Second Language Acquisition Assignment

Name : Cheon Yun Keyng (Joe)

David Moroney

Word Count 000

I've studied English since 1992. But my English ability has been improved since 2002, when I graduated from University. What does that mean? The second language environment that I've experienced during my school days was a failure. There is nothing but memorize lots of vocabularies or study grammar. In addition, my English teacher's pronunciation was awful.

Early this year, president Lee Meyng Bak announced English emersion education. His statement brought about much censure among people. Many people, especially public school's teachers, objected to his policy. But I agreed with him. English has to be taught only in English at least in English class. (Why? What do you think about this?)

Korea's English language teaching showed enormous changes in 1990s. English was made compulsory in 1994 from Grade 3 in elementary schools and realizing that □the grammatical syllabus does not help much to develop learners' communicative competence□the government decided to improve □learner centeredness□ by introducing Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) at the secondary school level. (L1, 1998: 681) (what is communicative Language Teaching? You should explain it and place a reference here too) Actually, elementary students learn English by listening and speaking. After graduating from elementary school, however, students have to study grammar and translation. As University entrance exam is mainly solving reading problems, English education in the middle school and high school takes focus on grammar and translation. Moreover, University entrance exam is still the most important thing in Korea. Students cannot help studying English that way and they come to forget listening or speaking ability and they will lose interest in English.

Unless something is done, schools will spoil students' second language education like me. Then what is needed for successful second language acquisition?

First, Korea's English education need to be changed from traditional classroom to modern classroom. Not any more teacher-centered method, not any more receptive skills, not any more translation of English to Korean. (You should explain what each part is here)

These days, almost every school has a native English speaker, and the native English speaker engages in school exam. And there are a lot of modern equipment such as TV, DVD, computer and even beam projector in the classroom. In some schools, teachers allow students to have a discussion their subject with classmate in class. They are very good environment for students, I think.

Second, teacher type will have to be changed. There are three types, which are an explainer, involver and enabler. Sometimes a teacher becomes an explainer, sometimes an involver, sometimes an enabler. It depends on the situation. But it is not good for teachers to explain everything to students about lessons. A teacher has to be a guide. (You should briefly explain what each teaching style is here)

Third, in my opinion, a teacher should have a good sense of humor first of all for effective teaching. English is a language as well as studies. So English class must not be stiff or boring, especially when teaching children. Adults are autonomous, self-directed and goal-oriented, so they will be able to study English hard even though the class is a little boring. But children are different from adults. If they don't have interest in English, they won't concentrate on class or teacher. Needless to say, it will be much better to learn with interest regardless of age.

Korea's English education is in a time of transition. The government announced that university entrance exam would be changed from 2013. It will be totally different from the current examination system. It is said to be very similar to TOEIC or TOEFL. I hope there will be no more failure of second language acquisition.

References

Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching, Macmillan Books for Teachers

Diane Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, OXFORD

http://www.zu.ac.ae/lthe/vol1/lthe01_03.pdf

http://blog.naver.com/pumpkin1224/140036829342

Joe,

Overall a good paper. You have thought about it and it is clear and concise. I just want you to explain some of the key terminology that you learned from the first two modules. It is a way for the marker to check that students understand the key topics, so when you mention explainer teacher type or communicative langauge teaching then you should briefly explain what it means. Also you should do a word count at the end and put that on the title page. Also my name should be added to the title page.

Again I am pretty happy with it. Make a couple of additions and you will do fine. See you on Saturday.

Regards,

David Moroney