When I visited Singapore a few years back, I took buses to get around. One time, as I was getting off the bus, the bus driver closed the door before I was able to get off, so I yelled to the driver, "(Mun yoro juseyo) !" and saw the passengers look at me confusedly. I immediately said, "Para!" then paused, then yelled in English, "Open the door, please!" Finally, the bus driver opened it and let me go. As soon as I was out, I started laughing. I realized I only speak Korean and Filipino on a bus hence my brain automatically responded that way.

Another story was when I was taking driving lessons to get my driver's license in Korea. I passed the written test with flying colors. However, the actual driving lessons were so nerve-wracking. My driving instructors did not speak English and I was not familiar with driving terminologies yet. I knew it was critical as it was a matter of life and death being on the road. My instructor could only say, "Go!" and "Stop!" in English.One time during my driving lesson, as I was about to make a U turn up on a hill, the light turned red, and I went for the U turn, then my instructor yelled something! I panicked. I did not understand what he was saying and apparently, I moved the gear shift and the car started to move backwards down the hill towards a car behind us. I remember hearing loud honking. My instructor reacted quickly though and saved us both. That moment, I realized how my lack of Korean knowledge could cost our lives. So I religiously studied the Korean terms my instructor would tell me later. Anyhow, in the end, I passed the final driving test and got my license. :)

The story that I would like to talk about is how I lost my German skills in New Zealand..L

While I was in New Zealand, I took German class at school. Since I was not good at German because I studied German in Korea for German certificate exam, I was not good at speaking and vocabularies of German. I just knew some basic grammatical patterns or expressions that I had to practice for exam and the worse was that I almost forgot what I had learned when I arrived in New Zealand. Anyway, on the first day of the German class in New Zealand, I had to introduce myself in German to my classmates and I did. But after I did it, they asked my nationality. I felt weird because there were lots of racial discrimination to Koreans in New Zealand. Some of the students asked me whether I was from Germany because I was good at German pronunciation at that time. I thought that this happened because I told them my name as Catherine because most foreigners felt difficulties in pronouncing Jeong. They sometimes pronounce it as or . Making a mistake of thinking me as a German was weird because I know that I don`t look like German at all. When I answered that I was from Korea and they were really surprised because they have never thought about Korean people taking German class and even talking in German. From that moment, they started asking me IN ENGLISH NOT IN GERMAN about how long that I had learned German and how I could learn German. I think that since they were too curious about me, they could not stop letting themselves using English not German. They looked me like a weird and mysterious Asian creature of learning German and this made me so shy and stopped talking a lot during the class. I felt like I became a monkey in a zoo and this gave me tons of anxiety in that class. Therefore, I thought that I used English more than German (actually silence was the most) during that class or even I kept silent during the class. Since that German class was the only chance that I could use German in New Zealand, my German skills got lower and lower because of the lack of usage. After I stayed in New Zealand for about a year, I almost forgot German and on the last day of the class which was the exam day, I really got the bad grade in the German class and I almost forgot German. 

I think most of my experience as English learners is related to the difficulties I got through. When I went to Canada for one year in my college, the first time when I board on AirCanada was the starting point of my realization of the difference between classroom English and real world English as one of the languages in daily life. From in the airplane, I could not understand flight attendances question because her pronunciation of juice was quite different from the sound of the word juice I memorized! These difficulties from recognition of sounds had been fade when I lived there with the people and I got used to their personal pronunciations, but I still have the shocking memories as first impression of my aboard life.

 Also, I have had difficulties from understanding peoples talking in both situation when there are unknown words in their sentences or even when I can listen all the words in the sentences. I think I am still not used to listening complicated sentences or ungrammatical casual English so, I think I have to try more to improve my listening. 

I had negative experiences when I was in Adelaide. First was in the save the children as a volunteer. During break time, all volunteers had coffee time, having a chat one another. One woman told a story with her daughter and she said to use she was cross with her daughter, which I misunderstood and asked she is a Cristian, but she replied she was angry. Second was in a marker to buy a yogurt, but I forgot to ask a spoon to eat and I asked a cashier with /spun/ pronunciation. However, the cashier did not get what I said and repeated with different pronunciation without a long vowel with motion and finally she understood this with /spu:n/ in a correct way. What I understood was that long vowels make a big difference in conversation, which I did not much care about the length of vowels.

