a Tesol book about TPR( Total physical Response ).

It’s one of the teaching method it would be very helpful to beginners for foreign languages. TPR is mostly like some kind of game. Teacher gives a command and performs the action with the students. During this activities teacher speaks the same words or sentences to listen his or her students and they speak what the teacher spoke when they’ll get ready. TPR was developed in order to reduce the stress people feel when they are studying other languages and thereby encourage students to persist in there study beyond a beginning level of proficiency.

They say someone who studies hard can not beat those who enjoys it. That’s why I’m studying Tesol and why I could not forget my first English teacher.

Jul 15th 2018

Park Sung Yi  / Angela