I believe that Advanced level 2 is getting as the form of improve my English skills. As a student of this course I consider that I feel well because I am improving my skills of communication. Today is my first days of class and many students reported having difficulty with English it is their second language. The better way should be that I thought only in English but it is hard for me. I always think in Spanish and delay while translate in English. Sometime I feel frustrated but my mind imagines new change because I believe that language was a new thing in my life. I study Teacher College, Columbia University since Intermediate English. As a student of your class I hope has success in write and speaks English.
Hi, this is Risa. I am not goot at blogs and new things.I will put my homework here, becouse I couldn't find right place. I apoloogize this.See you on Tue.
＜My English Learning＞ Risa Yamanaka
When I was a junior high and high school student, my school had English classes. But I wasn’t like English at all. My English class read a text book each one by one, and focused on grammar. Any classmates didn’t ask any questions to the teacher. It was so boring for me. So my English score was so bad. But I didn’t care that, I thought I will live in Japan, I don’t need English for my life. I tried to avoid from any English and I succeed for that. But now, I live in NYC and I have to use English everyday. Finally I couldn’t escape from English. No one knows our futures. I came to CA three years ago, I spend ten months in CA. First time in CA, I didn’t understand anything and I couldn’t say anything eventhough easy greetings. I lived with an American family. It was hard time because I couldn’t understand what my host mother said. I went English learning school. It was big different as Japanese English classes. In the class, the teacher spoke interesting story, we could speak own opinion and we could ask questions. We watched TV drama and I put some words fill in blank. TV drama was MONK. It is still my favorite. And the other English learning was watching movies in English. When I had some sad things, I kept my room with movie and potato chips. Few months later, I could understand English little by little. And I loved English learning style with my funny English teacher. And now I can contact with my classmate in English. However my own country’s English learning was so boring. It focuses on grammers and exam’s scores. Students never speak in English. I can learn English from my usual life in NYC. On the store, I have to order in English. On the road, I have to ask how to go. In my country, people speak only Japanese. If one friend can speak English, the friend doesn’t speak English. Because in my country, we have a idion, “if the person have a great skill, the person must hide the skill. If the person shows the skill, other person will hit him/her.” So for me, learning English from usual life in my country is so hard. I love American style English learning. I can learn from funny way. I don’t need focus on grammar too much. This English is more useful. Comunicate with other country person is my goal. I believe this is what we need.
I am from Taiwan, and actually have studied in English since my high school. In Taiwan teachers usually concentrate reading and grammar more than listening and speaking. Even though I had studied English for several years, I still had the hard time to talk with people in English. Therefore, I decided to come to the States to rebuild up my ability of English.
When I arrive to America I was stressed out that no one could speak Mandarin to me and I needed to ask helps and solve problems by English. But, it really pushed me to improve on my English, especially speaking. In Taiwan, apparently the only time I spoke English is in classroom. It was not part of daily life, and it was so forgettable for me.
Just like I mentioned above, teachers in my country loved to teach us grammar, reading and writing. The most main reason was to help us to prepare the college entrance test. Otherwise, I like the teaching style here. Instead of reading textbook and correct grammar error, teachers encourage students to speak and interact with other classmates.
In Taiwan I usually stayed at home or library to study English and prepare tests. It was difficult to learn something without using it. So I often felt frustrated because of my unsatisfied grade. In New York I tried to find more opportunities to talk with people and practice my speaking. I really like to hang out with new friends and we can chat in English. I really enjoy my new learning method.
Apparently, I prefer learning English in America. I can not only study it but also meet different people around the world by speaking English.
Hi, this is Sonia from China. I started to learn English from my junior high school till college. At the beginning usually we have 6hrs studying a week at that time. It is the British English. Our English teacher taught us lots of grammar and reading skills. We also took much time on listening. Do you ever hear a old music player called "Walkman"? It has to play tapes. It was so popular at that time at my junior high school because it seemed almost everyone need a "walkman" to do English listening practice. I owned one too, but only for the music. For me, music was much easier than English studying. Anyway, we had no chance to speak English with the other people. In high school, our English text book is much funnier. We started to switch to American English. It introduced the American travel and culture. We took more than 1o hours every week to learn English. But still we have no chance to speak, just sitting there listening to the teacher carefully. Most of us can read and write, some can listen, but little can speak. Maybe because of shyness, maybe because there is no one we can talk with. They can talk in Chinese fluently so they don’t want to try to use a hard second language. In college, we still had English class, but it is only 2 hours a week, and the teacher didn’t teach anything new. It was the most boring time in my life. Actually I like English Studying, but it frustrated me in college. So i tried the another way to learn. I took part in the English Corner Group. There were many foreign volunteer there to teach us how to speak. They encouraged us to speak, to talk anything we want. There is no rules. At the first time, I opened my mouth to speak out the first sentence," It is a raining day." After that, I came here in New York. All the people speak English here. I found they spoke too fast, more new words, more new phrases. I noticed my English need to improve in a American way. So I took the ESL class. The class is much smaller here, less than 20 people in a class. So we can remember each other's names easier and the teacher can pay more time on every classmate. The teacher’s speaking English is obviously much better than all my teachers in China. I enjoyed listening to the teacher's fluently speaking. Most of importance, teachers in NY always give us chance to speak. We can talk with the other country's people in English, and only in English, otherwise we cant understand each other. All in all, i love the English class here. Thank you, teachers.I hope i can improve my English skill and communicate with the other people fluently in life and in work.
