Week 2: Mr. Kim HS

   “The Reader” gave me a chance to think about illiterate.  Hanna had handicap.  She was illiterate, but his friend did not know it and she wanted to hide the fact.  As an illiterate she tried to conceal what she was.  She asked others to read books, asked the boy give an order for her during a cycle trip, asked the boy to write what she should, and rejected having been promoted to an office job.  It was a kind of her self-esteem.  Concealing it was more important than being sentenced to death or freedom to her.  She was ashamed of it.

   I am not sure why she is illiterate.  Maybe she has dyslexia or so, but she wanted to read books through others.  It was desperate to her, so she asked him to read books continually.  When she was behind the bars, the man began to record the books with his voice and send the cassette tapes to her on and on instead of reading books to her.  Touched by his kindness, she began to learn words listening to the tapes over and over.  She began to learn words at her late age behind the bars, but she was really happy and eager to learn words and read books.

   Just before being set free she committed suicide.  I am not sure the reason.  Maybe she did not want to give the man a burden.

 

 

=> Mr. Kim

Please make a quick review of  your classmates' discussions. I expect more insightful discussion from you....

Week 2: Mr. Noh JB

Movie “The Reader” gives me many things to think about. As I view this movie, what’s difficult is a point of view. Whether what kind of viewpoint about this movie I have in mind, there are lots of values to discuss.    There are many issues such as love, affection, illiteracy, conflict, regret, crime, consciousness, morality, justice and reconciliation etc.

All the while, watching the movie, I tried to find out how and when Hanna Schumitz learns reading and writing.

Of course, we get to know the fact that Hanna Schumitz can’t read and write through Michael’s recalling.

As Hanna is illiterate, she mainly hears the books Michael is reading such as "The Odyssey," "Huck Finn" and "The Lady with the Little Dog.” She feels anxious about not reading. When they take a bike trip, Hanna doesn’t read menu like food name even little kids can read. At the scene, she feels ashamed and uncomfortable. In the church, she tears seeing the choir little kids are singing together in. Evidently, Hanna wants to learn reading but she can’t do that. After all, that drives the movie more sad.

After several years, Michael accidently who is a student in law school witnesses Hanna as a defendant. Since Hanna left without saying a word, Michael have never seen or heard of her. How he was wondering!

Despite hatred, Michael seems never to forget her. Maybe, it is likely that Hanna was his first lover. In the long run, Michael as a student of law school doesn’t save and help Hanna who’ll face the heavy sentence, life sentence. In the trial process for crime like working as a guard in Nazi SS prison or holocaust in church, she gets to admit everything she even didn’t do. Hanna wants to hide the fact of being illiterate. So, she does that.

As we know well, as Hanna didn’t mind showing her illiteracy to him, she left Michael by herself. Also, she undertakes all the crime which has no relation partially. In front of Michael she loves or audience in the court, she can’t do that. Michael who are watching all the process makes up his mind to send Hanna in prison an old tape recorder and tapes which are recorded in adult Michel’s voice. Michael sends the stories or books they shared at the past. Michael continually and repeatedly sends his tapes. One day, Hanna eventually realized the fact the she can write and read. Repeated listening encourages her to write and read. Recalling the stories of masterpieces, she hears the tapes Michael recorded. In the process, she gets to know the number of timing when reading and figure out the sound value of a word. Imitation and repeated listening makes her literate. Naturally, as she knows reading, she can get to write. Hanna sends Michael a letter in one sentence with a few words. Michael never responds her letters. Ultimately, Michael once meets Hanna before being released. But the movie replies as Hanna’s death. In the educational points, input such as repeated listening results in output such as reading. In behaviorism points, the stimulus of repeated listening ends in the response of reading. Furthermore, the ability to read brings about writing. If Michael recognized and respond her writing ability, Hanna Schumitz could develop her writing skills better. This movie gives me strong impression all the while in a quiet way.

 

Mr. Noh

 

You mentioned, "...input such as repeated listening results in output such as reading."  I am wondering what made you say so.  Are you sure that repeated listening is can bring about reading?  Do you believe that if you listen to the same listening material repeatedly, you can automatically read?

 

You are drawing upon your knowledge of behaviorism in this discussion.  Do you believe the repeated stimuli of listening can cause 'reading ability'?  How do you think you can connect 'S(reading)' with 'R(listening)' without any mediating tool or device?

