Comments on: Why do we study English like that?

By: kirin

kirin — Sun, 22 May 2011 13:05:51 +0000

Hi Phil, how have you been? ^ ^
How grateful I am to receive your comment from a perspective of professional ESL teacher. Thank you!!

BTW I think it's very nice that ESL teacher tried to learn a foreign language by herself. That means you understand your students' feelings or struggles through your own experience. I'm sure you're a good teacher! ^___^

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 22 May 2011 02:07:17 +0000

I teach English as a second language (ESL) and I can tell you that if language learners are not willing to risk being wrong, they aren't going to learn to speak English (or any new language). I think Americans are pretty accepting of less-than-perfect English; we have large immigrant communities here so we typically hear a lot of accents and levels of proficiency. Still, I do understand how many learners feel about saying something wrong. I have studied Japanese myself and found it very hard to risk using what I learned with strangers. Japanese culture does discourage sticking out, being different, being wrong…and that is undoubtedly why so many Japanese refuse to use what little English they may have learned. They go to these English language schools as a substitute for actually speaking with English speakers. It's sad, but I understand.

By: kirin

kirin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 05:24:41 +0000

Thank you for your comment. Sometimes the system doesn't accept long comments, sorry….^ ^;
There are many tactics and strategies to do better at TOEIC test, which however doesn't settle the essential problem we have. It's really misleading us. The more we become enthusiastic about leaning English, the more we are somehow led to the direction to gain better scores at tests, not at daily conversations…

By: kari

kari — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:27:28 +0000

i think the reason those schools are still around and so popular is because the way of teaching english IN NORMAL SCHOOL is so bad… also, the only thing anyone cares about is tests… of course nobody will never learn how to really communicate in English if all they focus on is passing a test! same thing with TOEIC. it does not actively reflect anyone's ability to speak english. i was helping one of my japanese friends study for it one time and was SHOCKED at how difficult the questions were! it's all fancy business english! no one really speaks like that except in formal documents. and yet, people focus on getting a good grade on this test, and with studying hard might even succeed, but ask those people to have a 10 minute conversation with a native and they will either freak-out or speak really badly…

By: kirin

kirin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:54:33 +0000

hehehe….:p….I'll check out how bad it is…just out of curiosity…hehe.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:26:38 +0000

nono you don't want that im sure !
its bad, like really bad.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:59:37 +0000

Haha, thank you!!! But it will still take some time… I have adopted a new website to host it all, but my coding skills are terrible so it's going quite slowly…. >．<；　But I'm hoping we'll be back up and running soon! Also, I suppose I should update you on some news, but I'll email you instead.

By: kirin

kirin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:09:57 +0000

Hahaha…you made me laugh. I cannot imagine how hard it is to have work and kids to raise at the same time. You are doing it really well. ^ ^

Ah~, school holidays, right. I suppose teachers cannot easily take days off like company employees do. I'm sure your daughter will have grown to be a good girl by the time you travel.

By: kirin

kirin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:57:16 +0000

Lisa, thank you for your comment. I think you have great insights from your own experience as an English teacher as well as learner of Japanese. Your comment made me realize that we didn't care at all to make mistakes when we were kids. It's possible, if we do not fear mistakes, we can achieve things more smoothly.

I'm thinking of exchanging lessons with a Spanish speaker who wants to learn Japanese because I want to study it again. I am more interested in 3rd language than improving my English to the higher level, as I can at least lead a simple life in English spoken countries now.

BTW, good to see Nandeyanen renewal!

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:29:44 +0000

Ha, yes it's a tricky thing, language learning. Like you, I believe that 90% of the work has to be done by the person wanting to learn – it doesn't matter what great materials or people you have helping you if you don't make the effort yourself. (Sadly I know this from my own experience, or my Japanese would be better, haha! ;P)
As for hearing non-natives speak; I think most native English speakers who are exposed to non-native speakers in daily life, at work etc don't really think too much about it. I know I don't; I kind of have to turn the English teacher inside of me 'on', because often I would rather that a conversation flows relatively smoothly rather than make pedantic corrections every other word. Maybe that method is more helpful, but it's not so fun when you just want to hang out! ^^;

The only way to get better is to use the language and make those mistakes. That's one of the reasons children are so much better at language learning – they're not afraid of being corrected or saying something wrong (they're used to being told what's right by their parents, after all!). I think we as adults need to try to take that approach. So like you said – blog, write, talk, even if it's not right! Actually, do you know Lang-8? It's a free website where you can blog in the language you're learning and people who are native speakers of that language correct you. Of course it's polite to correct blog posts in your own native language in return. It's been really good I think, although I've been really lazy lately and haven't updated at all! :$ But I'm thinking about writing my blogs there, and then putting the corrected versions up on my 'real' blog after.