English Language Acquisition

When I was in Junior high school and Senior high school, lecture style was pretty common at the English class. The teachers were always in front of students, and some students did not listen to what teachers said. English class at Junior high school was better than the class at Senior high school. The teachers at Junior high school were trying to make students speak in English. They always pointed out some students and asked questions. Students needed to focus on what teachers said. We had only 15 students each class at 7th grade’s English class. The class size was smaller than that of Senior high school, so it was easier for me to answer the questions and state my opinions. Students had some opportunities to speak in English at the

As I mentioned before, I hardly ever spoke in English at the classes. On the other hand, teachers required to read English sentences a lot. I think Grammar Translation method is necessary to establish grammar skill which is created by declarative memory. However, students do not have any chance to speak in English, so they would not be able to pronounce. Today, many people can strongly feel the importance of people who can not only read English but speak in English. I think teachers should adopt other methods such as Audio Lingual method and Comprehension approach. When I was in Junior high school, some teachers taught English using Audio Lingual method. The textbook that I used at Junior high school had lots of sentence patterns. My teacher required us to repeat the sentences. For example, every student needed to repeat and remember these sentence patterns; “Good morning, everyone.” “Good morning, Mrs. Green.” “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you. And you?” Those are not wrong grammatically, but native speakers never answer like this. In addition, most of ESL teachers cannot pronounce English correctly. There is a possibility that students would remember uncommon or incorrect English when ESL teachers use Audio Lingual method. Comprehension approach was not common at my Junior and Senior high school, but ALT at my Senior high school used this method. When we had conversation, he spoke in English and gave me comprehensible input even though he can speak in Japanese. I thought I would like to communicate with him fluently, and he always motivated me to study English. I created declarative memory through Junior high school and Senior high school. However, it is also significant to practice establishing sort of procedural memory. Declarative knowledge cannot become procedural knowledge, but people can get a good sense of English unconsciously with