We are facing cultures and languages of other countries in a trend that is becoming more and more global. Language is also learned in conjunction with the cultures of various countries, and most schools now teach at least more than one language of another country. Therefore, most students get into situations where they use two or more languages, including their own. In this situation, I also learn Korean and English and have been studying English for a long time. This is because it was obliged to teach at school, but I could not say a word in English to foreigners. However, one experience in the U.S. has completely changed me.
The first time I learned English was when I was in elementary school. Nonetheless, teachers taught me only the meaning of words and took tests based on them. Because of these things, I knew only words, but I didn’t learn how to pronounce them and use them as sentences. In contrast, when people first learn their own language, the way of learning is completely different from what they learn at school. People all begin to learn their mother tongue from their parents. Especially, when I first learned a language, I started by listening to what our parents say and saying it. Then, I learned how to write and speak in elementary school. But when I learned a foreign language, I learned to use words and grammar first. Therefore, English learned in this way was totally unavailable in practice.
Moreover, this style of education continued steadily through high school. Hence, I studied English for almost 10 years, but when I had a situation where I could talk in English, I couldn’t speak at all or was in a hurry to run away from it. No matter how much I knew wards or grammar, I had never spoken English out of my mouth. The reason why I felt so skeptical about school education was when a foreigner asked me for directions on my way home from school. He opened the map and pointed to a famous tourist spot and asked me how to get here. Even though I knew exactly how to get there, I told him just to go straight and turn right, which was the wrong information. I had no ill intentions, but the word that came to mind was just so simple that I couldn’t really explain it, so I said anything that came to mind to get out of there. After telling him the wrong way, I felt guilty the whole time I went home. So, I decided to go and study in the U.S. to learn English that can be used in real-life situations.
A year later, I really had a chance to go to America. Then, I went to America without hesitation and started to attend a language academy in America. But communicating with foreigners still gave me a lot of difficulties. It is not only speaking was not familiar with me due to the Korean education system, but also listening was a problem. The problem was that I have to take English speaking classes and felt that when a teacher speaks, I tried to translate them into Korea and understand them, so if there is any word that I don’t know, I cannot concentrate on listening. My brain’s circuitry was always going back to Korean, so I had to interpret English from my head in Korean to understand it. As a result, I became more and more afraid of English and began to hang out with my Korean friends and speak only Korean.
While I was using only Korean unlike my first intention, I saw another Korean who was hanging out with foreign friends. He was fluent enough to be considered an American Korean because he was completely unobstructed in speaking English and all the other foreign friends understood what he was saying. I was curious about how he could English so well, so I began to observe him. I saw him smoking every break in class, so I followed him and started talking first. When I first approached him, he was reluctant to talk to me. At first, I was embarrassed by his reaction, but as a result of my tenacious approach, he gradually dealt with me. He said that when he first came to the U.S., he had no knowledge of English. Besides, he said he had to work harder because he was the owner of a business in Korea and came here to trade with foreigners. He also said that the way he could improve his English quickly was not to be afraid of making mistakes when he spoke. It allowed him to talk to many people without hesitation, gain more experience, and grow quickly. After hearing his story, my thoughts on English completely changed.
When I was speaking English, I was worried that if I were wrong in grammar, people would see me as a fool. These worries are made because I thought grammar is the most important thing. In Korea schools, they focus only on grammar and to cut scores if I am wrong. This was why I didn’t speak, and I didn’t even care what part to stress and how to pronounce. But after listening to him, I tried to speak no matter how wrong my grammar was and when I found out I was wrong, I began to try to correct the part. I am not afraid to speak or make mistakes anymore. Recently, when the store clerk asked me how about the school, I said much better. In fact, I didn’t know much at the time, but I learned later that this word meant disparaging his university. The clerk didn’t look good when I said this and told me it is a bad word. At that time, I didn’t understand what it meant, but then I realized later and then apologized to him. After this happened, we talked every time we met.
Most people learn grammar and words first when they learn a foreign language. This has been Korea’s education system so far, and another country may be using it as well. However, I believe the best way and ideal way is to listen and speak as you first learn your mother tongue. I can tell from the way I have been taught and the results, I don’t think there is anything better than listening and speaking directly. When you learn a foreign language, if you learn words and grammar first, you will always try to translate it into your own language, so it will be difficult to communicate as I did. Therefore, through experience, I learned that English should also learn the same way as learning Korea.
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