Jang Jun Hwa
200802967
Intermediate English Writing (1)
Literacy autobiography First draft
The Story in my Old Drawer
I have an old dusty wooden drawer. It is so tight to shut that I rarely try to open it. But there is one more reason why I hesitate to do it. Once my drawer spit what it has, I usually spend all day checking everything in the drawer. I have kept my old diaries, a lot of photo and some accessories in it, which remind me of my childhood and adolescence. Especially, when skimming through my 10-year notebooks, I feel like I know how to learn writing and reading both in my native language, Korean, and English.
The first magazine that I read was made by my older brother. He used to buy several notes, and tear off their front cover to make his own cover of magazine. His magazine usually consisted of several sections such as comics and quizzes. Turning over some pages, I could find short stories which were written or copied down by him. Most importantly, there was even opinion section where I could write how to feel after reading all sections. It was one of the first steps for me to read and write Korean.
My mother never says, "Why don't you study?" but rather "Let's go to the library." As I was very used to going there, a library was where I felt at home. One day, I skipped school without reasons and went to the library. It was school hours, so few people come and go quietly. I picked out a book within the range of my hand and tiptoed over to the corner. The book was named 'We are Korean wheel lily', which is about three children head of household to deal with life's challenges. To be honest, I do not remember the exact story of it. The only thing in my mind is that I was so moved to tears that I wrote a book report. With the book report, I got the first prize in the speech contest. Since then, I am not reluctant to reading and writing. I can say that at that time I read countless books and wrote my impression on them.
After I became a high school student, as you know, it has little time reading and writing except the language part of the university entrance examination. Instead, the club activity helped me keep my literary interest. I was a member of the broadcasting club at school, so I wrote a two-page-long script every other day. The time to introduce brief plot of a variety of books caught students' attention. For this reason, I had to spare a lot of time reading many books. Also, writing a script in our club's format became as simple as pie.
Developing reading and writing in English is slightly different to how to learn in Korean. There was no dramatic opportunity to enjoy reading and writing in English. The first step was even hard. I started to learn English when I was 12. One day, my teacher walked in the classroom with an unfamiliar woman. She is as tall as an oak tree with blue eye. She was the first foreigner I have ever met. At the first class with her, she asked students to write alphabet. However, I did not know not only how to write alphabet, but also what alphabet is. Finally, I stayed at school till late with her and had to practice writing alphabet. Unfortunately, it means that I could not begin on the right foot.
When it comes to reading and writing in English, who had an influence on me was my father. He realized that I was one of students who had never studied English. He bought a set of the animated Disney films from Japan. It was composed with videos, scripts and cartoons. Everyday at 9 p.m., I and my father took turns to read scripts loudly. If I collect all books which I read at that time, the number of books is as twice as I recently read.
Now, my major is English interpretation and translation. In almost every class, professors give me reading materials, and I have to take them in. Reading-based work occupies over half of my study hours. Meanwhile, I know that one of my weak points, but my favorite in English is writing. Therefore, I have always taken writing class since I became a student in HUFS.
I have had a lot of chance to read and write in Korean including magazines that my older brother made, impressive books and club activities, which are sort of external influences. On the other hand, the beginning of reading and writing in English was a bad dream. Yet, the reason I keep writing and reading in English is that I start to like it without other influences, just by myself.
The Story in My Old Drawer
ReplyDeleteI have an old dusty wooden drawer. It is so hard to shut that I rarely try to open it. However, there is one more reason as to why I hesitate opening it. Once my drawer reveals its contents, I end up spending all day checking every single thing in the drawer. I have kept notebooks which I wrote daily diaries in, as well as many book reports and some videos in it. Those items remind me of my childhood and adolescence. When looking at my 10 years worth of the notebook in particular, I felt as if I could relive the times when I was learning how to read and write in both Korean and English
The first magazine that I have ever read was made by my older brother. He used to buy several notebooks, and tear off their front covers of new notebooks to make his own. His magazine usually consisted of several sections like comics and quizzes. From his magazines, I could find short stories written or copied down by him. Moreover, there was even an opinion section where I could write about how I feel after reading the whole magazine. It was one of the first steps for me to read and write in Korean.
My mother never says, “Why don’t you study?” Instead, she says, “Let’s go to the library.” As I was used to going to libraries often, I felt at home when I go to one. One day, I skipped school for no reason and went to the library. It was only 10 a.m., so few people come and go quietly. I picked out a book within my reach and tiptoed over to the corner. The book was titled “We are Korean Wheel Lily”, which was about three children who were breadwinners, dealing with life’s challenges in their lives. To be honest, I do not remember the exact story of it, but the only thing I remember is that I was really moved to tears, so I wrote a book report after reading it. With the book report, I got the first place from a speech contest. Since then, I came to enjoy reading as well as writing in Korean.
After I became a high school student, I had little time to read and write except for when I was studying the language section of Korea’s SAT. Instead, a club activity has helped me maintain my literary interest. I was a member of our school's broadcasting club. Due to the fact that I was responsible for introducing brief plots of variety of books, I had to write a two-page-long script every other day. The time to introduce brief plot of a variety of books caught students’ attention. In order to prepare, I had to spare much of my time to read as many books as possible. Soon enough, writing a script in our club’s format became as simple as pie.
Developing reading and writing skills in English was slightly different to how I learned these in Korean. I say this because; even the first step of learning English was difficult for me. I was 12 when I started to learn English. One day, my teacher walked into the classroom with an unfamiliar woman. She was very tall and she had blue eyes. She was the first foreigner I have ever met. During the first class with her, she asked students to write down alphabets. However, not only did I know how to write alphabet, but I did not know what alphabets were. Consequently, I had to stay at school until late with her and practice writing alphabet. Unfortunately, this was how I started off learning English on a wrong foot.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to reading and writing in English, my father had the most influence on me. He realized that I was one of the few elementary students who had been never taught English. He bought me a Disney animation set. It was composed with videos, scripts and cartoons. Everyday at 9 p.m., my father and I took turns reading scripts from the set. Had I kept a record of how many scripts I have read, the number of scripts I have read would be twice as many as how much I read scripts and books nowadays.
Then I happened to major in English interpretation and translation. In almost every class, professors gave out reading materials for us to read and understand. Doing these reading-based tasks occupied over half of my study hours, so one might think I dislike reading or writing in English. Although I admit writing in English is not my forte, it is still my favorite. For this reason, I have always taken writing classes ever since I became a student in HUFS.
I have had many chances to practice how to read and write in Korean, starting from magazines my older brother made to moving books, and club activities. As a result, I have felt a great interest in improving my Korean language skill. On the other hand, how I began reading and writing in English is not enjoyable. However, since I knew what English was, I have done my best to look for some interesting factors of reading and writing in English by using video materials and taking writing classes.