 

Do you think Hannah's learning process could be interpreted as 'bahavioristic'? I doubt that...

I guess I should leave this topic open to everybody... In terms of language learning paradigms, Hannah's learning process represents more of 'innativism,' if I should choose.

 

Anyway, I thank you for your work. Keep up the good work, Mr. Noh. :-) 

 

Week 2: Ms. Lee MY

      “The Reader” was like a small stone thrown in the water. It rippled my sensibility and made me awake all through the night due to the lingering image of the movie and my academic curiosity to delve into its pedagogical implication. Not only gentle was the movie, but also it was heart-aching. Besides appreciation of the movie as a beautiful work, the movie rendered me another reading to me about learning process and how to apply it to my teaching. As I was made to watch the movie as an assignment, I would be faithful to the given task.

      In terms of learning process that the main character, Hanna Schmitz, learned how to read and write, the first step of learning she took was she was motivated to learn reading and writing. While she was presented with cassette tapes of having recorded reading novels, she was beamed with hope and expectation. She could sustain her barren life behind the bar with her memory and feeling of bond with her old love, Michael. Since she had desire to express her appreciation and affection for him, she decided to learn letters. It triggered her to venture the hardest and intimidating task. Then, she decided a book named “The Lady with the Little Dog” which was most familiar and fascinating to her, to study with. Next scene describes she is picking a pencil and opening the book with nervousness and awe. She plays the cassette player and listens to the title being spoken several times. The first thing in the main learning process was to match the words and sounds coming out of the player. To the point of the word “the”, she stopped, pronounced the word, and circled the identified word “the” on the book. Here I wondered why she stopped at the word “the” among six words in the title. I think she decided to familiarize the word “the” because it was the most common and easiest word consisting of only three letters. Here she started to circle every “the” throughout the page. On the piece of black and white thousands of pieces of puzzle, she seemed to turn up the useful cue pieces until she finally makes all the pieces uncovered to complete a whole picture. Circling the most common and familiar words is compared to a scaffolding activity which teachers start teaching based on students’ preexistent knowledge to make new learning easier. As Hanna extended the number of words she got to know by making a list of words she circled, she made use of the words she learned in the real life at the same time, through writing letters to Michael. Using what she learned in the real context must have helped her to retrieve the words. Importance lies on her way that she read the word aloud once she identified the same word as she heard from the cassette player. In this way, Hanna built up her vocabulary list in her brain and her learning was reinforced by using them in the meaningful context. Then she read dozens of books. With perseverance and effort in part of both Michael and Hanna herself, accumulated throughout the years, she finally changed herself into literate.

     Hanna’s case of learning reading and writing by herself gave me useful teaching insight. What changed her from a coward who kept running away from being shamed to an active learner, was consistent devotion of Michael – reading and recording novels for almost twenty years. Michael was not coercing or pushy, but his help was most appropriate for her needs and level. Love is the best motivator to make change (learning) happen. It would make any learner an active learner who ventures the best way for herself/himself.

 

 

Ms. Lee

Thank you for this beautiful review.  I highlighted important parts of your discussions, and underlined some parts which looked terrific to me.  Personally, I have never put my focus on the part of Michael, but your review tells me that I ignored something very important in this movie - which is the role of Michael as a model of a teacher.  I buy your opinions. Thank you so much.

 

 

Week 2: Ms. Kang MC

When one is illiterate, when it comes to reading out, he or she is generally too shy to say anything, esp. in front of many people, or to refuse to read a book. In addition, when he or she takes an order, he or she just says, “I’ll have the same.” like shifting responsibility to someone. In a movie, when Hannah was questioned in a court about what she did to the Jewish, she was in a trouble. That was about who was the writer of the document. 5 out of the guards pointed out that she was the representative among them and she did it. She said no, but when a judge ordered her to write her signature, she hesitated for a while, she admitted that it was hers. At last she was sentenced to life. At least, if she knew how to read and write, she didn’t get such a sentence. Since Michael watched the whole proceeding as a law school student, he realized that she was illiterate. While she was in the prison, he started to read books again, record them, and send them to her. At first, she seemed a little bit embarrassed, later she liked to listen to it. As time went by, she wanted to read alphabet, I think that she wanted to correspond with him. So she borrowed one book from the library, came back to her room, and started to listen to that story. When she listened to the title again and again, she counted the words; she came to know the word “the”. And she circled that word in the written text. In this way, she taught herself how to read and write, she began to write a letter to him. Plus, for her studying, she practiced to write many times. As a whole, the story was sad, but I was happy that she was not illiterate any more. But this movie reminded me of one of my students. Actually I’m not his homeroom teacher, but this year I taught him how to read and write for 2 months as a volunteer. When he visited me, I talked about how awful illiteracy was. Fortunately, he could read a little bit, but not fluency. At the time, I tried to give him compliments to encourage him. But my busy life made me stop seeing him any longer. I hope that he will gain good feeling from reading fluency. 

