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.