One of my earliest memories related to writing is writing a diary during my homestay in New Zealand when I was 12 years old. I was to write a diary at the end of each day, and when I finished writing I went to my homestay mother for feedback. I still have the notebook I wrote diary on, and whenever I open the notebook and read some of the diaries, I am surprised to see how bad my English was. Of course, I was only 12 years old back then, but I often realize that my writing has improved very much from writing three simple sentences with many grammatical errors to writing an academic essay for university entrance exam.
Like I just mentioned above, I prepared for university entrance exam as an "English specialist," and I am not sure if I really am now, but that is how I got into HUFS. I had to practice writing academic essays a lot especially during my senior year in high school. Therefore, writing an academic essay in English is actually easier for me than in Korean, and I believe that is simply because I did not have so many chances to practice my academic writing in Korean compared to in English. However, I can feel that my English overall is getting bad since I got into HUFS, for there are not many classes that actually require a high level of writing or speaking even though my major is English.
Thus, I would like to improve or at least maintain my writing skills by getting some help from this class. I can be very lazy and procrastinate often, which is not a good attitude toward writing, but I am going to try my best and work on fixing some problems or bad habits in writing, such as not knowing what to write for specific examples due to lack of information, taking too much time on getting ideas, etc. I hope to practice writing on various topics to learn how to expand my ideas and express my thoughts in a more refined manner on any subject as well.
201302361 SangJeeLee
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that keeping diary is a great way to start writing. I personally love to
keep my diary in Korean. I tried to keep diary in English just for the sake of studying but I got so frustrated that I stopped it.
Also it is good for you that you got a lot of experience writing essay in English because not a lot of people feel that comfortable writing in English.
Hope you can reach your goal of maintaing your good writing by taking this class.
Yoona Kim 201100687
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to find out that you have stayed in New Zealand because I also lived there. For me keeping a diary was always like some task, homework that I was forced to do. It is really nice that you consider that as helpful, and I am sure getting a correction from native speaker would have really helped you improving your English skills. Hopefully as we carry out this class, we could improve our writing skills as I share similar goal to you!