 

=> Ms. Kang

Thank you for the good work as always. I highlighted your understanding of illiteracy as I agree with you. How sad it would be to be unable to read ...

 

I am quite impressed that you shared your personal experience with a student that you helped to teach how to read. You are connecting what you have learned in this class with what you experienced in your real life. I respect your attitude. Thank you.

 

 

Week 2: Ms. Hong EY

According to Hannah’s attitude, behavior, and facial expression on the movie, I can assume that if a person is illiterate, he/she will have a lot of difficulties and limitations that he/she makes or a society makes. I think that one of the reasons she fell in love with Michael could be her loneliness and she must have had yearning towards people. When Michael suggested her reading a book, she said “I rather listen to you.” and when they went on a trip, she could not read the map and order food. She looked very nervous and diffident, had a worried look. Of course, she was ashamed of herself being an illiterate and did not want her loved one, Michael, to know that.

On the other hand, at her trial, all the other defendants claimed that Hannah wrote the report and the judge asked her to write a sample of her handwriting to compare with the handwriting on the report. She was seized with a panic and finally confessed that she wrote the report, in fact, she did not write it because she cannot read and write. She decided to be sentenced for the rest of her life time since the fact that she is an illiterate is more shameful than she becomes a murderer. As being shown on the movie, Hannah’s only one request is that Michael read aloud books to her both before and after sex. It is clear that she always wished to read, but she could not.

In my opinion, for sure, she must have held herself in contempt and felt humiliating on her mind in the court when she had to make an untrue confession. However, Hannah’s significant momentum of learning how to read and write is because of the tapes that Michael has sent. Those tapes must have stimulated her to learn to read and write and, in fact, she begun sending him letters.

She could speak and understand the spoken English, but she could not read and write. Therefore, she learned to read and write by listening to the recorded tapes of literature. Her learning process of reading and writing English are as follows:

First of all, when she received a lot of tapes which Michael had recorded his voice while reading the books, she started to keep listening to the tapes with tears because she was overwhelmed with love and gratitude. After that, she borrowed the book titled ‘The Lady with a Little Dog’ and opened the book at the first page and played the tape and counted each word of the title. And then, she figured out that the pronunciation of the word ‘the’ by comparing the written word ‘the’ and the sound of ‘the’ from the tape recording by matching the sounds with the words. She circled all ‘the’ on the first page and pronounced it. In other words, there was sound-spelling correspondence during her learning process. Finally, she sent the first letter written “Thanks for the latest kid. I really liked it” and she is able to write her name instead of her sign on the paper. Also, she wrote and sent letters to Michael: “Please send more romance”, “I think Schiller needs a woman.” and “Are you getting my letter?” although Michael never replied. This movie is based on an incredible story and gives lots of thoughts to people studying languages in particular as well as the public.

 

 

=> Good analysis. I highlighted some points about which I strongly agree with you. So, my question, 'What do you think?  What can you do for your students in your ESL/EFL class?' Thank you for the review.

 

 

Week 2: Ms. Han YM

“The reader” review

 

Youngmee Han

 

         After I barely obtained the movie and watched it, I went a trip to Philadelphia with my kids.  But this movie had not forgotten easily, I found me keep thinking about this movie. I wondered why Michael did not tell about Hannah’ illiteracy on trial.    Because he respected her decision which she would choose life time sentence than reveal her illiteracy?  Or because he was afraid of revealing their former relationship?   Michael was very tormented by seeing Hannah on trial, and he went to see Hannah to the prison, but he came back not seeing her.  Why did he that?   I don’t know exactly, but simply I can guess.

