Introductory Topic: What does "practical English" mean to you?

Hello. I'm Samuel. I'm in my third year of the department of Ethics Education.
I'm really happy to be here cause there are lots of useful information here.
I think "practical English" is just the English that you use in your real life. It is much diffrent from literary expressions.
Have you ever thought about the reason why we have to know and teach our students? In Korea, every educational system is focusing on university entrance examination. I really hate that.
Although Korean students graduated from high school, they don't know how to write a letter to their foreign friends. They might make sentences, but they might don't know the form of the letter. The reason we study English is not to enter a good university but to communicate with each other and have a good relationship with our foreign friends.
This is my short opinion about the thesis. I also want to know your opinion. See you^^

Hello. I'm Cara. Im the Second writer who is writing about this topic.
I totally agreed with the opinion by Samuel.
As you know, all of Korean students are obsessed with the university entrance examination. As a result, they have been learning some skills for reading English contents, which is I though a very impractical Enlish more than learning how to understand and apply English to our life.
The way we can learn "practical English" is to have a lot of time speaking, writing and listening besides just reading. It's time to discard the impractical English teaching methods by which we have been taughted.
(The impractical methods I wrote are based on a typical and traditional things for a test not for a real life.
As the one who dreams of becoming a great English teacher, I dare to insist it. I expect there would be many different students who have various opinions.

Hello, I'm Sunggyoo Park.

I guess the word "pratical" means something that is useful and applicable in a real situation. So the term "practical English" in my opinion, means Enlgish that we can use in the sistuation we face in our daily lives. What people use in their daily lives could vary from the people of different jobs, age and so on, but in general, I think it means everyday verbal conversation.
That's what we mostly depend on when we communicate to each other most of the time. I don't want to refine the term strictly only to everyday verbal conversation, because skills such as writing e-mails or reading a newspaper could also be refered as the part of our daily lives, but it might be more 'practical' if I do. :)

Not only for my country, I think every other-than-English speaking countries should consider practical English skills very imporatant, maybe above every other skills, since those are the most basic and oftenly used no matter what we do with English. I also agree with the above opinions about what Korean students go through in their learning of English, they are deprived of chances to learn living English. Thus, it would make sense if we work on our practical English skills more than what we are currently doing.

Hello. I'm Jayla. I'm a sophomore of the Department of English Education.
I completely agree that university entrance examination system of Korea has fundamental problems for English education in schools. There are lots of people who want to enter great universities, so administrators made examination easy to assess. Our current educational system makes school teachers teach students how to read English, how to translate English into Korean, and how to grasp English grammar only to assess students' ability easily and quickly. Consequently, students can learn very little about speaking, writing, and listening in schools.
But in fact, these skills are really needed to develop your ability. I think that "practical English" is about conversing and mailing with foreign friends, and it can make us contract or have a good relationship with foreign countries in this extremely competitive world.
This is my opinion. I'm waiting for other students' opinion. ^^

Hello, I'm Nana. My major is Chinese & chinese literature.
I considered the meaning of 'practical English' when I saw this topic.
I think there's no correct answer. But the meaning of 'practical English' to me is an apt using of English in our real life.
As you said, there are many students who don't know how to use English properly. That's because we are just concerned about entering a university and then there aren't any good methods to teach how to speak English. They just know how to listen, read and solve a question for examination. But, we know it is not everything.
'practical English' is more important than 'literary English'. To live in international society, we'll have a variety of experience such as meeting foreigners. So it is important for us to have a good command of English.
I want to find out appropriate teaching method of using practical English.

Hi,

As for me, "pratical" english doesnot mean just tools for comunicating with foreign someone. occassionally even our tradition teaching method( grammar, greading, etc) may have pratical aspects I think. There are many people who can speak in english as if natives even they did not go abroad. Not only Going abroad for study is good but also learning english in korea have competence in that knowing grammar well lets us make sentence correctly, sometimes I see a guy who is good at speaking but bad for reading comprehenshion, i think it is something wrong. Therefore "practical" means lots of varaiable properties, nowsdays emphasis on all part of english acquisition such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing is the most impotant and is needed for out students. frankly speaking, our language teaching has put reading and grammar at high, so it is time to change one-sided method into multi-sides. it is a "pratical" english i think.

Ps. it is a important thing. jason.
plaese remove my latter id account. because of forgeting password and fumbling computer, I can not log in so i make another account, but today i have known the method and password at last. ok?