 Last summer, I tried to learn Japanese so I found a private tutor who mentioned about herself as being very skilled in that language and also being fully acknowledged of the language learning process. She was pretty good at Japanese herself from majoring in Japanese in her undergraduate for 4 years as well as belonging to the Interpretation Organization with her official certificate. At the beginning, of course, I didnt choose her for only these reasons but at least I thought she would be enough for teaching me Japanese because of all these positive accomplishments as being Korean herself into the expert in foreign language. So, we had a good start. But, as the classes went by, her kind of premature teaching skills really bothered me of learning the new concepts. There were some teaching behaviors which I felt uncomfortable with her in the class as a language learner myself. 

  First, she used only the simple kind of course book for the beginners, not providing me with any of outer resources, which was led me to feel very bored and at times less confident because these limited language input was felt like forcing me to memorize all these patterns and having kind of duties to remember all those unfamiliar patterns as soon as possible for the better class atmosphere. Second, her lack of understanding the beginners characteristics at times made me feel very guilty myself of not  being smart enough to know both what shes taught and even the extra information beyond her teaching. During the class, emotionally she was easily expressed her unpleasant feelings whenever I couldnt remember the patterns we had dealt with previous lessons. These kinds of her reactions often made me so small and at times led me to skip the class if I couldnt have some time to review the previous lessons. I was just afraid of being blame of not being interested in Japanese out of the class, and even blaming for my bad memory ability. What she was argued of was just I had less passion on learning Japanese, but I wasnt. 

In my opinion, it would have been better if she understand the students current characteristics and also providing some more positive and warmer atmosphere since the language learning is not easy and simple process, and it also requires long period time and  consistent efforts. And, the researching and studying regarding the target language learning to provide students with the stable processes of learning it so that the class would be operated based on the well-designed teaching methodology not only depending on the just a single course book. Lastly, rather just blaming of students incorporated attitude with her teaching process, it would be better to vary the materials for the busy adult learners using potable but useful tools to keep on being exposed to that language.

It's been 14 years since I left French studies in high school. I used it a semester or two in college for a couple courses, but my language skills decreased. To be honest, I don't have a very high achieving goal or poignant mistake as I shied from speaking freely. I had taken 4 years of French in high school and was very good at remembering vocabulary and grammar. I didn't develop the confidence to make mistakes until much later into college. So for French, when I spoke I would strive for very clear pronunciation and would only speak after long pauses of forming perfectly structured utterances, for example, using the subjunctive. I was always good at remembering the irregular forms of verbs as well.

One incident I remember in either my third or fourth year is when our small class of about 15 included some students a year younger. One student was super bold about speaking and she always pronounced one word differently. So when I spoke one time in class, I used her pronunciation and the teacher corrected me and never her. It was interesting. I assumed the teacher gave up on the confident girl but knew that my pronunciation was more accurate and expected me to stay at the "proper" level of pronunciation. The utterance was "Je ne" before negating something. I would blend the sounds and the confident girl would say them separately.

One proud moment was when I had to quickly change from reciting a poem to responding to an impromptu at a language festival. I hated impromptus as I mentioned earlier that I only spoke after perfectly translating my ideas into well groomed French utterances. When it came time to pick my topic at the language festival in front of three judges I tried my best. I was super nervous though. I ended up getting a blue ribbon and kind of expected it because my French grades were always high. Unfortunately, when I got my score results...I only got a Superior because one judge gave me a score with a .5 ending. The .5 rounded me up to the superior category! Yikes. 

