1. Write about a pleasant experience you have had with writing. How did this experience affect your attitude toward writing?
When I was in 10th grade, our class had a project to write 10 pages long novel by using randomly chosen 10 key words. At first I was surprised with the massive pages to cover and 10 key words to connect, to make the story line attractive to the readers. This was one of the huge impacts that brought to our class which leaded into chaos. This project was a final exam for English literature class that has to get the highest score as possible to augment my report card during that period. When I chose the 10 key words from the basket, I had blood on my eye, which just took me for 3 days to trap in brain storming. I was one of the students that were late to hand in it the rough draft to the teacher. 2 weeks after, I suddenly got an inspiration from the books I have been reading, which can connect the key words by writing a science-fiction to carry out all that words. Once I got what to write, everything was under control. From that day on, I was not late in second rough draft due date and in the third too. I could say this was one of the challenges I had in the past, which affected in my writing. From that phenomenon, I tried to read lots of different books to get prepared for an essays or any other writings that can be happen in the future. I was pleasant myself to get this sort of writing to make me step forward to get more knowledge.
2. How do you feel about writing in your first language compared to writing in English?
I feel more comfortable writing in English than my first language. Hope there is no misunderstanding, I'm Korean having a citizenship but just that did not have a chance to get any curriculum of Korean language classes because I immigrate to Cameroon, which is in Africa. There, I learned English and French which had more opportunities to use second languages than mother language. Due to the early age immigration I was learning English starting from 1st grade till the graduate from high school. Though I have been living in Korea for 8 years, I'm still feeling relax speaking in English. I think is because I did not take any class that teach a Korean and also did not seek to learn first language as taking it as shamefulness. Now, it is more shameful that I had such weak and pointless mind to avoid learning mother language past years. This does not mean I'm really fluent in English and French, less experience leads to forget lots of things. This as a result, forgot French. Recently, I'm trying to overcome myself to speak both first language and English fluently to easily communicate with others.
3. When you are writing a paper for a class, do you try to please yourself or the teacher? Explain
I was a character of introvert during middle school, which did not express my thinking and feelings to the third person. This kind of characteristic leaded me to write an essay or any other kinds of writing, to please the teacher rather than please myself. Even though it did not happen, during those years, I was thinking that if I write something please me I might get embarrassment from my friends due to the rubbish writing. I was just afraid of getting picked by the teacher and open up the papers to the other students because it truly happened to my friend. I was just happy to please the teachers and get compliments. Then before a semester left to go to high school, I suddenly fall in dilemma because I could not find any fun in writing. As I go higher grades, writing became really hard to please the teacher and this leaded me to depress in writing. Nevertheless, by the advice from my friends and teachers I started to change my view on writing. Before I write, I try to have fun from the writing first, and then think to please the teacher. This means I started to balance the pleasances. In this way, it made me more comfortable and easier to understand the writing or maybe I just found out how to get the two birds with one stone.
An Yumi
ReplyDeleteThese three simple answers gave me a lot of information about you. I had a very good time while reading your writing. I can feel how freely and comfortably you write this piece of English writing. I envy you :) And the project you mentioned in the first answer sounds very very interesting. I also think it was clearly enough to give you a positive attitude toward writing. I wonder the story you wrote at that time. And though you said that you are not fluent in Korean, I am quite sure that you are being just humble and you would probably had almost no difficulty when you communicate with somebody in Korean. Anyway, It impressed me that you said you are going to try to overcome yourself to speak Korean more perfectly.
by Kim Kap-whan in EIT
ReplyDeleteI read your writings very interestingly. You immigrated into Cameroon. I think staying overseas at an early stage of life can have very beneficial effects on the future career. The experience in foreign cultures would help form a view of the world. So I can find that you write in English more naturally and more smoothly.
But one thing I want to talk about is some grammatical mistakes in the writing. It could give an impression of not being professional.
If you care about that a little, your writing will be more decent and presentable.