TESOL 01 : Second Language Acquisition Assignment.

Title here

Lim Ye Eun (April)

Teacher - David Moroney

Aug 1 2008.

After graduation of high school, I attended an English conversation course about 5 months at English academy. The teacher was Korean and students had to have those classes with books and subjects chosen about one hour. Students just repeated what the teacher said and sometimes we had a chance to make practical sentences based on what teacher already made.

Even though it was not totally failure as a language learning experience but I was supposed to learn more than I got at that class. I just  used some reading skills and vocabularies that I had already had there.

I want to relate my personal beliefs to concepts learned in TESOL 01 module from next paragraph onwards.

Even if adults have their own life experiences and knowledges, this class didn't give any chances to express those things to us so we didn't feel satisfied with these desires. And the teacher just spoke English to explain some subjects, except that he was a traditional explainer type teacher speaking Korean more than English.  It was a just class, I couldn't feel any interested from this class. (here you should explain what a traditional type teacher is. Also use Scrivener, 2005 as a reference)

My hometown is province, so it is really difficult for me and my friends to have an advanced English class and the level of education is really low compared with Seoul. So I didn't realize that the method which teacher was using at that class was traditional and I didn't have any complaints at that time. I just thought it was the best way to follow teacher's lecture to learn more. But that class was kind of old type and it was not effective method to learn more.

From this experience, I have thought that what kind of method could be the best way at conversation class and if a teacher tries to promote the quality of a class, it can bring about huge result to students.

1. The most important purpose at the conversation class is to speak English and express more in English, so even though it is not really enough to get the purpose at the class, teacher should encourage students to speak more with confidence and safe feeling.

2. To lead the class well, teacher prepare subjects to make students express well.

3. Try not to be centered. Take into consideration of students' experiences and knowledges so let them interact each other autonomically.

4. Just not to be a explainer. Be a explainer, involver and enabler.

(Try to understand students' characteristics and capacities so let them get the best way to learn themselves, and during that help them to understand and learn about the subject)

5. Even though being comfortable and having a conversation are really important at this class, but students have their goal and relevancy - oriented. So try not to be out of this point.

April,

You have done quite well in this paper but I want you to tell me more about the key terminology that you learned in Module one and two. Try to use more of it and you must include some references. If not then the marker will think that you made all those words up!

Other than that it's a good paper and you will do well once you make those changes to it. Use the guidelines and the additional quotes that I gave you to help you.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

David Moroney