I would have liked to have my vocabulary knowledge when I got to college to use for my French conversation class. I had much more confidence to speak and knew the slots to fill in the types of words for my grammatically correct sentences. I was surprised that my teacher could recognize that I was lacking vocabulary knowledge rather than grammar just from my trying in class. I was always embarrassed that I sounded dumber than I could potentially be. So it was a relief that the teacher saw that I had good knowledge...but again, I couldn't speak well for a lack of vocabulary. Unlike in high school, I had all the right parts to speaking well but lacked the confidence to make mistakes and move on.  That's why I like the idea of speaking to communicate and not worry about perfectly grammatical utterances. 

I did not have opportunities to speak English before I went to Canada, so I din't really think about how to use English although I started learning English since I was 10 years old. However, I started to have difficulties in using English right after I arrived in Canada. When I was in Canada, I especially struggled with dealing with Yes/No answering for a while. I lived in dormitory of university, so students from different countries were the first people I met in Canada. At the first night of the day, friends and I went out for dinner and we shared some personal background information to get to know each other. One of friends asked You hadnt been abroad before Canada, right? and I answered Yes. However, he asked me back Which country did you go?, so I said uhmmmI had never been to.. I was so confused at that time and I didnt know how to answer to this type of questions. One day, I went to Toronto for a short trip and my friend and I went to Niagara falls. This was the time I was getting used to that type of questions. We cruised around the Falls and a family asked me to take a photo of them. They asked me Would you mind if you take a photo of us? and I said YES ^^. When I saw his face, he seemed so confused for something and I was smiling as I was stretching out to his camera. However, he seemed to understand what I meant because I was reaching to him, but I still didn't notice mistakes I made at that time because I did not really attend to his reaction. The problem was that I did not notice my mistake till I attended to my Canadian friends reaction to the questions, so I think that I might make the same mistakes many times after. Hence, I realized that English speaking would be improved as we use English. 

For me, I was born and raised all my life up in Indonesia until I entered university in Korea. Being raised up in a Korean household and getting my education in English, I was constantly always nurtured with these two languages, however it was very hard to get the opportunity to use and even improve my use of the language which country I was born in. I would say that for a long time I was a false beginner of the language for quite a long period of time. Thankfully, during my sophomore year of high school I got the opportunity along with 10 or so students from my school to go on a two week mission trip to remote islands in Indonesia which are not even visible on the atlas if one were trying to find them. For the entirety of this trip it was quite essential for me to be able to speak the Indonesian language, because it was the only way to communicate with these people. I was freaking out up until the time I was getting on the plane to start this journey. The Indonesian I could use was just the basics but not one to have a conversation with someone. I didnt even know how to prepare to enhance my speaking skills of the language because I didnt know where to begin to learn. However, the most amazing thing about this trip was that unlike my worries of not being able to speak a single word of the language, I had no problem whatsoever to communicate with the local people and even being able to understand their conversation even without having to stop and think about what they were saying. Because of this, I had an amazing experience on the trip and it allowed me to become more outspoken in the language. Now, when I talk with Indonesian people, majority of the people when hearing me speak the language would admit that I speak just like a local. Till now I am so grateful for this opportunity. I still dont know until now how I was able to speed up that fast in using this language, but I would have to make a wild guess that I had the knowledge beforehand but I just didnt have the opportunity to go out and practice it. 

I would like to share my story about the importance of asking questions when we don't understand something during communication.

I was drinking beer with my friend in a pup (my friend is Ukrainian) in Canada about 9 years ago. When we enjoyed our first cup of beer, one server came to us and asked something with smiling face. I could not understand exactly but I assumed that she checked we liked food and beer. We said yes and smiled back. However, shortly after we got two more beer which we didn't order in our memory at least. We were not brave to ask again or tell her that we didn't order so we drank extra beer we didn't plan to drink.

 A foreign teacher and I talked about movies. It was one of the most basic topics so I was confident. The teacher asked questions and I answered to the questions quite well. Then he started to talk faster and asked an unexpected question, which was about credits. As soon as I listened to the word 'credit', in my head another meaning of the word popped up but I pretended to understand the question and answer by guess and he checked whether I got the idea or not. I felt awkward. I should have asked again to check the question. 