When I came to New York from Peru, it was as difficult to communicate or to understand English because I never spoke English. The reason I speak Spanish is because it is my first language. I began searching places where English was taught. I also take class in La Guardia Community College then, changed to Teachers College.
First, the environments were comfortable, but, the disadvantage of La Guardia was that the majority of the students were Latinos and spoke Spanish as their native language. Teachers College had less Spanish students, and for this reason it was facile for me to speak English.
The advantage of La Guardia Community College was that it permits students to use computers as another learning technique. Students would use computers in a specific class called the computer room. Teaching College only allowed computer use after classes in the Library.
La Guardia Community College and Teachers College of University both taught English but have different learning levels. Similarly, college allows students to learn by giving homework, so that students practice their skills at home. La Guardia has a tutoring department where you can go and chose the schedule. Also you can go with your homework and they explain your mistakes to and they tell you how to fix them. In La Guardia, their focus is less on grammar, they focus on the basics. In Teachers College, it is the opposite of La Guardia. Teachers College focuses on grammar and in four areas: writing, listening, pronunciation, and speaking. La Guardia Community College allows students to bring a dictionary in to classes and also during tests. Teachers College does not permit the use of a dictionary when a test is being taken. La Guardia College has 28 students and Teachers College has 15 in each class.
Both colleges assign projects in a PowerPoint and then allow students to present it out loud in class. This allows for oral presentation to improve. La Guardia gives group projects and Teachers are individual. I believe that individual projects are better because students learn more things and new vocabulary and no one takes credit for undone work. Both colleges have different learning styles but they also have their semblances.
As a student of who has experienced both, I prefer Teachers College because I have improved more with Teachers College and my English is keener. I hope to keep improving my English to can communicate better with others.
In my case I am a Spanish speaker, like Luz, and I had never studied English before coming to NY because when I was younger I studied French at school but never English.
Therefore I am learning English since last year. When I arrived here in September 2008 I didn't know how to say anything and my first goal was to take English classes. I started to go to "New York Language Center" at 100th street and Broadway avenue. I went there for 4 months and I think I learned a lot but there were many many Spanish speakers and we spoke in Spanish whenever we could and I decided to change because I didn't improve as fast as I wanted. And I knew CEP so I got to come here.
In my opinion the big difference between studying English in NY or in your own country is about the speaking part. In Spain (in my case about French or about the English my kids learned there) the teacher spends all the time focusing in grammar. I think it is really important but in Spain the teacher teaches English grammar talking in Spanish. This is the big difference, here we learn and listen to English grammar IN ENGLISH.
In any case the best way to learn English is first at all, GO to an English speaking country, so that you are not able to speak your own language and you are forced to try to little by little listen, understand and speak English. Another way is to try to do everything in English: listen to the radio, watch TV, go shopping, meet people, go to the class... all in English. If I had to value my English learned until now I am really proud of myself and I was able to move to NY but I had never thought that there were so many people in this city who spoke Spanish!
Shizuka KAMAGA ‘Language is an Art!’ my English teacher says. Of course language has basic rule such as a grammar, but there are exceptions every time and it can change as our life style. I like her opinion and agree with her. But if I heard it when I was a high school student, I couldn’t understand her idea. My English learning style in NY helps me to figure out what she says. That means the way to learn English has changed since I had come to NY. First, learning environment is completely different between Japan and NY. As you know, Japan is an island country. It was difficult to come into Japan for foreigners in the old days. Even in globalization era, still now the government limits the number of immigrants and foreigners and we don’t see foreigners so much in Japan. On the other hand, NY is quite diverse. I can hear people speaking English, Spanish, French, Chinese or whatever. And NYC, some churches or some organizations provide many ESL classes which are comparatively cheep. In Japan we have to pay so much money to take the English class. Secondly, teaching style is also distinct. I started studying English when I was a 12-year-old junior high school student. All my English teachers were Japanese until I went to university. They taught me English in Japanese. I mostly practiced grammar and reading and sometimes writing instead of listening and speaking. In NY, all my teachers teach me English in English even if they are Japanese. Actually I sometimes frustrated when I cannot understand the meaning though they expounded. I need time to make sense when I come across an English word with no Japanese equivalent. Third, my learning style has changed. In NY I don’t use dictionary so much and don’t translate English into Japanese so much. I always try to think about topics in English. But in Japan many students, including me, use dictionary and look up many words. And then I just make myself feel smart by this way. I prefer today’s style because now I enjoy learning English without any pressure and I want to focus to brush up listening skill and speaking skill. My purpose is that I can make friends form other countries and can enjoy my life in NY with my English. In this reason I prefer learning English in NY, but I feel it’s not enough. I still don’t have any idea what is a best way to improve on my English.
“How many years have I been studying English?” I always repeated this question in my heart, because I was afraid of using my English when I tried to use it, although I had been studying English more than six years from the elementary school to the high school in my country so far. However, recently after my studying in here for one year, I feel that the fear almost got away from me. It is obvious that there were some huge differences between the six years and the one-year. I think it must be the key to make up for the week point of our study.
First of all, I can say that the biggest difference was environment to study. In NY, each of us knows that basically our community is composed of English speakers and we need to think of almost everything in English whatever we want. It seems like there is no line between our study and our daily life, so using English was able to become ordinary thing. On the other hand, in my country, using English was still unusual thing. We needed to study English, though we did not know how and when we can use it. It was like a marathon race that there are no audience and goal. It was an obvious fact that the line that divided our study and ordinary life existed on us.
