[OP7] Based on your experience , what would you like to implement and achieve as a teacher of Englih ?

Think about your own experiences as an English language learner. Based on this experience, what would you like to implement and achieve as a teacher of English in the Korean public school context?

As the role and influence of Enlgish has become important more and more in global ages , many people consider it as one of crucial abilities one should acheive. With this trend reflected on the Korean public school , all the student are required to learn English from Elementary school to high school for almost 10 years . Compared with our efforts and time to learning English , the outcomes seem to be quite small. There are many students not only who lost their interests in this foreign language and gave it up from early ages but also who can not communicate with foreigners in English. Based on my experiences at school, there are many things I think which should be changed into better for effective and qualifed learning. I can think of my Englih learning at school as the time in middle school and foreign language high school .

When I took English class at middle school, there were more than 40 students and the proficiency level of all students were different. These situation made teachers give one-way instruction focusing on grammar , reading and vocabulary and pretend to be strict to control big size class. Moreover some of students had difficulties to understand simple and easy grammar rules while some of them felt bored with the materials and hoped to proceed more advanced ones. The materials teachers used in class was not interesting enough to attract my attention and related with language used in a real life situation. The assesment worked also to check my memorizing ability instead of evaluating 4 English skills in a meaningful way. If I were an English teacher in this situation, I would give students group works to finish. The role of teachers is that they should put great efforts to select topics which are useful and related with real life to evoke students' motivation and organize the procedures properly to assist students effectively.As there are not many restrictions and it is easy to find what students are familiar, we can think of various tasks. For example I would provide groups of students with some tasks to give presentation how to make sandwitches in Englsih , make a story based on given introduction, play the games with directions to ask and answer in finding the location of places , draw pictures after listening tales in English and so on. Through this group working , students are more willing to communicate in English with peers than teachers and feel accomplished by finishing the task. By getting familiar with Englsih in a more relaxed and creative way, students can learn English as language not one of subjects to momorize patterns and take notes what the teacher said. Also teachers can interact with students better by asking and checking what students have done.

The situation of high school was quite different from that of middle school. As most studetns were interested in Englsih, the proficency level of Englsih was above average. With smaller class of 30 students , I had many various English lessons such as English conversation, writing, listening, reading class and grammar. There were also some events to practice speaking Englsih such as JEC day when we are required to use Japanese or English or Chinese only , speed quiz and essay contests. Though there were many opportunities to advance my Englsih further in such good environment for English learning, I could not use them effectively because of KSAT. All the classes were organized on the basis of KSAT focusing on listening and reading skills and we solved some questions from reading even in writing class. Though listening and reading skills which are required in KSAT are important, when we think of the fact that all the skills of English are interacted and related with each other we can not neglect them. If I were an English teacher in this situation, I would suggest well-planned and organized assesment to encourage students to participate in many kinds of classes . Test is one of the most influencial things to motivate students to study hard , I think. We can use some assesment such as timed- speech, presentation on easy topics such as what you like and dislike and unforgettable memories , summary of listening tape and writing a letter , making an invitation card for school festival and so on. Covering 4 skills of English is a key factor to become balanced and advanced learner of Englsih.

Refelcting on my school life , I realized there were many problems which should be changed. In middle school, with more group activites which give more chances to develop integrated 4 skills of English, students can learn it in a creative way than boring grammar and translation class . Moreover in high school, other skills of English which are not included in KAST can not be neglected by suggesting effective assessment .Keeping in mind unefficient English learning carried out past, we need to accept new ways of teaching method and assessment for our next generation.