The second part of the assignment

There are many wrong English expressions in Korea like Konglish which is Korean language style English that is the macaronic use of English words or words derived from English words in a Korean context, and these words are usually not used in English-speaking countries. Common grammar or vocabulary mistakes made by Koreans learning English as a foreign language have also been referred to as Konglish. It attributed these mistakes to an over-reliance on a Korean-English dictionary and a lack of understanding of culture and natural collocation.

 In my case, I have studied English in Korea for many years, so I used Konglish such as hand-phone, notebook and rimokeon many times. I didnt feel any uncomfortable until that time. About 7 years ago, I made my foreign friend who is Mellisa, and I found that these Konglish interrupt my English speaking production by talking with her. I am going to say my stories related Kognlish. Actually, Mellisa is my first foreign friend, so I really wanted to talk many times and about various topics with her. The time when I met her started free mobile messengers like Kakaotalk or facebook, and they were very popular among students because we could communicate and make friends freely and easily, so I wanted to know her phone number. So I asked her phone number Mellisa, can I get your handphone number? She replied that what it the handphone? Is it a kind of product name? I was a little embarrassed at that time because I couldnt find a correct word instead of handphone. I showed my phone to her, and she said that Ah, you mean that mobile phone, so you should say mobile phone or cellphone. From that time, I tried to use correct words or expressions in English by using various contexts in English.

 When I was exposed to English for the first time in my life, I thought English as a kind of play rather than studying because at that time my age was too young as I was only about 7 years old, and moreover, I learned English by using lyrics. Many Korean friends, and maybe even foreign friends, probably sympathize with it that my very first experience related to English is an alphabet song which helps me learn it in both easy and fun way. In the meantime, something happened that I will never forget as it made me somewhat dislike English for a while. Although our kindergarten was not an English-centered preschool, curiously our school play was all performed in English and I forgot about the lines of my part. The play that we did was to explain the function of our body simply by playing the role of the hands, eyes, nose and etc for each child. Its funny but my role was butt and I was confident that I almost completely memorized my part. But when I first came to the stage and saw a lot of people, my English, which was not even appropriate to be called as a second language yet, became useless and I was just staring at my teacher from the stage with a blushing face. I did not know it at that time, but now I can recognize that the situation we are in affects our language code a lot. It might be quite difficult to use a foreign language, not Korean, in a situation where a large number of people facing for the first time in my life were staring at me. Until then, I was a perfect Korean monolingual so it was not easy to switch the code as well as to mix it. Nevertheless, now I enjoy using English and I can even analyze my mistakes from the perspective of bilingualism so It seems that the idiom failure teaches success really makes sense.

My experiences in the Philippines  

I lived in the Philippines for more than five years since middle school period. In the beginning of school year, I just started with basic English such as introducing myself, saying yes or no. Most of the time, I simply responded to hundreds of questions by nodding and smiling, and that was all I could do at first. When reading Geology book written in English, it took me an hour to understand a single page. When having presentation, I hardly remember what I had to say and read through my cue cards. It was even harder for me to hang out with classmates due to lack of communication skill. Sometimes, when I tried to speak in English, I could not remember the word for English, so I just talked to my friends in Korean... Of course, they were tilting their heads. 

However, after four months, everything was so natural to me. I began to pick up the language naturally, and it did not take me more than three minutes to go over a page. Soon, I started to exchange two languages depending on places and occasion effectively. At first, I had lopsided view of language mixing as for people with low competence, but now I understand that people who do this can be more fluent in both languages.  

As time passes by, English became my dominant language since I used it more often compared to Korean. However, when I visited Korea during vacation, I fluently exchange dialogue in Korean as if I had never influenced by another language. However, I came to realize that I was using English pronunciation whenever I speak Korean words that we borrowed from English. I was meeting my elementary school friends and said the word, 'Asia', and my pronunciation was not 'ah-si-ah' but more on 'ei-si-ah'.

My experiences in Australia 

When I first arrived at the airport, I was surprised to hear how different Australian English to American English. Especially the 'h' sound is pronounced as 'haitch'. I always believed that pronunciation is the least important factor in learning a language, but I came to realize that even though I was pretty much comfortable with English, I hardly catch up the meaning people are saying due to the lack of familiarity in Australian accent.