Secondly, how about the teaching style? It was also completely different. In NY, of course teachers teach us in English but Japanese teachers were teaching English in Japanese in Japan. Actually, I did not understand how much is it important to pay attention to the accent and rhythm to make communication in English. As far as I can remember, we did not care of the oral communication in the classes. Most of times we focused on our textbook and basic grammars, because it was the most important things for examination. Also, in my case, our teacher who was in our high school was upset when her students made mistake with her question. So we were thinking that making mistake was not allowed and we thought that we must use perfect English.
Therefore, there are many differences, and I think it affected to our learning style. In short, my learning English was on the defensive in my country. Our teachers, textbook and a collection of problems prepared a lot of exercises and what did we have to do was just answer it. We did not need to think of our opinion and describe something with our words. In contrast, now, we are required to think of our opinion and make our own word like this article. In this case we need to be offensive parson in our study. Sometimes it is hard, however, I know that it should be a big help of us.
Thus, actually, as I mentioned before there are many huge differences between the six years in my country and the one-year in NY. I would not say which one is the best for me. I know there are many advantages our study in NY though, it is true my study in Japan composed my basic English and actually it works. What I would say is the most important things are not only compare their differences but also pick up the advantages and trying to make use of it.
Misuzu May 31,2010 I had studied English for 10 years at school from junior high school to university when I was a student. I was good at studying English at school and it was my favorite subject. When I was a freshman at university, I attended language school in England for a month. Since that was the first trip abroad and the first foreign culture, I remember that I was very impressed by everything I came across. And at the same time, I found out that speaking English fluently is very important and I really hoped to improve on English. However, its stay was just only for a month, and I had a few classes to improve my speaking skill in university, my English learning history finished by halves. After I graduated from university, I worked for five years. During the five years, I had no chance at all to speak English, was unable to go abroad to take a long vacation. I was in a dilemma what to do about English. First, I think NY is far better environment than Japan to learn English. In Japan, at junior high school and high school, English is a compulsory subject. Almost all of the university required us to take an English class. Some people are attending English school to brush up their skills. Recently, English has become compulsory subject even in elementary school. Meanwhile in NY, melting pot, various languages are spoken by various people. However, those who speak English are still majority. In addition, for example, in TV, advertisements and so on, we can see and hear English whenever we want. We can learn English everywhere in NY. Second, as for teaching style, I think there are both advantages and disadvantages in each country. In Japanese classroom, with textbooks and workbooks using, reading English and translating it into Japanese correctly and acquiring correct grammar are highly required. We cannot study English without using dictionary. Our teacher often said that if you come across the words you never know, look up dictionary on the spot. English education focuses on teaching reading and writing. Listening is also important because there are listening questions in high school and university entrance exams. But many people tend to look on the exam as an only goal to improve listening skills. In my experience, there is a few class to learn speaking skill. But now English education is gradually revised upward, Japan tries to focus on speaking skills. On the other hand, I think NY teaching style focuses on speaking. By speaking a lot I may have English on the brain. When I come across the words I never know, I have to guess by context instead of using dictionary. Although I can make myself understood in broken English, I’d like to learn grammar correctly and acquire correct pronunciation, so please feel free to point out my mistakes.
Third, as for learning style, I think NY is better than Japan. Because in Japan, no English-speaking people around, there is no way but to study school textbooks. Looking up the dictionary, people often think it essential way to learn correct grammar and solve such questions as we see in the exam at school. Those who like studying English brush up their English in their own way by watching movies, CNN or so, making foreign friends living in Japan. Some people study English hard by attending English class after work because they must use it at work. On the other hand, in NY, every time you walk the street, take subways, turn on TV, you can hear English so naturally. In NY, we can learn English with our favorite style. Now I learn English by watching TV or movies I’m really interested in.
Finally, take all things into consideration, I do believe NY is well equipped environment, so is suitable situation for me. If I were in Japan, there would be no need for me to take pains to speak English, since there is no need to speak English. However, in NY, English is very essential in daily life, that situation makes my motivation to learn very high. Therefore I am eager to improve on my English as much as possible and learn English with a lot of fun while I’m in NY.
There is a very humurous story in my first English experience. When I was 9 years old, I went to a computer institute. that time, computer skill is an inportant potential development, so, I had to learn to computer skill. But, I didn't know anything about English language even though English alphabet. That is the beginning of learning English.
There are diffrent learning environment between NY and my county Korea. In my country, there was a few opportunity to speak English at daily life. And, we were shy to speak English with foreiner lisk an English native speaker. Now, I have to speak English for daily life and also I have to leatn English for surviving in NY.
There is another point of difference teahing style in class in NY and my country. In korea, most of my english teacher taught English to student just about grammer. Because, students studied english just for a good grade in there class not for improving english skills. Most of teachers demanded that we memorize words and phrasal vervs. But, herhe in NY, teacher ant me doing positive action in learning English. It means that we don't need to be shy speaking english. I am a foreiner, so, it is a matter of course that we are not in good speaking english.
At last, there are diffrent from learning style in NY and my country. I didn't know why i had to learn unuseful English skills in my country. Because, i learn just grammar continually. Now, in NY, i am ver glad to learn useful English in my everyday English. And i am trying out speaking English bravely to improving english skills. It is the best way to speaking English well.
In conclusion, i finally get an English inspiration. I have to learn English in NY foradvancing english skilland self-sonfidence. In past time, i was very shy but in NY I don't feel insulted by anybody. I surely succeed in learning english.
