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Message board > Where and how did you learn English? continued
Where and how did you learn English? continued
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edrodmedina
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Where and how did you learn English? continued
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Thank you all for sharing your stories. I would like to continue this topic if it is alright with the rest of the members of this forum. It is interesting to find out that many of the �native� speakers had to learn English like most of us did. It is interesting to note how much the media, television, movies and now the Internet has played in many of us learning English. A common thread seems to be that someone shared their passion for the language with us and/or our own desire to learn. Please if you would like to share your story with us please do so. Let us see a little bit more of the man behind the curtain. I�m looking forward to reading more stories. The links below are to the previous responses.
http://www.eslprintables.com/forum/topic.asp?id=28831
http://www.eslprintables.com/forum/topic.asp?id=28817 |
8 Jun 2011
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DedicatedTeacher
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Hi there,
I �d like to share my story  . Nothing special but just for the record  .
I started learning English in Grade 4, and it was basically the alphabets, numbers, some action verbs.. with handwriting practice. In the upper grades, the English curriculum was divided mainly on reading comprehension, grammar, and writing (composition).
We didn �t really learn the reading skill, it was more like memorizing vocabulary sight. There were no phonics approach back then. A passage we hear it once from the teacher, then couple of students will read it and finally we discuss the meaning of some difficult words. We were encouraged to look up the meanings in English and keep a log. The final exam, would include two passages, one seen and the other was unseen, with comprehension questions.. And there was a silly section I hate in the exams ><" .. We had to memorize questions and their answers from every reading comprehension passage in the book!! In the mid and final exam, we would have 15 question and we would choose 10 ?!
The grammar rules, were taught to us explicitly and we had to memorize them. We would be tested orally on each rule. I remember when we would have a class when we would go over the grammar section on the Workbook. The teacher would ask individual students to choose the correct answer and explain why she chose it. (Of course, talking about the grammar rule in that question). The grammar section of the exam would be a multiple choice of various grammar rules.. No much of grammar in context!
The writing skill as well wasn �t taught.. I had never heard of the writing stages until I joined the B.ED programme (-_-") .. The teacher would write a model paragraph and we should copy it. For the exams, we had to memorize those paragraphs to jot one of them down. Thanks to Allah, I had the ability to translate my thoughts into English..
What helped my English when I was in high school was some Interactive Games on the computer. They are games based on reading and writing only. no visual aids. I think they are programmed using the Dos!! maybe.. They have great stories of a person isolated in an island or trapped in a mansion and you need to save him.. I learnt at that time some vocabulary like (examine, search, ..inventory..)
In college, I picked up the habit of reading novels, stories in English and listening to British broadcasts .. until now, I still keep my English input through reading and listening. ^^,
That �s a sum up of my generation typical experience of learning English
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8 Jun 2011
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