         Another thing I keep thinking is why Hannah committed suicide after 20 years in prison.  Maybe she had a dream that she would meet Michael again and read and write for Michael.  However, she knew that Michael was not that Michael anymore and he had no emotional feeling on her.  Hannah had no reason to live without Michael.

         Returning to my assignment, when someone is illiterate, he/she wants to hide it.  Avoid any circumstances to read or write deliberately.  When he/she happen to any chance to reveal illiteracy, he/she behaves violently or emotionally. Even though she is illiterate, Hannah always likes listening stories.  Desire to write a letter to Michael makes Hannah learn to read and write.  The process to learn to read is very touching to me.  One day Hannah listened to the book that Michael read to her long time ago, she was surprised and happy.  “The lady with a little dog’’- she listened to the story and then she counted the number of words, one, two, three, four....  she looked at the book and listened to the recorder.  She finally found the word “the”, circled every “the” in the book, and then read the word “the”.  When she read for the first time, her faced covered with surprise and happiness.  I cannot forget her face with joy.      The process Hannah learned to read is similar to that of a baby- listen a lot, match the sound and letter

 

=> I colored some of your discussions in pink as I agree with you. I guess you should have added summarizing sentence paragraph for your review, which might have strengthened your essay. Thank you, Ms. Han.

 

 

Week 2: The Reader, Mr. Han

1. When one is illiterate, how is he/she behaving?

   Because of her illiteracy and the social settings, as we can see in the movie, Hanna has lived a superficial life without feeling the inner world of human emotion of others and even her own. During the ardent summer with young Michael, Hanna has an argument to which Michael doesn’t intent showing an indifferent attitude toward Michael and gives psychological wounds to Michael sometimes.

   They go on a bike trip to a suburb and drop by an outdoor restaurant. When the waitress gives a menu to Hanna and asks what she’d like to have, she gets annoyed and anxious.

   In the law court, she expresses her belief as a member of SS with a calm attitude and everyone is astonished by her wickedness and cruelty. But Michael knows it’s due to her illiteracy.

   However, according to my experience, illiteracy itself doesn’t necessarily cause problems like Hanna. My aunt was illiterate but she used to be a good wife, mother and member of a rural society in which I was born.

 

==> Have you ever asked your aunt how she felt about her illiteracy?  Generally, they avoid situations which will disclose their illiteracy. They pretend they are fine, but they are emotionally disturbed.

 

2. What motivated Hannah learn to read?

   I think Michael’s true love and compassion for Hanna makes lots of voice tapes which arise Hanna to feel her inner world and motivate her curiosity to stories and books and finally make her to start learning to read.

 

3. How does she learn to read?

   She listens to the tapes from Michael for a long time and borrows a book from the library in the prison and compares the letters to the voice from the tapes and her memories. After this manner, she gets to know the sound of each letter and finally she can read lots of books and write a few sentences.

   According to our textbook, there are four prerequisites for formal reading instruction: (1) know at least some of the letter shapes; (2) be aware that words are made up of separable sounds(phonemic awareness); (3) know basic writing conventions of the target language; (4) know the spoken forms of most of the words that will be met in the initial stages of reading.

   Of the four prerequisites, I think Hanna has two, ‘Phonemic Awareness’ and ‘Spoken Forms of Words’, which leads to a success in learning to read according to the movies.

   First, Hanna learns the letter shapes by comparing to the sounds from the tapes.

Second, for Hanna, it may possible to know that the spoken words are made up of sound that can be separated because she can communicate with others and has the fluency of spoken language.

Third, She may not know the writing conventions at first according to the movie.

Fourth, When learning to read, learners should bring a lot of experience and knowledge to their reading so that they only have to focus on small amounts of new information. Hanna has lived in the country for a long time and as an experienced middle-aged woman, she may have lots of knowledge needed to read and comprehend the text within the experience of her.

Even though it is possible to learn to read for Hanna, it’s hardly effective way to learn to read by incidental learning. In a normal setting, we need to learn by deliberate learning applying for the various helpful principles, applications and effective reading programs.

 

==> Your analysis of Hannah's learning process, and the way you are connecting your study with your review is very impressive. Thank you for the good work.

 

4. My question: To what extent or degree do you think people can achieve reading skills to the view point of reading development process by using that Hanna’s methods in ESL and EFL situations?