It has been more than twenty years from my first time to learning English words. When I was 13 years old in Taiwan, students usually started to learn English after they graduated from elementary school. We knew how to speak English with basic grammar and conversations in class in the following six years. Then I went to medical collage that used English text books as teaching materials. I still remembered the time after class; I tried to read the text book of Biology. What frustrated me was that there were plenty of vocabularies for me to check the meaning one by one. I would say that my reading skill became better and better because of reading those text books. But listening, speaking and writing skills just in a ordinary level. Of course, like other Taiwanese, I could speak simple conversations, not long dialogues, with foreign people. Fortunately, I came to NY last year with my husband who studies here for one year; I got a wonderful chance to improve my English skills in Teachers Collage of Columbia University. There are totally different learning environment, teaching style and learning style from Taiwan.
First, comparing the learning environment with two countries, I have to say that there are few opportunities to speak English in Taiwan. I didn’t have to talk others with English to buy something or try to understand what the meaning that they are talking to me. Although I would watch American comedy in my free time, I didn’t improve my listening skill well with the Chinese subtitles help. Things are so different in NY. I remembered I was still afraid of talking with others in first three months. After taking the CEP class in this year, I have to talk with my classmates with English to make friends. Speaking English became a spontaneous thing when you talk to your friends in here. The best environment for learning English is living with English native speaker all day, like here.
Second, I wanna discuss the different teaching style between Taiwan and NY. Teachers in Taiwan always ask me to memorize the vocabularies and grammars of text books. When we spoke English, we always considered the grammar and wondered the correction. As a result, we were afraid to use English in our daily life. After coming NY, I finally understood the meaning of language is to let others know what you want expression, even you used wrong grammar. Teachers in here always tried to encourage us to talk, and given us some activities to have fun. They said that the more you spoke, the more you learned.
Third, there is an obvious contrast with learning style. There were a lot of quizzes for testing vocabularies and grammars you remembered in my English class. Reading articles and picking out the correct multiple choice answer. Nobody cares about your speaking and listening skill. All we have to do were to memorize and pick out the answer. In CEP class, we need to talk others with our own sentence. I remembered my first presentation in CEP conversation class; I prepared lots of documents about health insurance in the world. It let me to use everything you learned in class, including grammars and vocabularies, listening ability, speaking skill. Talking my opinions and thoughts to classmates with English improved my speaking skill a lot. Right now, I can use English easily to communicate my ideas, feelings, thoughts to my friends.
In conclusion, there is no better place like NY to learning English for me. We can learn vocabularies when you see new words form TV or newspaper. Learning grammar and reading skill by your text books and practicing what you learned in your daily life. Listening and speaking skill could be better and better, if you go out talking with people. That’s why I can improve my English skill in a short time.
I started studying English in Brazil when I was 10. Actually I was taking english classes in elementary school (third grade), but it wasn't enough to learning well, then I made a decision to learning more. So my parents enrolled me in a private English school. I was used to take these classes twice a week for 90 minutes. It could be much better if I really had interest at learning it at all, but I also played tennis and I spent more time trainning on it.
Learning english in NY is not so hard, when I got here, people showed me a lot of places to learn english... there are so many schools (privates and publics) that offer english courses. In Brazil is really harder, you just can learn another english if you take classes in specialized places, and these ones are expensive. (incomplete)
I started to learn English when I was a child around my 9 years old but I never really kept learning because I was not interesting at all, this way I always got some trouble with all of my English teacher I finished my Hight School last year with a terrible English test score . Anyway I decided to came in New York for improve it.
When I arrived in NY everywhere I went I can found a lot of addvertissing about learn English in the city like private school or university with special programs like us. Also, I can just still in the street and listenning the American people spoke or just watch tv at my apartment in NY that really working believe me !!!The NY environment is very rich I mean we can see everywhere add or notice in the subway for instance. That way your mind keep read in English so after you thought and dreamed in English. When I watched an American movie or a show its very nice to choose different part of the United State where the movies from like this we can hear different accent and try to keep it.
In my city Paris I learned English at school because its an obligation to learn English around 10 years old and its a very important part of your study to know how to speak English but its only 2h per week at school and we have 35h per week for the others subjects. Also we can took some private lessons but its very expensive and for find an English book its very hard because we dont have bookshop with English book. So, we can learn English mainly at school.
In NY the English taught is so much better than my country because here firstable its was a real English speaker or American people. In classroom nobody else except you speak your language so when you did not get it something your teacher can not help you and gave to you the tranlation in French so the American teacher gave to you an another definition or a word similar.I need to be more attentive. Also the American teaching is very well because the teacher know witch grammar difficulties are because your teacher was a student too.
In Paris the English teaching is very different its like a lot of text annalyse like do a big braimstorming about it and just still around the vocabulary and the grammar in it. Also, I did not like because all the time we were learned a grammar point like the present perfec and the day after we were learned the past and came back at the present perfec the day after ...ridiculous I understood why I was so bad I was confusing grammar rules.
In NY the learning style was mainly in the street or when we spoke with our American friend or just when we needed ask someone for had something or just because we were lost in the street. Also watched tv its a very good thing to do for learn English.So here we were all the time in the English situation so we can not be shy and just speak like we know.
In Paris I was just in my English 2h daily in my classroom for used the English language so I didn't use a lot. I regret now.
In my point of view I think learn English in the United States or in United Kingdom its the best way ever for improve your English speaking because everything its in English around us. We think , we speak, we read, we write, we dream in English and eat too. So we can not ignore that because we live with. When we were in us country we were so lazy to speak an another language so personnaly I need to be here for really take this seriously and learn how I need to learn .
I believe that Advanced level 2 is getting as the form of improve my English skills. As a student of this course I consider that I feel well because I am improving my skills of communication.
