Name : Hyeseung Chung

Class Number : 210 WK

Essay Topic : My Experience of L2 Acquisition – Success or not?

Second Language Acquisition is the process by which people learn a second language. Stephen Krashen make a distinction between acquisition and studying, claiming that acquisition is a subconscious acceptance which can be deeply stored language information in the brain same as L1. On the contrary to acquisition, studying is conscious receiving the students have to memorize but easily forget. Which is more efficient method to learn L2, Acquisition or Studying? I might say acquisition is more effective than studying. I am going to start with my poor experience of L2 Acquisition at my middle school.

When I was the first grade in middle school, I took English lessons at first. I was interested in it, but I learned English in the same way as subjects which require memorization. My English teacher was an explainer. She read the textbook and said, "This is important words, so please underline and memorize them. We will have words pop-quiz in every class." She moved on so fast whether the students understood accurately or not. I struggled to memorize tons of words which I would forget over 50 percent after the test. I didn't practice those words in class. She talked too much, but ignored the student's questions. She didn't provide an effective teaching by a lack of respect. She just taught us in her own way without proper regard to student's interest or situation. It is important that the teacher considers individual learner differences to get the students interested in lessons. I was getting bored and stressful more and more, because it looked nothing like language class. Learning language should be based on communication. I couldn't improve communicative competence. I had interpersonal intelligence. If I had gotten an opportunity using English expressions with classmates, I would have had more motivation and interests of learning L2.

What about the atmosphere of the classroom? Almost 60 students sat in rows and columns in the classroom. I couldn't see the front well when I was in the back row. My teacher didn't exchange eye-contact with me during the class. She stayed still in front of the room. It was clearly traditional teaching. When teaching, it is useful to build a good rapport with the students. If rapport is bad, students hardly study with a positive mind. Staying still and teaching in front of the blackboard during the class didn't help to make classroom dynamic. She didn't give us activities such as cooperate group working. We just read aloud the book all together. I didn't have a good rapport with her. As I didn't trust she would encourage me, I was always worried that I would make an error.

In language skills, integrated-skill approach is crucial to learn L2, which means we have to learn all four skills together. I learned reading a lot and writing a little, but I had less experience of speaking and listening lesson in middle school. Things were not changed much in high school. The problem instantly appeared when I went to USA after graduation. At the airport, I couldn't understand what an airport staff was saying, and I couldn't speak anything, despite studying English hard in school. The pronunciation of native speakers was much more different from what I learned. I got mostly A on English test, but I couldn't make sentences with the words I memorized before. That is why I would say studying way to learn L2 is worse than acquisition of L2. As I studied L2, not acquired, my anxiety of making mistakes was high. It often happened to come out affective filter which cause to prevent speaking.

Learning other language is fascinating but hard. Why is it hard? In my case the reason is because I was afraid to be wrong, although I could make good progress from mistakes. We can deduce the right answer if we understand the goal of learning L2 is for learners to be able to communicate in a situation. We need to approach communication in an open way. Being brave and learning actively as a data-gather is better than just mechanical memorization. I failed to learn L2 efficiently in middle school, but I can tell what virtues of a good teacher is and how to learn L2 effectively now. Doing to learn like acquisition of L2 is the best manner to learn language fluently in the same way of L1.