 

==> Well, I am not a reading specialist, but these are what I can discuss with you:

(1) In case of Hannah, it was not ESL/EFL setting to her. It was her L1 setting. She already got her L1, and the problems with her were her reading and writing.  Bottom line is that she was fluent speaker of her L1.  When it comes to ESL/EFL setting, as we previously discussed in our week 1 reflections, we have to 'learn' the target language as well as 'reading and writing.'  Therefore we are not supposed to expect the same process from the ESL/EFL learners.

 

(2) Even though the learning process of L1 and L2 reading and writing has some differences, it shares something in common in its nature. As you analyzed Hannah's learning process, it was systematic in a way. What we can do as ESL or EFL teacher is to apply some effective strategies of different learners in your teaching context for the benefit of our students.

 

(3) Please remember that Hanah did  not have a teacher (although she had emotional supporter who recorded and sent the audio material to her), but  your students have teachers like you. I should ask you how do you think you can apply what you've learned from Hannah's case in your classroom.

 

Thank you for the good question. :)

 

 

Week 1: Reflections, Ms. Hong EY

Week 1: Writing Reflections on Topics

Hong, EunYoung

 

When I was a sixth grader at Elementary school, I participated in the competition of an English fairy tale oral narration. That was my first time that I was exposed to English since I did not go any private English language institute. In addition, comparing to the current trend of studying English, both interests in English and ardor for studying English in the past were not as high as they are at the present. At that time, in order to participate in the competition, I had to memorize all script of the story in English in a short period of time. Thus, I wrote down Korean words of what I listened to the recording tape of native speakers’ voices in English so that I could read Korean following the English dialogue. I knew ‘ABC’ alphabet, but I did not know how to read English. When I encountered new vocabulary words, I just looked up my English to Korean dictionary; I had to remember IPA, next to words in the dictionary, to pronounce each word, but every spelling of words in English does not always match with pronunciation of the words, so I sometimes had to make guesses.

At school, my English teachers urged me to read articles, stories, or dialogues on the English textbooks. What the teachers wanted us to do during the English class was to read paragraphs silently or loudly to find the correct answers for the presented questions below the paragraphs or practice our pronunciation. The main purpose of reading any format of the written English concentrated upon finding the correct answers. I have no doubt that reading ability is very difficult to assess accurately; therefore, teachers cannot avoid using the teaching methods, but I can definitely say that if a person who could or might find correct answers by the training, it would be really hard for him/her to understand the contents of the text and to enjoy reading. As I remember, there was no writing activity in my English classes, but dictation.

There are several similarities and differences between learning Korean and English. Both Reading in the Korean and English include the reader, the text, and the interaction between the reader and text. Moreover, I need to know alphabet of both languages to read and write and was taught to do skimming and scanning while learning how to read Korean and English. On the other hand, there are also many differences.

First, I, as a Korean, acquired Korean, but I have learned English. In general, I learned Korean naturally by parents, family, and friends while verbally/aurally interacting with them before entering schools and I learned Korean alphabet by parents and teachers; I started to speak Korean first and learned how to read and write. However, I learned alphabet first to read, speak, and write. Therefore, the process of learning Korean was different from learning English.

Second, I feel sorry for Koreans including myself when I look back how I learn English; it was not a well-balanced reading and writing course; the four of strands of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development did not provide equally, but language-focused learning was dominantly focused. Because when I was learning English at my schools, reading English is decoding each word, so it is for understanding semantic details while paying attention to the text. However, not only was reading Korean intensive reading for information like reading English, but also extensive reading for pleasure while figuring out author’s intent and getting the main idea.

I often feel that I am studying when I read novels in English, but I feel like I am enjoying when reading them in Korean because I feel less pressure while reading a book in my mother tongue and what I was trained was how to decode them each word to interpret the text instead of learning how to interact with authors and enjoy the books. I strongly believe that second language learning also should include active reading, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading by using a framework called four strands: meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development.

Week 1: Reflections, Ms. Han YM

Youngmee Han

 

Reflection 3

When I was in Middle School, I first learned English.  At that time, I was a little nervous about learning a foreign language for the first time in my life.  My first English teacher was very strict and even scared me; therefore English was no fun to learn.  First, she taught me capital letters of English alphabet and then lower levels, actually not taught but forced to memorize them by writing ten times or until learned by heart.  The English teacher never taught me phonics but I had to read the text book without knowing phonics by memorizing pronunciation of words in which English teacher read for me first. 