ReplyDeleteToday is my first days of class and many students reported having difficulty with English it is their second language. The better way should be that I thought only in English but it is hard for me. I always think in Spanish and delay while translate in English. Sometime I feel frustrated but my mind imagines new change because I believe that language was a new thing in my life. I study Teacher College, Columbia University since Intermediate English. As a student of your class I hope has success in write and speaks English.
Hi, this is Risa. I am not goot at blogs and new things.I will put my homework here, becouse I couldn't find right place. I apoloogize this.See you on Tue.
ReplyDelete＜My English Learning＞
Risa Yamanaka
When I was a junior high and high school student, my school had English classes. But I wasn’t like English at all. My English class read a text book each one by one, and focused on grammar. Any classmates didn’t ask any questions to the teacher. It was so boring for me. So my English score was so bad. But I didn’t care that, I thought I will live in Japan, I don’t need English for my life. I tried to avoid from any English and I succeed for that. But now, I live in NYC and I have to use English everyday. Finally I couldn’t escape from English. No one knows our futures.
I came to CA three years ago, I spend ten months in CA. First time in CA, I didn’t understand anything and I couldn’t say anything eventhough easy greetings. I lived with an American family. It was hard time because I couldn’t understand what my host mother said.
I went English learning school. It was big different as Japanese English classes. In the class, the teacher spoke interesting story, we could speak own opinion and we could ask questions. We watched TV drama and I put some words fill in blank. TV drama was MONK. It is still my favorite. And the other English learning was watching movies in English. When I had some sad things, I kept my room with movie and potato chips. Few months later, I could understand English little by little. And I loved English learning style with my funny English teacher. And now I can contact with my classmate in English. However my own country’s English learning was so boring. It focuses on grammers and exam’s scores. Students never speak in English.
I can learn English from my usual life in NYC. On the store, I have to order in English. On the road, I have to ask how to go. In my country, people speak only Japanese. If one friend can speak English, the friend doesn’t speak English. Because in my country, we have a idion, “if the person have a great skill, the person must hide the skill. If the person shows the skill, other person will hit him/her.” So for me, learning English from usual life in my country is so hard.
I love American style English learning. I can learn from funny way. I don’t need focus on grammar too much. This English is more useful. Comunicate with other country person is my goal. I believe this is what we need.
I am from Taiwan, and actually have studied in English since my high school. In Taiwan teachers usually concentrate reading and grammar more than listening and speaking. Even though I had studied English for several years, I still had the hard time to talk with people in English. Therefore, I decided to come to the States to rebuild up my ability of English.
ReplyDeleteWhen I arrive to America I was stressed out that no one could speak Mandarin to me and I needed to ask helps and solve problems by English. But, it really pushed me to improve on my English, especially speaking. In Taiwan, apparently the only time I spoke English is in classroom. It was not part of daily life, and it was so forgettable for me.
Just like I mentioned above, teachers in my country loved to teach us grammar, reading and writing. The most main reason was to help us to prepare the college entrance test. Otherwise, I like the teaching style here. Instead of reading textbook and correct grammar error, teachers encourage students to speak and interact with other classmates.
In Taiwan I usually stayed at home or library to study English and prepare tests. It was difficult to learn something without using it. So I often felt frustrated because of my unsatisfied grade. In New York I tried to find more opportunities to talk with people and practice my speaking. I really like to hang out with new friends and we can chat in English. I really enjoy my new learning method.
Apparently, I prefer learning English in America. I can not only study it but also meet different people around the world by speaking English.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi, this is Sonia from China. I started to learn English from my junior high school till college. At the beginning usually we have 6hrs studying a week at that time. It is the British English. Our English teacher taught us lots of grammar and reading skills. We also took much time on listening. Do you ever hear a old music player called "Walkman"? It has to play tapes. It was so popular at that time at my junior high school because it seemed almost everyone need a "walkman" to do English listening practice. I owned one too, but only for the music. For me, music was much easier than English studying. Anyway, we had no chance to speak English with the other people.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, our English text book is much funnier. We started to switch to American English. It introduced the American travel and
culture. We took more than 1o hours every week to learn English. But still we have no chance to speak, just sitting there listening to the teacher carefully. Most of us can read and write, some can listen, but little can speak. Maybe because of shyness, maybe because there is no one we can talk with. They can talk in Chinese fluently so they don’t want to try to use a hard second language.
In college, we still had English class, but it is only 2 hours a week, and the teacher didn’t teach anything new. It was the most boring time in my life. Actually I like English Studying, but it frustrated me in college. So i tried the another way to learn. I took part in the English Corner Group. There were many foreign volunteer there to teach us how to speak. They encouraged us to speak, to talk anything we want. There is no rules. At the first time, I opened my mouth to speak out the first sentence," It is a raining day."
After that, I came here in New York. All the people speak English here. I found they spoke too fast, more new words, more new phrases. I noticed my English need to improve in a American way. So I took the ESL class.
The class is much smaller here, less than 20 people in a class. So we can remember each other's names easier and the teacher can pay more time on every classmate. The teacher’s speaking English is obviously much better than all my teachers in China. I enjoyed listening to the teacher's fluently speaking. Most of importance, teachers in NY always give us chance to speak. We can talk with the other country's people in English, and only in English, otherwise we cant understand each other.
All in all, i love the English class here. Thank you, teachers.I hope i can improve my English skill and communicate with the other people fluently in life and in work.
My English Learning
ReplyDeleteWhen I came to New York from Peru, it was as difficult to communicate or to understand English because I never spoke English. The reason I speak Spanish is because it is my first language. I began searching places where English was taught. I also take class in La Guardia Community College then, changed to Teachers College.
