Name : Lisa

Class Number : 203 WD

Essay Topic : My Experience of L2 Acquisition – a Failure.

The definition of L2 acquisition is a way of learning a second language after your first language has been learned. It is similar to your native language.

In my generation, The L2 circumstance was so insufficient that I couldn’t acquire comfortably like L1. No matter how It was hard to get it, there was very terrible memory to me. In other words, It was the failure that I got experience of L2 acquisition by my English teacher at the first grade of my high school when It was from March to December 1986.

I tended to adapt learning something at a slower speed than others at the beginning and also sensitive and cautious about new circumstances. Recognizing personality was needed by teacher. But she ignored Individual learners differences and started her lecture with only reading at the very first lesson. She wouldn't want to know my level and even my previous learning experiences - hearing pop songs in my bedtime radio sisters turned on without recognizing the meaning, so I expected her musical and interpersonal intelligences teaching tools. - but focused on the top students only. I felt that she didn’t consider the others as learners.

It was the reason I got started less motivation and more stressful to learn L2. She wouldn’t get conscious Multiple intelligences of the class.

I recognized she always sat on her chair in front of the black board, and let students read text books. Until the class finished she didn’t stand up except for when she wrote some grammars on the board. All of us kept taking seats like a factory designed classroom. That was exactly Traditional Teaching. she had the same procedure every each day. It was only teacher centered and textbook centered.

Whenever explaining grammars, she had us write down over 10 times every sentences. She didn’t support us making sentences that were natural or creative at all. Whether the sentences I made were right or not, there was only mug and jug lecture. we felt excluded from her. I think that She didn’t utilize Effective Teaching. She was H.T.T, and we had to keep quiet.

Also, there was a moment that I still couldn't forget. One day, She let us read new words with taking a turn that didn’t even know how to pronounce and what were the meanings. When It was my turn, I should pronounce ‘Variety’ after reading ‘Various’. I pronounced ‘Variety’ as /berioti/. Back then, there wasn’t any reference tool like nowadays. At least, her students were supposed to be able to pronounce perfectly through phonetic transcription of paper dictionary. She made me stand behind the class with scolding constantly. In these reasons, I never realized her efforts of visual, auditory and kinesthetic mode, that was the absences of Three Learner Modes.

In this course of a Second Language Acquisition, Such teacher’s behavior made me get lost my interesting and confidence. If there was acquisition filter, acquisition was impossible for me. I didn’t try to say something, but I got monitor for accuracy and limited fluency.

Through her lecture, I finally became a Rule-former, not a Data-gatherer, cause I didn’t want to get any punishment. Was her strategy for Lexis efficient to us? She evaluated our level through a pop-quiz which was about just words test. The more words I memorized correctly, the less homework I had. It was not proper Assessing Language Proficiency way - some levels of pronunciation, phrases containing vocabulary, grammar and listening - because the quiz was limited in a scope. We might be under high beginner level.

The homework was that we had to fill up some sheets as a proof of practice that were originally blanked as the numbers as we had wrong words. They should be turned black. Nevertheless, the vocabularies I filled up with were forgotten immediately. It was the least effective way of Learner Retention Rates.

Anyway, when we took a big school test, Mid-term and Final Exam, unfortunately Memorizing whole text book was the best way.

Eventually, I had no self-esteem, no motivation and no comprehensible input, but anxiety, frustration and hesitation under her teaching structure. It was totally Failure about Rapport formation between her and I. In other words, there was No authentic relationship among the class. Thus, Overall her teaching second language structure was totally failed.