Language as an Experience

I have a story on language use/learning and on how I fully believe the best way to learn a language is not in the class room, but in informal settings of immersion. For the past two years, I have been simultaneously studying French and Korean at a university in Canada. I started these dual studies with a solid foundation in French -- stemming from the Canadian Immersion educational system -- and with zero knowledge in Korean.  There came a time in one of my semesters when both my language classes were covering the conditional verb tense (in English, this would translate to would, could, should: if I did this, I could/would/should do this). What was very surprising to myself was the difference between which language stuck with me. I took to the Korean conditional tense easily; I could remember the conjugations with little effort and found I was often using it when speaking with my friends or texting them. In contrast, the French conditional tense was (and still is) something rather hard for me to remember and implement in my daily language use. I find there are aspects to this tense that are very arduous for me and often it takes me a little while to sort out the different conjugations and grammatical structures before I can use them. 

Retrospectively, I can see the reason why this occurred. During my time studying Korean, I had some of my closest friends in the class with me. Thus, outside of Korean class, we would consistently text each other in Korean (or in a mix of English and Korean); when we met up to hang out, we would talk to each other in Korean. I realize now that this was valuable practice time with the language we were learning. Moreover, the fact that the Korean language was used between my close friends meant my brain linked it to my personal relationships, enjoyment, and to the healthy competition of understanding my friends and being able to respond with them. Studying the language in this way made it more than just about getting good grades in class; it had a function outside of the classroom. 

In contrast, when I learned the French conditional tense, I studied it intensely for my midterm, and then I didn't really have a use for it after that. Although I am studying French and speak it to customers at a part-time job, this particular tense did not have an important use for me outside the classroom, so I never practiced it. The conditional tense opens up a whole plethora of concepts to communicate, and yet I neither had friends in which to converse with in French, nor another purpose for implementing these concepts -- outside the classroom. 

This all goes to show that I think the educational systems in many different educational institutions regarding language teaching and language learning really need to have a paradigm shift in their design. It is true that structuralized learning is useful after a certain point in one'S language acquisition, but I think a good percentage of personalized learning techniques are needed (especially at the onset), where language is not just taught to get good marks/get the right answer. Language cannot only be taught; it needs to be experienced. If languages were taught in a way where which efficiently connected linguistic concepts to the brain and was associated with many different facets of a person'S life, I think learners would not only grasp the language better, but they would actually USE it. Just as with children who are acquiring their native language, perhaps all language learning should be (at the beginning) modelled after the kinesthetic-learning that children do to learn colours and shapes, etc.: not through workbooks and tests, but through real-life interaction and the idea of play. Language for a two-year-old is an experience! This shouldn't change, regardless of age. 

Changing my accent

This story is about my Spanish accent. I started studying Spanish in Korea with Peruvian teachers and I have a brother who speaks Spanish with Mexican + Argentinian accent. Thus, I was not really aware of the Spanish accent. Also, in Korea, the accent didnt matter since I was in beginners or low level of Spanish classes. Due to many reasons, I went to Spain to study Spanish, to be exact, Valladolid, where it is known to be the place of perfect Spanish (Castellano). The distinct accent of Spains Spanish, th sound for c and z, was used by everyone and I did not have the accent.yet.

One day, after a few weeks of my arrival, I had to go to police station to have my ID. Even though I brought all the documents, the lady at the station asked my address. So I told her it was Calle Cerrada with no Spanish accent, Serrada. She looked confused and asked me again. I repeated myself. After a month, I finally was able to get my ID card and was frustrated because she wrote down Calle Serrada. I had to go through so much because of this. Bank, Hospital, Insurance I had to double check everything and correct the address. My Spanish teacher at that time heard about this and knew I was very stressed about it. She thought this should not happen again and trained me with Spanish accent since. Now, I use this noticeable th Spanish accent and cant easily change it even though my Latin American friends beg me to change it. In my opinion, I could still have this accent because it was formed in the early stage of learning, before the threshold.