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.