First, the environments were comfortable, but, the disadvantage of La Guardia was that the majority of the students were Latinos and spoke Spanish as their native language. Teachers College had less Spanish students, and for this reason it was facile for me to speak English.
The advantage of La Guardia Community College was that it permits students to use computers as another learning technique. Students would use computers in a specific class called the computer room. Teaching College only allowed computer use after classes in the Library.
La Guardia Community College and Teachers College of University both taught English but have different learning levels. Similarly, college allows students to learn by giving homework, so that students practice their skills at home. La Guardia has a tutoring department where you can go and chose the schedule. Also you can go with your homework and they explain your mistakes to and they tell you how to fix them. In La Guardia, their focus is less on grammar, they focus on the basics. In Teachers College, it is the opposite of La Guardia. Teachers College focuses on grammar and in four areas: writing, listening, pronunciation, and speaking. La Guardia Community College allows students to bring a dictionary in to classes and also during tests. Teachers College does not permit the use of a dictionary when a test is being taken. La Guardia College has 28 students and Teachers College has 15 in each class.
Both colleges assign projects in a PowerPoint and then allow students to present it out loud in class. This allows for oral presentation to improve. La Guardia gives group projects and Teachers are individual. I believe that individual projects are better because students learn more things and new vocabulary and no one takes credit for undone work. Both colleges have different learning styles but they also have their semblances.
As a student of who has experienced both, I prefer Teachers College because I have improved more with Teachers College and my English is keener. I hope to keep improving my English to can communicate better with others.
In my case I am a Spanish speaker, like Luz, and I had never studied English before coming to NY because when I was younger I studied French at school but never English.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I am learning English since last year. When I arrived here in September 2008 I didn't know how to say anything and my first goal was to take English classes. I started to go to "New York Language Center" at 100th street and Broadway avenue. I went there for 4 months and I think I learned a lot but there were many many Spanish speakers and we spoke in Spanish whenever we could and I decided to change because I didn't improve as fast as I wanted. And I knew CEP so I got to come here.
In my opinion the big difference between studying English in NY or in your own country is about the speaking part. In Spain (in my case about French or about the English my kids learned there) the teacher spends all the time focusing in grammar. I think it is really important but in Spain the teacher teaches English grammar talking in Spanish. This is the big difference, here we learn and listen to English grammar IN ENGLISH.
In any case the best way to learn English is first at all, GO to an English speaking country, so that you are not able to speak your own language and you are forced to try to little by little listen, understand and speak English. Another way is to try to do everything in English: listen to the radio, watch TV, go shopping, meet people, go to the class... all in English.
If I had to value my English learned until now I am really proud of myself and I was able to move to NY but I had never thought that there were so many people in this city who spoke Spanish!
Shizuka KAMAGA
ReplyDelete‘Language is an Art!’ my English teacher says. Of course language has basic rule such as a grammar, but there are exceptions every time and it can change as our life style. I like her opinion and agree with her. But if I heard it when I was a high school student, I couldn’t understand her idea. My English learning style in NY helps me to figure out what she says. That means the way to learn English has changed since I had come to NY.
First, learning environment is completely different between Japan and NY. As you know, Japan is an island country. It was difficult to come into Japan for foreigners in the old days. Even in globalization era, still now the government limits the number of immigrants and foreigners and we don’t see foreigners so much in Japan. On the other hand, NY is quite diverse. I can hear people speaking English, Spanish, French, Chinese or whatever. And NYC, some churches or some organizations provide many ESL classes which are comparatively cheep. In Japan we have to pay so much money to take the English class.
Secondly, teaching style is also distinct. I started studying English when I was a 12-year-old junior high school student. All my English teachers were Japanese until I went to university. They taught me English in Japanese. I mostly practiced grammar and reading and sometimes writing instead of listening and speaking. In NY, all my teachers teach me English in English even if they are Japanese. Actually I sometimes frustrated when I cannot understand the meaning though they expounded. I need time to make sense when I come across an English word with no Japanese equivalent.
Third, my learning style has changed. In NY I don’t use dictionary so much and don’t translate English into Japanese so much. I always try to think about topics in English. But in Japan many students, including me, use dictionary and look up many words. And then I just make myself feel smart by this way.
I prefer today’s style because now I enjoy learning English without any pressure and I want to focus to brush up listening skill and speaking skill. My purpose is that I can make friends form other countries and can enjoy my life in NY with my English. In this reason I prefer learning English in NY, but I feel it’s not enough. I still don’t have any idea what is a best way to improve on my English.
{My English learning}
ReplyDelete“How many years have I been studying English?” I always repeated this question in my heart, because I was afraid of using my English when I tried to use it, although I had been studying English more than six years from the elementary school to the high school in my country so far. However, recently after my studying in here for one year, I feel that the fear almost got away from me. It is obvious that there were some huge differences between the six years and the one-year. I think it must be the key to make up for the week point of our study.
First of all, I can say that the biggest difference was environment to study. In NY, each of us knows that basically our community is composed of English speakers and we need to think of almost everything in English whatever we want. It seems like there is no line between our study and our daily life, so using English was able to become ordinary thing. On the other hand, in my country, using English was still unusual thing. We needed to study English, though we did not know how and when we can use it. It was like a marathon race that there are no audience and goal. It was an obvious fact that the line that divided our study and ordinary life existed on us.
