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English As A Second Language

Decent Essays

Many people learn English as their second language because English is used as an international language when people try to communicate with each other. As a second language learner, English is challenging in grammar rules and comprehension skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, especially for adults. The ego permeability of adults affects their motivation in learning a new language. Therefore, many adult learners are struggling during the process of learning English. This week, I interviewed Lily, an EIL student, who has an intermediate level of English proficiency at Brigham Young University (BYU-H). She comes from South Korea, and this is her three semesters here. Her answers to my questions give me ideas about how she learns English, what is the difficult parts in her learning, and how teaching styles of EIL teachers affect her learning.
Finishing all assignments for different EIL classes are the essential way of how Lily learn English. She explained that these assignments take most of her time, and she thinks these assignments are well designed for practicing her English skills. For example, the assignment of transcribing a recording in Lily’s oral fluency class requests students work in small groups. They first need to record a 4 minutes’ conversation of their group, and then each of them will assign one minute to transcribe. It takes Lily lots of time to translate, but she feels it is a good opportunity to practice her speaking and listening skills.

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