ESL Blogs

As per Teacher Tara's recommendation, who has encouraged me to move this writing of mine from the ‘comment’ to my Blog Post. As I wrote especially for the person who made her interest on her blog post for everyone in MyEC, so here it is as below;

Firstly, I would like to tell you all, that I have earnestly & truly confronted some dilemmas myself due to having improved my English much lesser than what I expected and something like staying in the very same level for a long time without any future improvement, just like being frustrated in my determined ambition. Hence, that’s why I’ve actually joined in My English Club to improve my English better & fluently in writing & speaking with a full of comprehended knowledge within the English language & skills, just like a native speaker.

So this following issue was recently brought up and turned into my attention as to think through and to readjust once more, when I corresponded with one of my recent friends who has become my new friend as soon as I joined here in MyEC at the early stage (going back to the early February this year), and left a message for me very first. So I would like to share with you, and I will be most grateful if you would kindly write any comment with your personal opinions or any point of your own views as well. I would like to see anything in everything if possible, whether you agree or disagree with me; -

In fact, we all are trying to learn & improve our English better, aren’t we? Many people believe that the one to one or group conversations may give more opportunities to improve better English, but personally I don’t agree to it. All children from their infant childhood, they objectively learn the language with natural inborn & learning ability by ear, but the grown people have neither the natural learning ears like babies, nor the capabilities to learn the language objectively with the certain comprehension in all its aspect (Certainly it wouldn’t be natural in learning process). This will be very limited ways of learning in process and the learning progress will be very slow in understanding if you haven’t learned English properly with the basic learning process from the scratch. Hence, they must be only in capability of learning the language subjectively starting from the grammars by the books, or by looking at the dictionaries, or by the English teachers. Honestly, I don’t know what the Language scholars talk about this but this is what I have experienced & understood so far.

To a certain extent or degree, I agree to it. So I think that talking on the phone or voice chatting or group talking will be greatly helpful only for those who are aiming to improve their speech in speaking. Nevertheless, I think that this won’t make you improved your English in writing dramatically. Improving Writing & Speaking is totally consisted of two different things in place as considering certain questions in all its aspects. To improve your English vocabularies in speaking is very limited but for a certain degree, of course, you will definitely remember and gradually use certain words in speaking, hence it is essential & absolutely necessary that you need to practice daily how to speak and how to choose the right words in conversation, more & more. These will, that is, initially improve your English in progress. To conclude my opinion right now, writing is like a foundation or a principle. If this basic foundation (as a principle, basic grammar, speech pattern, dialogues & so on) of your writing ability & standard level is well constructed, your speech in speaking will automatically come out with a right manner and good forms in respect, and this may naturally enable you to express yourself certainly with the better English in conversation.

Please don’t get me wrong. English is not my first language at all and I have actually made so many mistakes, maybe grammatically incorrect or not using with the suitable (or correct) words for the right expression.

When you are having a private conversation with someone on the phone(or man to man) or whatever the communication channels you are using in voice, people generally do not correct your mistakes and you yourself don’t realize what you make mistakes in speaking either. Hence, you are hardly learning & improving your second language in comprehension, and you will have same mistakes again & again without any recognition of mistakes in error. Even the MSN messenger chatting in writing is almost identical with the voice chatting (but it will be slightly better because it gives you more time to think & to be able to correct yourself whilst typing). And they used to always be a short & simple note just like a memo (as a broken English writing). However, you may be able to certainly or possibly recognize at least some mistakes either when you write or when you read it again, and people may be kindly enough to correct your mistakes if you don’t mind it or you ask for it, so it is possible and there will be a great potential that you can improve your English in writing and also in speaking afterwards.

In fact I’ve never ever written such long messages in my entire life until just before I joined in My English Club and I have communicated more with the members in e-mail system or other e-mails (Google mail / yahoo mail / hotmail). So I have been beginning to write longer messages by all means, expressing myself anything in everything as exposing myself what impelled me to thus boldly. Whether I do correctly in the right direction or not, this is another home work for me to resolve myself, but I’ve been so wonderful that I am able to at least write longer messages than before. Please don’t misunderstand me. Believe or not, frankly, I am trying neither to impress all of you (If I intended, what benefits & advantages I obtained? It’s absolutely nothing at all!), nor to express thus myself in boasting but I hope that you will take it as my personal testimony. It’s up to you how you would observe this principle of how to learn English fundamentally in a conservative way, but this is what I’ve learned and improved my English dramatically.

However, many people such as Chinese, Japanese & Korean (or somewhere from Far East) have been learning English from the early youth at the school but only grammar not spoken English. We used to have had the very same problems in Korea as well, and I was one of them whose have had 'Dumb English' as they called. I used to have studied in English from my junior school until the university, and then I came to UK to study further educations. At that time I couldn't even say 'Hello' to anybody, and I consistently worried about me (myself) and kept thinking ‘what am I going to do with me now?’ So I know their situation very well, but still they cannot improve their English by the chatting/speaking/listening only. They have a preconception or a fear of English, so they should overcome against these hindrances by learning English again from the scratch, because what they learned their English must have been incorrect. Basically, they have to learn English from ABCD Alphabets first, because their pronunciations must be terrible (if I may say). They should be able to have at least similar English pronunciations in speaking (it has to be as closer as possible, so you need to practice), otherwise, their listening comprehension can neither be improved nor in speaking. You know, I used to be like that, so I had to correct myself in my early day in UK and I have been learning & trying to improve my English from the scratch since then.

I totally understand what other peoples have really concerned about, but their problems are not directly related to my above opinion. When I say writing practice is more helpful than speech practice, I mean that communicating letters/messages (men to men, one by one) just like conversational writings, but not writing essays or reports, because these conversational writing practices give you more time to think through and make you enabled to use the right vocabularies in writings, then later, you could be surprisingly & apparently able to have a proper conversation with anyone in English. This is basically how to improve your English better, and the top of this you can now practice your English in speaking, then gradually you will see the future improvement in writing & speaking with a great potentiality.