BLOG 5 - Your Experiences Learning English

Hello class. Here is our new entry, on this occasion, you will need to write about English as part of your academic syllabus. Your comments are of great value to me and the English team, as we grow and learn from our experiences and the time we spend and share all across the semester with you.

1. What comments can you make about your experience learning English at university?

2. What about the use of blogs?

3. What aspects of your English need to be improved and how do you plan to do this?

4. Outside the English class, how much are you using English these days? What for?

Requirements for the entry:

For the present task, you need to write 220 to 230 words. Pay attention to misspellings, grammar errors and vocabulary. Do not forget to post three (3) comments on your classmate’s posts and one (1) on mine as well (25 words as a minimum!) Try to use the English we have learnt in previous sessions. You have 48 hours to do it.  DO NOT USE GOOGLE TRANSLATOR TO DO YOUR ENTRY.

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Me and the English language

As we are writing about English, I cannot help thinking how much I would like to share with you all... I probably should start by commenting on my experience learning English.

To me English was that subject I did not enjoy much at school. Although our teachers were kind and nice, the fact I did not have enough fun lesson to lesson, I believed they were mean and cruel. Therefore, I did not put much attention during class and was not that commited to the lessons. Despite all this, I am still in touch with one of them today!

On the other hand, my experiences teaching at UChile, are quite demanding...Firstly, is the cultural barrier, *why English if we live in a Spanish speaking country? Then, there is the socio-ideological perception surrounding English...*Nah, the imperialistic language...isn't for me! In the same line, there is the constant struggle to separate English from the socio-economic boundaries. Unfortunately, many university students cannot see the immense spectrum of opportunities that English could bring into their professional careers, as well as their personal lives. 

By instance, many say today that English is the global and academic language or sometimes they refer to English as the language of the future...Many international universities (China, Japan, France, etc.) are offering a semester, a short-term programme or even a full study programme in English. If students get involved in an international congress a colloquio or the like, the most probably bridge language they will use, is English. Several companies are requiring English as an asset and some extra language; namely Spanish, Portuguese, ect. to do their businesses. 


In this line, 
I would love to see more English language into the faculties and academic contents (I would love to hear what do you think about this) Similarly, there are some aspects connected to the language policies and the political realms. How do we connect English in our society? How can schools make a difference in the teaching-learning experience here in Chile? 

As for your daily lives, I am regularly wondering how many opportunities or chances are you encountering where you can really put your English to work...How exposed are you to real English?...How much input are you daily getting?...These are some of my permanent queries navigating my mind as I walk towards a new lesson at the faculty. Lastly, I hope you can envision the importance of having a good command of English for both: your academic prospects and your life enrichment. 

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*Comments given to me by some students in the near past.

Comments

  1. Thank you to share this reflections with us. I think this could make us valorate more the classes and english in general, because we can see it in another way. Thank you for all of your classes too! I'm sure we've learned a lot.

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  2. Thank you for sharing this information here. I find it very funny and ironic how teacher always say that the subject they teach was not their favorite in school haha.

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  4. In the ultimate time i realized the real importance of learning inglish, because in the school I have the idea that inglish wasn't to importante because of the idea that eventually everything will be translated, but with the time I realized that especialy in the academic way I will have to read a lot of articles and studys that you can't find translated so you must learn inglish for your correct academic develope.

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  5. wow!, I think that in Chile, by not teaching in a more interactive way, at least when I was in primary school, the most entertaining thing was that they taught colors with songs, but never direct conversations in English with the teacher and personally I don't speak much English, at most in the music I listen to or in the series and movies I watch, that's when I interact with English the most.

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  6. Hello teacher, thanks for sharing your experience learning english with us. In my experience, I was really bad experience with english in my high school. With your experience, I hope that in any future I can have better compression of english.

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  7. It's curious how often the countrys offer english course to study and is because the presence that has in the world, even when were kids had a place in our lives so we grew up learning english in the school. In this time, it became necessary to give it a try because is gonna have a connection with work, travels, life plan, etc, and it should be motivated since childhood, when is more easy to learn a new language.

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  8. Thank you for sharing your experience! I think the English learning experience is very much influenced by the teacher who teaches it. I think it is becoming more and more relevant in the world and in various areas of our life.

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  9. Wow, Thank you for sharing us your experience about the how is be teacher´english. The same happened to me, because I didnt like the way the teach English in my school, that did that I wouldn't want to learn more about this language and also it demotivated to me. But anyway I think that having a good command about English is soo important in this times for our professional careers and our daily lives.

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  11. Hello teacher! I really like what you thought, just like you, my relationship with English was not the best in a beginning, but in the same way I think that it is a language that should be promoted and taught everywhere because we all like it or not English is the world language, also is very beatiful.

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