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             Looking back, the first time I came across English was when I was about 8 years old.  My dad bought me and my sister a book and an audio cassette tape designed for English education.  At that time, I didn¡¯t even know that there existed other languages than my native language, which is Korean.  If my memory serves me right, the first part of the book, I believe, started with simple sentences such as ¡°I am Tom. I am a boy,¡± etc.  I didn¡¯t know the meanings of these sentences I heard from the tape and nobody taught them to me. Soon, I lost interest in it and that was the end of my first contact with English.

             In Korea in the 1980s, the formal English education started from the middle school and continued for 6 years.  Thus, I began to learn English in school when I was in the 7^th grade.  The entire curriculum for English education was totally based on ¡°Grammar Translation Methodology.¡±  Students first learned the alphabet letters and memorized grammar rules and sample sentences that showed such rules.  The teachers taught us how to translate English sentences into Korean and asked us to write down the translated version on the textbooks and memorize them.

             I remember that the English teacher in my 8^th grade gave homework of writing each word in the vocabulary list for 20 times on the notebook.  My right hand felt almost numb after writing the same words for so many times without even knowing how to pronounce them properly.  Grammar and reading were regarded most important in studying the language.  Most of my classmates in middle school and high school did not like the English class because they found that memorizing grammatical rules was not much fun.  However, I enjoyed studying grammar, and English was one of my favorite subjects.  I felt a huge sense of excitement in learning the systematic rules and the structures of the language and thus, I even wrote my own grammar book in which I summarized most grammatical rules and exceptions in my own creative manner.

             One of the most influential persons in my life was my homeroom teacher in the senior year of high school.  She was a teacher of English and displayed the highest level of competence of the language among all the English teachers I met until then.  She loved to read novels and literature in English and helped me expand the horizons of English study beyond just the grammar and reading comprehension.  I was encouraged to practice writing and speaking as well.  She also gave me advice to major in English literature and language in college and I took her advice to heart.

             When I started my first days in college, I was full of confidence and armed with the knowledge of English I acquired for 6 years.  However, it did not take long before I realized that the way I was taught was not the most desirable or effective one.  Some 20% of 120 students in my class had lived in an English speaking country for several years.  In English conversation classes, they seemed so comfortable talking with the instructors, who were native speakers of English.  On the other hand, I was not able to answer even very simple questions, let alone posing questions or making comments in class.   In English composition classes, I was so constrained by all those grammatical rules I learned in earlier years that it took me hours and hours to write even one paragraph.

             I decided to start again.  I took conversation classes at the language center run by the university and focused on learning how to effectively communicate with others in English.  I also joined a club for intercultural communication where there were chances to befriend with exchange students from abroad and assist them to get adjusted to living in Korea.  While hanging out for a movie or drinking beer together, we built friendship and helped each other understand and appreciate different perspectives, cultures, ideas as well as languages.

            Then in January 1996, I flew to Albany, NY and spent the spring semester at SUNY Albany as an exchange student.  Those five months taught me a precious lesson that a language is not just an object of study but rather incorporates the culture where the language is spoken.   It was an opportunity to taste, to some extent, the culture of the native speakers of English, and I learned a whole new range of expressions and jokes.  I came to understand the language better than before thanks to this experience because I gained more understanding of the views, the cultures and the living environment of English speakers than before. 

             After I came back to Korea, I began to prepare for graduate school for interpretation and translation.  I was fascinated by the roles that an interpreter plays as a communicative bridge between speakers of different languages.  I studied skills of interpretation and translation for two years and acquired a master¡¯s degree in conference interpretation.  During the master¡¯s program, advanced level of vocabulary and a more formal way of speech were required, and I was able to expand my vocabulary to include special terms used in different areas such as manufacturing, banking, military, diplomatic negotiations and many more.

             For the next five years after graduation, I worked as a conference interpreter on a freelance basis.  My jobs involved both simultaneous and consecutive interpretation as well as written translation for various settings, including academic symposiums, business meetings, international conferences, company presentations, high-level government talks, press conferences, etc.  It was always exciting to meet with new people from different countries with different backgrounds and it was as equally exciting to learn new knowledge in various fields. 

             Another important factor in my language learning was the arrival of my son.  Simply put, he was the subject of my little project on bilingualism.  When he turned one year old, I began to raise him bilingually.  I talked to him mostly in English while all the others spoke to him in Korean.  I carefully observed how he responded to two different languages and the rate at which he acquired them.  As he grew older and showed output, I became more interested in English education and in particular, bilingual education.  I am currently a member of an on-line community in Korea where mothers who raise their children bilingually can exchange information and meet offline to give the children a chance to play with friends in English.  Now my son is three and a half years old and he commands similar levels of Korean and English.  Of course, now that my family moved to the U.S., I try to talk with him in Korean at home because I want to help him maintain and grow his native language.

             I also believe that I have gained some important learning through teaching experiences as well.  I worked as an English tutor for 6 years during my college and graduate years, and I used different teaching approaches to different students and tried to figure out most effective ways of teaching a foreign language to middle school and high school students.  Such efforts also helped my pursuit of mastering English.

             Of course, I do not believe that I have mastered the language.  I still make silly mistakes and say sentences that may sound awkward or may not make much sense to native speakers.  I still do not fully comprehend some comedy shows or slang words.  However, I will continue to work hard down the road because I enjoy it so much.  And I hope I can be of positive influence to other Koreans who want to be fluent in English.