Secondly, how about the teaching style? It was also completely different. In NY, of course teachers teach us in English but Japanese teachers were teaching English in Japanese in Japan. Actually, I did not understand how much is it important to pay attention to the accent and rhythm to make communication in English. As far as I can remember, we did not care of the oral communication in the classes. Most of times we focused on our textbook and basic grammars, because it was the most important things for examination. Also, in my case, our teacher who was in our high school was upset when her students made mistake with her question. So we were thinking that making mistake was not allowed and we thought that we must use perfect English.
Therefore, there are many differences, and I think it affected to our learning style. In short, my learning English was on the defensive in my country. Our teachers, textbook and a collection of problems prepared a lot of exercises and what did we have to do was just answer it. We did not need to think of our opinion and describe something with our words. In contrast, now, we are required to think of our opinion and make our own word like this article. In this case we need to be offensive parson in our study. Sometimes it is hard, however, I know that it should be a big help of us.
Thus, actually, as I mentioned before there are many huge differences between the six years in my country and the one-year in NY. I would not say which one is the best for me. I know there are many advantages our study in NY though, it is true my study in Japan composed my basic English and actually it works. What I would say is the most important things are not only compare their differences but also pick up the advantages and trying to make use of it.
Misuzu
ReplyDeleteMay 31,2010
I had studied English for 10 years at school from junior high school to university when I was a student. I was good at studying English at school and it was my favorite subject. When I was a freshman at university, I attended language school in England for a month. Since that was the first trip abroad and the first foreign culture, I remember that I was very impressed by everything I came across. And at the same time, I found out that speaking English fluently is very important and I really hoped to improve on English. However, its stay was just only for a month, and I had a few classes to improve my speaking skill in university, my English learning history finished by halves. After I graduated from university, I worked for five years. During the five years, I had no chance at all to speak English, was unable to go abroad to take a long vacation. I was in a dilemma what to do about English.
First, I think NY is far better environment than Japan to learn English. In Japan, at junior high school and high school, English is a compulsory subject. Almost all of the university required us to take an English class. Some people are attending English school to brush up their skills. Recently, English has become compulsory subject even in elementary school. Meanwhile in NY, melting pot, various languages are spoken by various people. However, those who speak English are still majority. In addition, for example, in TV, advertisements and so on, we can see and hear English whenever we want. We can learn English everywhere in NY.
Second, as for teaching style, I think there are both advantages and disadvantages in each country. In Japanese classroom, with textbooks and workbooks using, reading English and translating it into Japanese correctly and acquiring correct grammar are highly required. We cannot study English without using dictionary. Our teacher often said that if you come across the words you never know, look up dictionary on the spot. English education focuses on teaching reading and writing. Listening is also important because there are listening questions in high school and university entrance exams. But many people tend to look on the exam as an only goal to improve listening skills. In my experience, there is a few class to learn speaking skill. But now English education is gradually revised upward, Japan tries to focus on speaking skills. On the other hand, I think NY teaching style focuses on speaking. By speaking a lot I may have English on the brain. When I come across the words I never know, I have to guess by context instead of using dictionary. Although I can make myself understood in broken English, I’d like to learn grammar correctly and acquire correct pronunciation, so please feel free to point out my mistakes.
Third, as for learning style, I think NY is better than Japan. Because in Japan, no English-speaking people around, there is no way but to study school textbooks. Looking up the dictionary, people often think it essential way to learn correct grammar and solve such questions as we see in the exam at school. Those who like studying English brush up their English in their own way by watching movies, CNN or so, making foreign friends living in Japan. Some people study English hard by attending English class after work because they must use it at work. On the other hand, in NY, every time you walk the street, take subways, turn on TV, you can hear English so naturally. In NY, we can learn English with our favorite style. Now I learn English by watching TV or movies I’m really interested in.
ReplyDeleteFinally, take all things into consideration, I do believe NY is well equipped environment, so is suitable situation for me. If I were in Japan, there would be no need for me to take pains to speak English, since there is no need to speak English. However, in NY, English is very essential in daily life, that situation makes my motivation to learn very high. Therefore I am eager to improve on my English as much as possible and learn English with a lot of fun while I’m in NY.
There is a very humurous story in my first English experience. When I was 9 years old, I went to a computer institute. that time, computer skill is an inportant potential development, so, I had to learn to computer skill. But, I didn't know anything about English language even though English alphabet. That is the beginning of learning English.
ReplyDeleteThere are diffrent learning environment between NY and my county Korea. In my country, there was a few opportunity to speak English at daily life. And, we were shy to speak English with foreiner lisk an English native speaker. Now, I have to speak English for daily life and also I have to leatn English for surviving in NY.
There is another point of difference teahing style in class in NY and my country. In korea, most of my english teacher taught English to student just about grammer. Because, students studied english just for a good grade in there class not for improving english skills. Most of teachers demanded that we memorize words and phrasal vervs. But, herhe in NY, teacher ant me doing positive action in learning English. It means that we don't need to be shy speaking english. I am a foreiner, so, it is a matter of course that we are not in good speaking english.
At last, there are diffrent from learning style in NY and my country. I didn't know why i had to learn unuseful English skills in my country. Because, i learn just grammar continually. Now, in NY, i am ver glad to learn useful English in my everyday English. And i am trying out speaking English bravely to improving english skills. It is the best way to speaking English well.
In conclusion, i finally get an English inspiration. I have to learn English in NY foradvancing english skilland self-sonfidence. In past time, i was very shy but in NY I don't feel insulted by anybody. I surely succeed in learning english.