 It was difficult to read a book without knowing phonics.  When I happened to meet words that I did not know their pronunciations and meanings, I had to look up the dictionary and then to memorize them.  By time passed, I knew how to read some simple words by experiences guessing phonics.

Regarding to writing, I could write simple sentences by memorizing them.  During the Middle School, I never voluntarily tried to write English an essay, a diary or a journal by myself except that I had to write in the tests.

At that time, English was only a subject which I had to study even though it had no fun.

 

 

Reflection 4

 

           When I was little, my Mom always talked me a lot of words and sentences and read many stories.  Before I could read and write, I listened them hundreds times and could speak them. 

 

Difference between learning to read and to write Korean and English

In learning Korean,

1)     I learned listening and speaking first without knowing alphabets.

2)     I learned Korean phonics.

3)     After I knew listening and speaking, I learned how to read and write. 

4)     I learned Korean, the mother language from my Mom and family members.

5)     I learned Korean naturally not studying.

6)     I already knew many vocabularies before I learned to read and to write

In learning English,

1)     I learned alphabets first.

2)     I learned how to read and write without knowing phonics.

3)     I learned reading and writing without learning speaking and listening.

4)     I had to study to learn English.

5)     I learned English as a foreign language in school, not at home

 

 

 

Week 1, Reflections: Mr. Noh

How and when did we start to read Korean?

Language is that only human has unique and distinctive characteristic.

When we are growing up, we develop our mother tongue, the Korean language.

I think that speaking, writing, reading and hearing are required to learn a certain language.

In viewing the respect of how to start to read Korean, it is the time we get to know the value of phoneme. In Korean, as a mother tongue, we recognize and distinguish the same phonetic value by hearing the sound repeatedly and naturally.

Generally speaking, we seem to accept the words, phrases and clauses.

After knowing the distinction of the sound value, we get to start something to read.

If we have never heard the sound value, we can’t read something any more.

After hearing the sound by parents, peers and teacher etc, we start to imitate the sound we have heard.

Of course, in this process, we have to know the principle of the sound value simultaneously.

Speaking Korean doesn’t guarantee reading Korean.

Evidently, it is possible for us to read Korean after recognizing and hearing the value of sound.

On the other hand, how about when to start reading Korean?

In a word, it is possible to start reading Korean after hearing and speaking are acquired.

Unless we can speak and hear anything, we can’t read anything.

Therefore, the problem of when to start to read Korean is linked to hearing and speaking.

Likewise, language may be the natural process, but it can be intentional.

Both foreign language and mother language are developed naturally and intentionally.

As a matter of fact, babies start to read Korean, after hearing and speaking.

How many people are there who can speak but can’t read?

In the past, when we had no better education, many people who couldn’t attend any school couldn’t read the letters which they did speak and hear.

Although they could speak and speak Korean, they couldn’t read the Korean Language.

Thus, when to start to read Korean is, firstly, accomplishing speaking and listening and secondly, reading intentionally.

Likewise, in order to read Korean, intended and designed education is needed.

In the end, hearing and speaking should be preceded before reading.

It is best environment to be surrounded with hearing, speaking, writing and reading.

Reflection 04

 

In my experience, reading and writing Korean seem to be natural.

Before I started to learn formal education, I had already known speaking and hearing the Korean language.

After hearing the sound value, I seemed to be wondering how the spellings should be pronounced.

After I practiced for some periods, I recognized how to read Korean step by step.

On the contrary, reading and writing English was different distinctively.

Despite not hearing the sound value of English, I had to write and read the English language.

The situation was reversed in comparison to learning the Korean language.

Learning process and environment were distinctively different.

Accordingly, I had difficulty learning English more than Korean.

We ought not to overlook these points.

First, Learning English and Korean is the common process of learning language.

As a mother tongue, Korean is developed naturally but English as a foreign language isn’t like that.

Korean has many good conditions to write, read, speak and hear, but English has strange and exotic ones.

What makes matters better, it is good to be exposed to foreign environment.

Second, learning English and Korean has intended and ordered course.

Like mentioning above writing, hearing and speaking should be preceded, and then, reading and writing should be followed up.

In this way, learning language has the planned steps without knowing that.