Hello.
Everybody point up problems of The University Entrance Examination system and 'literary or impractical English' in Korea. I think so. The current English educational system in Korea is very impractical. As many people mentioned, The purpose of learning to English is COMMUNICATION. That's why 'Practical English' is important. Especially, It's very important to me. Because I want to be a English teacher. Knowingness is different from Teaching. Teachers need to a sort of skill.
Let's think about when the baby learn to mother tongue. The baby hears mother's voice and then he starts mumbling as his mother. And he understands what mother says. And he talks to his mom like "mommy, I'm thirsty." He can read and write some words/sentences when he goes to a preschool.
We learn to reading and writing English before learning to listening and speaking English. It's in the wrong order. That's why Korean people can't talk any words in fornt of a foreigner.
If we don't want to correct the wrong order because it takes more time, we have to find complementary measures. That(complementary measure)'s PRACTICAL ENGLISH.
That's why we have to learn to practical English with literaly English in textbook.

Hi, i am Francis, sophomore in English education. I think that practical English should be used whenever it is needed. When I have a question, I should ask. When I want to give some message to others, I should be able to do. If someone cannot use English in those times, he learned impractical English. By the way, many Koreans are studying impractical English. They are studying only for some English tests. It makes them good at reading English, but speaking, listening or writing in English, which is vital for using English practically, are not learned. It's a problem that people who learned English cannot use it. I hope that we will find some solutions of this problem at this class.

Nice to see you. My name is Jeonghun JO. And my English name is Joey. I'm glad to participate in this class and discussion.
I think "practical English" is the language we actually use in our everyday life, not dead knowledge in the old book. To be successful in this society which is becoming globalized, the "Practical English" ability is necessary. "Practical English" ability includes reading, listening, writing, speaking. But only reading and listening are emphasizesd in our educational system. Writing and Speaking are nearly being neglected in our secondary school English curriculum. I think that is problematic. Right "Practical English" education system is needed in our country.

Hello~^^
I'm Hyeonchu Lee. In this class, another student has my name. That's why my name is Hyeonchulily. My english name is Lily.^^

Many students pointed the problem of our educational system. Of course I agree, so I will skip that view.
I have experience about teaching students at private english school. At that time, we(colleagues and my boss)had very serious discussion about english teaching so many times. I could get precious views of english teaching.
The nature of language is COMMUNICATION. English is just language, not strange something. If someone learn english, he or she can communicate with others and must do it. From this perspective, teaching english have to be practical. 'Practical' is 'necessary', so practical english is just like necessaries. Can we live without necessaries??^^

To actualize PRACTICAL ENGLISH TEACHING, every people change the view of teaching and learning eglish from just an academic goal to one language. It have to generate in terms of government. Government can change 'University Admissions System' and enlighten the people. Also, more tiny groupscan its actualization. If we start small things that we can do, every righteousness can come true~~!! I think the top of those groups are teachers. Therefore, english education department have to include teaching practical english. It is the foundation of english education and very sick part of Korean english education, so secondary school English curriculum includes this part.

My english is too short. So if you can find wrong english in my writing, please notice me.^^;
Thank you for reading.

Hello my name is Dasom.

To me "practical English" is English that is used in our daily lives. I believe that when it comes to language, practicality is the key. If we cannot apply what we have acquired in our everyday lives, our knowledge is useless. It is same with language. We cannot efficiently communicate with others without using practical language. Despite the importance of practicality, English education system in korea has failed to help students to acquire practical English skills. This problem has become one of the top priorities in public English education field.

In the past, only reading and listening skills were considered necessary, so people neglected the importance of speaking and writing skills. I believe that all four areas (reading, listening, writing, and speaking) are equally important. It is kind of silly to argue which comes first. Those four skills are intertwined and closely related. In school, teachers should teach students to be fluent not only in reading and listening, but also in writing and speaking. One of the biggest problems in English education in Korea is that we ignore the need of sufficient writing and speaking skills. That's why so many koreans get considerably high marks in reading and listening sections, but not in speaking and writing sections.

I believe that "practical English" in the secondary school English curriculum in Korea is important in order to enable students to use English in an actual communication. We have to think about the reason why we learn language. It is to communicate with others.

Thank you for reading.

Hello, my name is Eujin Jeong, freshman of english education.
First of all, I'm very happy to attend this class. ^^
I think using 'Practical English' is the way people communicate with other people in real life, not in imaginary life.
As you know, English has been the strongest language all over the world.
We can hear 'Practical English' in real conversations, tv talk shows, soap dramas.... Also we can see 'Practical English' in newspapers,magazines, and so on. Indeed,We can contact many 'practical English' usages in our life. So, to understand American life & society, to advance ourselves, we must learn 'Practical English'. Korea government & teachers in secondary schools know the fact very well. Therefore, they emphasize learning 'Practical English' in the secondary school.
To improve student's ablity of using practical English, we can use many methods. But I'm a student and I don't know the methods specifically.
I want to learn many skills of teaching practical english from your lecture.
Thank you for reading my short opinion.