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ReplyDeleteIt has been more than twenty years from my first time to learning English words. When I was 13 years old in Taiwan, students usually started to learn English after they graduated from elementary school. We knew how to speak English with basic grammar and conversations in class in the following six years. Then I went to medical collage that used English text books as teaching materials. I still remembered the time after class; I tried to read the text book of Biology. What frustrated me was that there were plenty of vocabularies for me to check the meaning one by one. I would say that my reading skill became better and better because of reading those text books. But listening, speaking and writing skills just in a ordinary level. Of course, like other Taiwanese, I could speak simple conversations, not long dialogues, with foreign people. Fortunately, I came to NY last year with my husband who studies here for one year; I got a wonderful chance to improve my English skills in Teachers Collage of Columbia University. There are totally different learning environment, teaching style and learning style from Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteFirst, comparing the learning environment with two countries, I have to say that there are few opportunities to speak English in Taiwan. I didn’t have to talk others with English to buy something or try to understand what the meaning that they are talking to me. Although I would watch American comedy in my free time, I didn’t improve my listening skill well with the Chinese subtitles help. Things are so different in NY. I remembered I was still afraid of talking with others in first three months. After taking the CEP class in this year, I have to talk with my classmates with English to make friends. Speaking English became a spontaneous thing when you talk to your friends in here. The best environment for learning English is living with English native speaker all day, like here.
Second, I wanna discuss the different teaching style between Taiwan and NY. Teachers in Taiwan always ask me to memorize the vocabularies and grammars of text books. When we spoke English, we always considered the grammar and wondered the correction. As a result, we were afraid to use English in our daily life. After coming NY, I finally understood the meaning of language is to let others know what you want expression, even you used wrong grammar. Teachers in here always tried to encourage us to talk, and given us some activities to have fun. They said that the more you spoke, the more you learned.
Third, there is an obvious contrast with learning style. There were a lot of quizzes for testing vocabularies and grammars you remembered in my English class. Reading articles and picking out the correct multiple choice answer. Nobody cares about your speaking and listening skill. All we have to do were to memorize and pick out the answer. In CEP class, we need to talk others with our own sentence. I remembered my first presentation in CEP conversation class; I prepared lots of documents about health insurance in the world. It let me to use everything you learned in class, including grammars and vocabularies, listening ability, speaking skill. Talking my opinions and thoughts to classmates with English improved my speaking skill a lot. Right now, I can use English easily to communicate my ideas, feelings, thoughts to my friends.
In conclusion, there is no better place like NY to learning English for me. We can learn vocabularies when you see new words form TV or newspaper. Learning grammar and reading skill by your text books and practicing what you learned in your daily life. Listening and speaking skill could be better and better, if you go out talking with people. That’s why I can improve my English skill in a short time.
I started studying English in Brazil when I was 10. Actually I was taking english classes in elementary school (third grade), but it wasn't enough to learning well, then I made a decision to learning more. So my parents enrolled me in a private English school. I was used to take these classes twice a week for 90 minutes. It could be much better if I really had interest at learning it at all, but I also played tennis and I spent more time trainning on it.
ReplyDeleteLearning english in NY is not so hard, when I got here, people showed me a lot of places to learn english... there are so many schools (privates and publics) that offer english courses. In Brazil is really harder, you just can learn another english if you take classes in specialized places, and these ones are expensive. (incomplete)
My English Learning ...
ReplyDeleteI started to learn English when I was a child around my 9 years old but I never really kept learning because I was not interesting at all, this way I always got some trouble with all of my English teacher I finished my Hight School last year with a terrible English test score . Anyway I decided to came in New York for improve it.
When I arrived in NY everywhere I went I can found a lot of addvertissing about learn English in the city like private school or university with special programs like us. Also, I can just still in the street and listenning the American people spoke or just watch tv at my apartment in NY that really working believe me !!!The NY environment is very rich I mean we can see everywhere add or notice in the subway for instance. That way your mind keep read in English so after you thought and dreamed in English. When I watched an American movie or a show its very nice to choose different part of the United State where the movies from like this we can hear different accent and try to keep it.
In my city Paris I learned English at school because its an obligation to learn English around 10 years old and its a very important part of your study to know how to speak English but its only 2h per week at school and we have 35h per week for the others subjects. Also we can took some private lessons but its very expensive and for find an English book its very hard because we dont have bookshop with English book. So, we can learn English mainly at school.
In NY the English taught is so much better than my country because here firstable its was a real English speaker or American people. In classroom nobody else except you speak your language so when you did not get it something your teacher can not help you and gave to you the tranlation in French so the American teacher gave to you an another definition or a word similar.I need to be more attentive. Also the American teaching is very well because the teacher know witch grammar difficulties are because your teacher was a student too.
In Paris the English teaching is very different its like a lot of text annalyse like do a big braimstorming about it and just still around the vocabulary and the grammar in it. Also, I did not like because all the time we were learned a grammar point like the present perfec and the day after we were learned the past and came back at the present perfec the day after ...ridiculous I understood why I was so bad I was confusing grammar rules.
In NY the learning style was mainly in the street or when we spoke with our American friend or just when we needed ask someone for had something or just because we were lost in the street. Also watched tv its a very good thing to do for learn English.So here we were all the time in the English situation so we can not be shy and just speak like we know.
In Paris I was just in my English 2h daily in my classroom for used the English language so I didn't use a lot. I regret now.
In my point of view I think learn English in the United States or in United Kingdom its the best way ever for improve your English speaking because everything its in English around us. We think , we speak, we read, we write, we dream in English and eat too. So we can not ignore that because we live with. When we were in us country we were so lazy to speak an another language so personnaly I need to be here for really take this seriously and learn how I need to learn .