Week 12 Homework

There are a lot of synonyms in English, so many Koreans often confuse these synonyms. Among the English synonyms, most confusing words are little and tiny. The difference between the two expression is in meaning: little is “limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent”, whereas tiny is “very small.” The difference between the two expressions is also in usage. I used The Corpus of Contemporary American English and Word And Phrase (Davies, 2008-) to find out the difference in usage between the two expressions.

First of all, little is most commonly used in ‘fiction’, and the second common used in ‘spoken.’ Tiny is also most commonly used in ‘fiction’, but the second common used in ‘magazine.’ Tiny is not widely used in ‘spoken.’ Secondly, the most common phrase including little was “[a] little [noun].” Similarly, the most common phrase including tiny was “[a/the] tiny [noun].” This similarity shows that little and tiny are used to modify nouns. Lastly, little collocates with ‘bit’ in the most commonly, and the next common collocates are ‘girl, boy, thing, kid, while, man, house, guy, child, brother, town…’ It indicates that little is more often related to people, not objects. Tiny also collocates with ‘bit’ in the most commonly. However, the next common collocates are ‘room, town, hand, fraction, piece, light, island, house, village, apartment, baby…’ That is, tiny is more related to objects, not people.

Little and Tiny have some similarities and differences, so they could be confused in usage. However, if we use the corpus study, we can be less confused between two synonyms.

Reference:

Davies, Mark. (2008-) The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 450 million words, 1990-present. Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.

Davies, Mark. (2008-) Word And Phrase, Available online at http://www.wordandphrase.info/frequencyList.asp.

Week 9 Homework

    There are many issues in English Education today. In Korea, one of the biggest issues is that the English section of the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) will be evaluated on an absolute grading scale, commencing in 2018. Many people have argued the matter pro and con. We can't help but think about the issue, because this issue is directly related to us who would be teachers. To share opinions about the issue, the instructor decided to investigate (1) how many students agree with an absolute grading system of the CSAT and (2) what they think about the level of difficulty of the CSAT.

    In order to find out the students' opinions about absolute grading system and the level of difficulty of the CSAT, the instructor designed a 6 item survey. The survey asked that students preferences of evaluation. It also included 3 questions about arguments for and against absolute grading system, 2 questions about the level of difficulty. It was hypothesized that the students in the class would be evaluated through absolute evaluation and relative evaluation. The survey was administered during last class and 12 students responded.

Most students prefer absolute evaluation rather than relative evaluation, and over half of the respondents agree with an absolute evaluation for the following reasons. The reasons are that "Contrary to relative evaluation it is effective to graded as much as I tried." and "It may get rid of the burden such as English academy for school students." On the other hand, the rest of respondents disagree with an absolute evaluation. "Some students will get motivation from competing other people."is one of the reasons that people are disagreed about it. About 70 percent of students think that the difficulty level of CSAT is somewhat appropriate. On the contrary, about 30 percent of students think that the difficulty level is not appropriate, so they think that KICE have to adjust the difficulty level.    

   

    In conclusion, the survey revealed that many students agree with an absolute grading system and the difficulty level of CSAT. Therefore, KICE implements CSAT through absolute evaluation first. If the exam has something the matter, they need to compensate the defeat.

Week 6 Homework

“To a Daughter Leaving Home” is one of the literatures we learned in our ELT class. Most of the students chose this poem when asked If they have to choose one literature and teach students. According to three students’ blogs, they think that this poem is appropriate for high school students, and they choose this poem for some reasons.

Yenny Hwang indicates that the message of the poem is suitable for students. She says that the poem deals with the subject of a daughter’s independence from her parents. High school students are also passing this time becoming independent person from their parents, so students can understand parent’s mind through reading this poem (2015.09.29).  She also points out that this poem uses easy words and sentence structures. She writes, “To a Daughter Leaving Home uses easier words and sentence structures. Further, this uses a metaphor, it makes us think of the meaning in words and guess the willing of the poet through this poem” (Hwang, 2015.09.29).

According to Jisun Jang, she points out that the theme of the poem is familiar for students. The poem deals with Mother’s love, and this theme is familiar for the most people. Jang thinks that most people, including high school students, have experience in learning bicycle from their parents which is relate to this poem, so it is good for students’ understanding (2015.09.30). Jang also indicates that the poem may be well to understanding for high school students. She writes, “To a daughter leaving home’s composition is simple relatively but also interesting because poet’s time cross past and present and used words are also comparatively easy; wobble, pull away, sprint. Thus students may well understand this poet” (Jang, 2015.09.30).

Mijung Yoon feels that the poem deals with family love, and this topic is an easy topic. She writes, “Students can easily connect their own experiences to the poem. Also, reading about family love would be a break time to students who are sick and tired of hard studying” (Yoon, 2015.09.29). Yoon also points outs that the rhetorical expression of this poem is good. According to Yoon, the title of the poem implicates a present situation that a daugher is going to leave the parents, but the contents of the poem cover a story that the first time (2015.09.29). She writes, “The writer overlaps past and present within a single poem. It is interesting expression for students” (Yoon, 2015.09.29).

In short, three bloggers chose “To a Daughter Leaving Home” for high school students.  Because the poem deals with familiar theme using easy expressions, and the poem has good rhetorical expression.

References:

Hwang, Yenny  (2015.09.29) “week 5 homework” [Web Log Post] Retrieved from http://yennyhwang.blogspot.kr/.

Jang, Jisun (2015.09.30) “To a Daughter Leaving Home” [Web Log Post] Retrieved from http://blog.naver.com/ekdzhd1120/.

Yoon, Mijung (2015.09.29) “Let's read the poem / / To a Daughter Leaving Home” [Web Log Post] Retrieved from http://mimimimijung.blogspot.kr/.

To a Daughter Leaving Home

 

 

There are four literatures we learned in class: “The Chinese Grandmother”, “Fire and Ice”, “To a Daughter Leaving Home”, “The Red Hat”. If I have to choose one literature and teach students, I will choose “To a Daughter Leaving Home”. There are two reasons why I choose “To a Daughter Leaving Home”.

The first reason is familiar theme. The thematic idea of “To a Daughter Leaving Home” is that a parent teaches a daughter how difficult it is to live a life independently like riding a bicycle. That is, this poem deals with the theme of family, and the theme, such as family, is so familiar to student’s ordinary life. When students read and study this poem in class, students can recollect their own childhood days, so students can understand the poem easily. Therefore, it will make class more interesting and help students focus more on their class.  

Another reason is easy to understand. Metaphor is used in most poems, so students can feel burden when they read some poems because of its ambiguity and difficulty. However, “To a Daughter Leaving Home” is writed in plain language. Metaphors are also expressed, using easy words and grammar. Therefore, students don’t have any difficulties when they are reading the poem.

 

Studying English through the poem may be harder for students to understand. However, if teacher choose easy poem, such as “To a Daughter Leaving Home”, class will be more interesting and effective.

 

* a picture "Old photo of girl on a tricycle",

from http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=250254&searchId=9588f670d71d38aa0ceefbe20cc52876&npos=10