Teaching chicks to fly
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By Lee Eung-tae
Nowadays, most high school students spend huge amounts of time studying English. Indeed, the amount of money, not to mention, time and effort poured in to enhance English fluency is astronomical.
However, considering their enormous efforts, the fluency of most students doesn’t seem to improve proportionately, especially in terms of writing skills. Whence this ironic situation? Judging from my teaching experience, the main reason lies in our reading-centered English classes targeting the college entrance exam.
As this exam involves mostly reading comprehension, writing skills have largely been ignored. This imbalance has produced many students whose English is mediocre at best. Unlike reading, writing is a productive skill needing habitual cognitive thinking. If students concentrate only on reading, they can hardly be expected to learn how to express opinions.
Moreover, a lack of critical thinking can also be blamed on our reading-centered classes which frequently bore students to death. Instead of fostering creativity, these passive classes suppress its growth. But I don’t wish to idly take a backseat, engage in a blame game and bemoan the minuses of reading-centered classes.
Creativity in language belongs to a certain stage in intellectual growth, which I think flourishes in adolescence. So if you miss the chance at that age, you are not likely to become a good English writer. Believing this, as an English teacher I felt obligated to inspire my students to enhance their creativity by expressing their opinions in English.
So, I organized an English newspaper publishing club this semester. At first, in order to motivate students to join, I published a wanted ad for English reporters. To my great surprise many students joined the club, their eyes twinkling with expectation.
After organizing our club, we started writing classes in a computer room where all the members could write. Ostensibly, they were supposed to write an article for the school newspaper. So, to this end, they had to learn how to write an article or English essay, which motivated them to have some passion for writing.
My experience of submitting English essays to The Korea Times greatly helped me in teaching them how to write an English essay. My intention was to help them develop the habit of expressing their opinions in English, and thus enhance their writing skills. The results were beyond my greatest expectations. While expressing their opinions on given topics, their critical as well as creative abilities naturally coalesced.
During the class, I taught them the whole process of writing an essay from outline to review. Before writing, I emphasized the importance of constructing an outline through brainstorming by likening it to the design of a house. In the course of the writing practice, I advised them to use Microsoft Word which contains spelling and grammar checks.
As a result, even though their words and sentences were not refined, most of them showed great potential. After a couple of weeks of practicing, we began to write actual newspaper articles on significant issues in our society such as school violence and teenage suicide. While observing them writing on their own with their friends, I felt inexpressible fulfillment and pleasure.
In hindsight, I realized they had been thirsty for the joy of writing. Their wings of creativity had grown but no one had taught them how to fly, let alone demonstrated it. So they were on the verge of ending up as impaired birds, just like chickens. The English learning environment in Korea is still as barren as a desert. Trapped in the quest for a high score in the college entrance exam, both students and teachers are obsessed with enhancing reading ability, neglecting the creative skill of writing.
Despite this dire situation, it is our solemn responsibility to help students fly high and enjoy creative pleasures. To this end, I think, we English teachers should ourselves first learn to fly high by writing in English a habit.
If we do not know how to fly and haven’t experienced the joys of the fantastic world of creativity, how can we teach students to fly?
The writer is an English teacher at Gimhae Girls' High School in South Gyeongsang Province. His email address is eungtae@gmail.com.