Third, learning language requires repeated practice.

Repetition of Korean and English makes us skillful and professional about language.

Practicing reading and writing continually makes us good learners.

In conclusion, although learning English and Korean has elements in common, circumstances of learning English and Korean are greatly distinctive.

When teaching students or learning languages, we should consider these viewpoints respectively.

Week 1: Reflecitons, Ms. Lee

My First Reading: a tool for play

    Thinking back my first reading experience, I could not but be amazed by the tactic and the educational intention of my parents. My reading was not the end itself, but the process by which I achieved the tempting goal – winning the game and getting the items I wanted for Chusok holiday. Reading was not hard-working, but educational and fun in that it brought me learning of brotherly and sisterly affection, and the importance of cooperation as well as learning of Korean alphabets.

     When I was six, my siblings and I, tired of playing in the playground all through the summer, were striving to find out a breakthrough which could refresh us with excitement and challenge. My father noticed all this hustle and bustle and gave us a cooperative task to read a series of picture bible and study so that we could answer the bible quiz scheduled in the following month. Around that time, I had just mastered how to write Korean alphabets. Though the picture bible was easy to read for an eight-year old eldest brother, it was too difficult for me. However, my father enticed us into a cooperative work that my elders taught me how to read and read the books to me, the youngest, by suggesting a big reward of buying Chusok items like a bike and clothes.

     Day and night, I read and asked my brother and sister of what I didn’t know, and they were willing to help me in whatever they could do to make me read and understand the books. How studious I was at that time, and how generous my brother and sisters were to take care of me! In our studying room lined up with three desks, we stayed up reading until late night. We even gave up watching TV. In the final phase, we discussed what we read, and talked back and forth about the questions. The unforgettable moment which had never been more serious before and after, remains alive as happy memory of my childhood.

     One evening a week before Chusok holiday, we gathered together in the biggest room for the quiz. Father threw out 25 questions from the series of picture bibles, and mother played a role of a judge. Anybody among us should answer the questions correctly within a limited time. We should have answered right 90 percent out of 25 questions. In a thrilling moment, we finally succeeded in acquiring the prizes and praise from my parents. Plus, we were rewarded with pride and successful experience of cooperation and study. One-month-long intensive learning from my siblings about reading and Korean vocabulary contributed to my early mastering Korean language and interest in reading and studying.

 

 

Learning Korean and English

     Looking back my childhood when I learned Korean and English, I can rarely remember how I initiated such a great task – learning language. One thing for sure is that I just positively and naturally responded to the challenge that came over to me, just as I did every developmental stage. Comparing my learning experiences between Korean and English, I come to see the similarities and differences of two learning processes.

    When it came to similarities in learning reading and writing Korean and English, learning processes of Korean and English were alike in two ways. First, learning reading and writing in either Korean or English was involved in intentional teaching and learning. When I learned reading and writing in Korean, my parents made every effort in motivating me to work on reading and writing. I was taught from how to grasp a pencil to write an alphabet to dictation from my parents. Quite often they made use of sibling pressure and competition to make me ‘study’ how to decode and encode Korean alphabets. Also as I first learned English reading and writing, I mostly depended on school teachers. The books and materials were given by school teachers during the class. They taught me how to read the words and understand the materials. They used a grammar-translation method to read and understand reading material. They would check the writing assignment where I had chance to write from words to paragraphs. Next similarity shared by learning Korean and English is the order of learning. Writing an alphabet was the first step in learning both languages. Also, writing sentences came last, because writing more than one paragraph meant more than a combination of words. A sentence-level of writing focused on dictating what the teacher said correctly until second grade.  

However, the learning process of Korean and English differs, in terms of the order of learning and effort of learning. The biggest difference between Korean learning and English learning is the sequence of learning. While speaking Korean was followed by writing Korean, speaking English came after practicing reading and writing English. In other words, Korean was naturally acquired orally, while English was intentionally taught in written form. That explains that writing occurred before reading, in regard to my learning English, while Korean followed the learning sequence -writing an alphabet, reading words and sentences, and finally writing. Another difference of learning between Korean and English is the time and energy effort to learn reading and writing. To reach the level that I deliberately write to express myself, I had less energy and time in learning Korean than English. Even though I spent almost 30 years to learn English, I am not completely comfortable to write my ideas and feelings in English.

