Learning is your own reward

Too often are we not sure about whether we are good enough or just average. 

Too often do we give up things easily.

Too often do we only look at things near us, and forget the big picture.

When I finished studying at HELP in 2009 and moved on the graduate school in Second Language Studies, there were many students who had to take ELI courses and were reluctant to be there. I chose to be there, for a very simple reason – there is always something I need to learn and will learn.

I truly appreciate everyone’s suggestions on the first two-week survey. The comments were high quality and useful. I only wish that I could have done it last Thursday so I could have made some changes for today. I am open to listened to everyone who has a voice, and am always trying to make this course as informational and useful as possible. 
On top of that, one of my goals is to train you to have a responsible learning attitude because you are a high proficient English users. You should be able to “think” critically in a logical and educated way.


So far, I think everyone is doing their best and I am very impressed by how much you could keep up with me. Thank you all for not giving up easily. :)

To answer one of your concerns about this course, I will use the space here rather than our class time.

The usefulness of the reading journal and concerns about the course

About 50% of the students in this course wondered about the effectiveness of this reading journal assignment, and I am not sure why because I did not get reasons from any of you. But some of you did mention that it takes too much time and you do not want to do it. I understand that as a student, assignments are not always the most fun thing to do, but I do need a reason from you to tell me why you think this is not helpful. There, you should be able to tell the differences between “complaints” and “productive suggestions”.

I understand that not everyone is going to be involved in academic society, but I wonder whether what we do in academia is entirely irrelevant to you.  


Actually, the reading journal assignment is to help you build up a habit to read in English on some advanced materials rather than always reading easy or fun texts.  It is for sure more fun to read a comic book, but I wish studying were that easy.


Your journals are very well written and the ideas from everyone are just fruitful. You won't believe how much other teachers are telling me how the quality of your journals is good and the comments are very interesting.

TOEFL is important for some people at this moment, and I completely understand it (trust me, I was once a victim). However, I found out that people who only have and are only concerned about having TOEFL test taking skills are more likely to suffer later on in higher education in the U.S. because they tend to delay the reality much later.  In the beginning of this term, I conducted a needs analysis. Most of you mentioned about becoming a better reader in English, reading faster, understanding reads better or something related to improve your reading skills. However, not one said, “I want to become a good test taker”. 

To go from there, I decided to help you become a more skillful reader rather than a test-taking expert.  And that is why the textbook content is going to be used later in this term.

I have taught TOEFL before, and I was not sure if that was the right thing to do to just teach test taking skills. I felt like a cram school teacher that way. So, this term I decided to help you become a better reader (since some of you took Jin’s reading course before and I know that it was really helpful and fun!) in academia first, and then practice test taking skills.

However, I need to listen to your voices. If teaching TOEFL test-taking skills is the most urgent and important thing to you at this moment, I will make some arrangement.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts with me. It was helpful. :)