Classroom survey

Our class in English composition skills made a survey of ways to become better with English on April 29, 2008. The answers I got from class mates including professor Jason were about some tips to improve reading ability, writing proficiency, listening skills , speaking ability, grammar and vocabulary.

First of all, in regard of top tip for improving reading ability in English, In-kab and I agreed with the fact that it is the most import to read as much as possible. Moreover In-kab also pointed out summarizing what someone read is helpful. Comparing with my opinion to read many different kinds of writing, Kang-hoon indicated that reading newspaper is the best way . Jong-woo emphasized the importance of careful translation in bilingual ways from English to Korean and vice-versa .Furthermore Se-young made an opinion that learning various idioms and vocabulary will help to gain better understanding of reading. The way Se-young recommend might be helpful to gain surface information , however in case of understanding deeper meaning of reading such as writer's intention, relationships between each paragraphs and so on , it can have some limitations,I think.

The next English skill was writing proficiency . Based on the opinions that reading lots of materials is the most important from Su-Jin, Hwan-ki, Young and myself, I could realized reading and writing are interactive each other. Young and Su-jin added it is needed to have chances to make it their own styles by adapting to their writings. Jason recommended keeping personal journals and adapting to different kinds of writing in it every week.

To become better with English listening skills, both Nam-sook and Hwan-ki thought it's best to get exposed to English listening environment and Nam-sook added the importance of regular listening habits . Comparing with their opinions, Su-jin gave more specific kinds of resources such as English media including News and radio. Interestingly, rather than focusing on listening itself, I and Jong-woo stressed the activities relating with output after listening. I insisted that speaking and repeating after listening is crucial as what someone can speak out is more easily understood when listening while Jong-woo pointed out taking some dictation is beneficial. Though I think his opinion is good as it gives more chances to check the information in detail, sometimes trying to get the main ideas might be a better way to develop listening ability as it helps understand speaker's intention more effectively.

Moreover we thought about the number one priority in becoming a more able speaker of English . Young and myself were united in the opinion that learning many expressions and vocabulary is crucial. Morover Su-Jin and Se-young pointed out that getting rid of fear to make mistakes is top priority . Inkab suggested it might be a good idea to participate in real conversation and repeat native speaker's utterance. Though all the strategies mentioned above are important , considering Koreans are so shy to blurt out any words and make mistakes, getting encourage to speak with confidence might be hot issue.

Furthermore Jason stated that noticing patterns and rules in genuine real input and then using itself with your words is important to gain a better understand of grammar. While Su-Jin suggested the way to try to use the grammar in real life situation after gaining some knowledge of grammar, Young gave more specific example that it might be a good idea to try to find grammatical information in articles and also adapt it to writing. Hyun-a and myself mentioned that learning grammar by sentence might be good. While Young and Su-jin thought the effective way for grammar in deductive approach , I , hyun-a in inductive approach.

For the question how to improve English vocabulary, Se-young and Su-jin agreed the opinion that it is a good way to experience many language usage from various resources. Jong-woo made interesting opinion that learning vocabulary and use them in speaking and listening might be helpful.

The outcome from this survey was interesting as I could realized that all the skills are interactive each other. Keeping in mind that if we integrate some strategies from each person, it may be beneficial to improve English skills