Hello, I’m Nancy, a sophomore in the department of social science education. I know the importance of ‘practical English’ very well, because I think that practical English has not been taught to me and I really had a hard time to speak in English in the specific situations, so these days I realize how important it is. Mentioning ‘practical English’, I think it means studying the expressions which is used to describe the specific situations well after enough understanding about Britain and American culture.
In the global world, it is essential to have the ability of speaking English as well as writing or reading. In addition, if we want to survive in this world, we should have a fluent command of English. That is the reason why we should study practical English in our secondary school.
I think teaching methods of English in Korea goes to wrong way. Our purpose of learning English is not entering a great school but having good skills of conversation in English. Therefore, most of the English teachers in secondary school should stop cramming grammar into the students head and realize the importance of making the students understand about Britain and American culture and use right expressions in the proper situations.
I'm really glad to take your class which seems to be very hard time but I'm sure it will be helpful for the students. I'll try my best !

Practical English means the all of English when people use in daily life. We can see clearly what it is in the grammar part. We don’t divide each sentence by the eight parts of speech like the tough grammar course. Common mistakes, however, when people are talking should be corrected by grammar with a textbook such as Practical English Usage by Oxford. Next, in the reading and writing section, I believe the material should be used in the real society like an e-mail, a resume, an advertisement on the paper, a contract document, and memo skills. On top of that, in the listening part, we have to figure out all kinds of English pronunciation in order to communicate with foreigners I concern that Korean students too much focus on the American pronunciation and intonation. It is useless unless people go to the U.S.A. Lastly, as we practice speaking English, we should learn by spoken languages that are taught from T.V. To sum up, Practical English is not only using in the daily life but also being helpful for international life.

With the literal meaning of the word practical, it becomes easier to understand what practical English really is. When something is practical, it is concerned with real situations rather than ideas. Here is a good example. An Editor of the Korea Herald, So-hyun Kim, did a research on what the expats think most crucial for Seoul to become an attractive, international city is. On the survey, 58% of the foreigners living in Korea said the government should invest more on employees' English education or facilities for expats and foreign businesses. Likewise, When talking about practical English, the language has to be applied in the real events instead of theory.

However, Koreans are struggling to understand the degree of importance in studying and teaching practical English. It is not deniable that many students and parents in Korea focus more on the college entrance than actually learning a language. The universities could start interviewing students in English or looking for students who have done activities involving English. Moreover, the secondary schools could increase the number of qualified native teachers from the English speaking countries. When these little efforts are made by the schools first, students will be less neglect of, or even consider important of the practical English skills.

Hello all of you guys, I'm Kim hae yoon, freshman majoring in English Education.
I want to define the term "Practical English" as a tool of communication. It's quite boring and conventinal definition, but I think that's the best description. As the original purpose of using a language is to communicate with one another, I think language - in this case, English - should be the effective means of broadening one's perception toward the world. However, English education system in Korea has neglected this important point and focused on just reading and grammar area because they are easy to assess. Thus university entrance exam . Unfortunately, this resulted in the situation like people can't use English freely while they learned it for many years. I think this is where we have to start. We have to encourge students to participate in more real situations to communicate with foreigners and exchange their ideas. And I hope I can learn how to do that well in this class.

Hello, I'm Yoorichoi, sophomore in the department of English Education.

When I heard about this topic, "practical English", I thought about function of language. At the very first, language was formed for communicate with other people although it has obtained several other functions like making records and entertaining as time passed by. To learn foreign language is to become possible to communicate with many people beyond the language barrier.
In Korea, however, so many people are not available to talk with foreigner in spite of their whole-life dedication to study English. For example, many people who even have high English test score run away when they run across a foreigner asking for directions. This is not practical English.
At this point of view, I think that English curriculum in Korea has to change in some wayㅡnot just to emphasize speaking and writing area, but also to make possible to play it by ear.

Hi, guys~~
Most of all, nice to meet you. I'm Sena Kim, majoring in German Education.
"Practical english" isn't that profound concept. In my opinion, practical english means that we're able to use English without any obstacles.
When we try to make a conversation with native speakers, we make lots of mistakes involving grammar errors or pronunciation matters.
It should be performed in our real life. Without this, it's still incomplete to define "Practical English".
Anyway, this is my personal idea on "Practical English".