By comparing learning between Korean and English, I realize that the magic of learning both Korean and English was attributed to the education of parents and teachers. They manipulated the order of learning to excel and ease the process for my convenience. However, the order of learning English and Korean was different due to the different nature of languages- first language and foreign language acquired after puberty. Learning foreign language was more time and energy consuming, demanding more effort on me. However, I have owned two worlds, and my eyes opened to different cultures through learning two languages, however hard it was to acquire them. This wonder leads me to adventure to mastering the languages.

 

 

Week 1, Mr. Kim : Reflections

My Experience of Learning Korean

 

Mom taught me Korean.  Because I had no any symptom of a genius until 6, my parents might think that I would be a fool if they leave me, so they began to taught me Korean as most Korean parents do.  Mom made Korean alphabet cards by herself and read each card with accurate pronunciation and made me repeat after her.  I could not listen carefully.  When I was a baby I was somewhat slow at walking and speaking, so she did not hurry and put those cards around the house — a refrigerator card on the refrigerator and a dining table card on the dining table, etc.  But there was no progress.  One day playing with toy blocks, I said, “Is this ‘Digeut’?”  ‘Dogeut’ is one of the Korean alphabets.  From that time Mom changed her mind to teach Korean with play and I learned Korean with play.  I played a fishing game — fishing letters with a wooden chopstick tying a magnetic.  She clasped cards written Korean alphabet with clips.  I was interested in learning Korean alphabet watching letters sticking to the magnetic.  I learned Korean alphabet and then words.  She said I liked sweet potatoes very much when I was a young, so the first word I learned was ‘goguma’, a sweet potato.  After words I played matching games with pictures and writing and then reading books.  It took one year to learn Korean reading.  I am still learning English so one year is not so long.  Learning Koran with play was the most interesting study in my life, I think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Experience of Learning English

 

There are so many parents making their children study English before finishing learning Korean alphabet these days.  But when I was a child, there was no early-child-education, so naturally I began to learn English alphabet in the middle school.  My father was an English teacher but he did not teach me English until I go to the middle school.  English alphabets were totally new to me, so memorizing them was really Greek to me.  There were tests every day.  I had to memorize 10, 20 or 30 words every day.  It was a big burden to me.  I memorized the words after listening to the teacher’s pronunciation or reading phonetic alphabet written beside the word.  The teacher made us memorize the dialogue and sentences, so learning English was memorizing to me to me.  Leaning Korean was fun but English was not.

Week 1: Reflection, Ms. Kang

When I was a child, more in detail before I went to school, nobody taught me to learn writing in Korean alphabet system. But I only knew how to write my name. Actually that was not writing but drawing. At that time, most of my friends did the same as me. One thing I remembered in my childhood was that I tried to write my brother’s name in front of a guest. Unfortunately in the end, it turned out to be wrong. I had been confused with Korean vowels. After I went to school, my homeroom teacher taught me how to write in Korean alphabet. The thing is that I didn’t remember the way she did during the class, because it was too old or I was not attentive. As I was getting older, most of my homeroom teachers focused on writing neatly and nicely. From time to time, it was like a burden, but I couldn’t help it. If I didn’t follow what they said, I couldn’t avoid punishment. Compared to my childhood, many children learn how to write in Korean alphabet in advance, which is called early education in Korean. However, their writing in Korean alphabet was not accurate. Even if I try to correct them, their habits of writing didn’t fix very quickly. It takes some time. I think we should need more fun things for them.

 

  I started to learn English when I took my last winter vacation at an elementary school. At that time I attended the private school to prepare for middle school in advance. My English teacher taught me the English alphabet in order. For example, there are many words starting with “A”, however as easy words as possible such as album she taught me including the pronunciation ［ei］and [^|ӕlbəm] together. In that case, I remembered how to write in my mind and wrote words several times to memorize them. But I think this is not related to phonics, because whenever I studied English, I just memorized words or sentences. So when I read a new article or a sentence, I had some problems reading it. But it was obvious that the more I memorized words, the better I read them. It existed a difference on pronunciation of words like accent or stress; it was not a big deal. Plus, most of my middle school English teachers gave students homework to write the paragraph in the textbook. I didn’t have any special ways to improve reading and writing skill. Most of what I’ve learned was related to grammar or understanding in reading.