Survey on how to improve English skills

Inkab Wed May 07 2008, 01:08

Survey on how to improve English skills

Last Friday, on April 29^thwe conducted survey on the ways to develop six aspects of English skills that include reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar and vocabulary. Various answers were obtained from four different students for each each question. Here I presented their perspectives and recommendations on improving language skills comparing with my own ideas as well.

As one of the top tips for improving reading ability, Jason and Hwan-ki and myself suggested that we need to read as often as possible. It was obvious for us that developing reading skills through extensive reading and Jason also told me that reading materials should be interesting to readers. Nam-sook recommended to read reading-materials without a dictionary that is to be of use to enhance learners’ skill for a fast reading. Kang-hoon particularly suggested reading English newspaper is essential. When considering his background is business management, it would be beneficial not only to develop his reading skills but also to broaden his knowledge related to his main interest. Interesting part was what Hwan-ki pointed out reading loud as his main strategy. Besides the extensive reading strategy, I added more opinion saying that we have to try to summarize what we had read for I think it is important to grasp at least the main idea of the reading material in order not to waste the time reading incomprehensible text.

Since all of the students joining our survey are currently taking a composition class, I expected similar response would appear on the ways of improving writing skills. However, It seems that a large number of students regard reading-input as a key factor to boost their writing skills. Sara, Sujin and Young remark that reading many writing examples and adopt those styles to the actual writing is essential to be a good writer. Jong-woo specifically suggested doing many timed-essay. Considering his high level of writing skill, it sounds very persuasive method to me. Like Jong-Woo’s opinion, my own recommendation was also focused on practicing writing itself, that is, writing a lot about various topics with various styles in order to improve writing skills. Overall, constant input as well as output are considered to be important factors in achieving higher level of writing proficiency.

Our focus moved on to the best methods of developing listening skills. They all agree that learners have to be exposed to English-spoken environment. In particular, Ji-a and Se-young indicated that English programs on TV or other medias would be beneficial materials. Nam-sook made a recommendation that constant and regular listening practice is vital in developing listening skills. While emphasizing the importance of understanding the main ideas of contents, I suggested that listening a lot and trying to dictate or summarize what we listen through whatever medias. The number one priority in becoming a fluent speaker was divided into three different aspects of skills. First of all, Sujin and Jason points out that learners have to be encouraged to speak , be a risk-takers and not be so sensitive about making mistakes or being misunderstood. Their opinion seems to consider learners feeling and attitude in communicating are more important than linguistic competence itself. On the other hand, Sera and myself gave more emphasis on the linguistic aspect of learning speaking skills by stating that learning useful expressions and practicing those in real situations will advance the speaking skills. Interestingly, Kong-hoon’s idea on developing speaking ability was to study grammar, on which he seems to reveal his concerns about accurate production of speaking.

Various perspectives were for the better understanding of grammar rules. Nam-sook said reading funny books and learning grammar naturally is the best way. I suggested mastering easy grammar book for effective way to learning grammar. Young, however, combined two different views recommending that studying grammar book first, next find grammatical patterns from reading, and finally apply it in writing. From life long experience, in fact, I have to admit that studying a grammar book doesn’t work effectively in situations where we need to speak English or write in English. Although I suggest mastering grammar book would be the one, it doesn’t seem to necessary to study grammar books, because a lot of young learners who studied abroad, they acquired extensive grammatical knowledge just through a variety of reading and writing activities. In addition, Kang-hoon thought that learning words is necessary and Ji-A said that memorizing perfect grammatical sentences is required to increase better understanding in grammar. They are sharing the same view point in terms of learning grammars prior to reading texts or writing English.

Lastly, our discussion investigated the recommendations for people who are seeking to develop their vocabulary. Jason and myself thought that memorizing is necessary step to go through. Especially Jason’ idea of recording his own voice and listen to it sounds a lot helpful, since using two perceptive organs, ear and eyes, will work better than memorizing words only by the sense of sight. Jong-Woo recommended using new words in speaking and writing repeatedly. His recommendation is relevant to Sae-young’s one which indicates learning vocabulary through various language uses is the way to increase word capacity. Hwan-ki thought that learning words that are related to real situation would be easy way to accumulate new vocabulary.

After doing this survey, I realized how effective skills for each aspect of English language are integrated to one another. That is, in order to improve writing skills, for instance, we need to conduct intensive reading practices, vocabulary building, and speaking in discussion. Peers’ answers broadened my perspective on how various skills are inter-winding each other, providing sophisticated details on all the questions. It was very useful experience.