Society

English Skill is Not Everything

Most of my students, and perhaps most students in Korea, worry about their English ability. Some have spent hundreds of hours in English classes and ludicrous amounts of money to study English, but when asked, most students claim, “My English is poor.” This is more often than not indicative only of the student’s perceived lack of accomplishment. If taken seriously, however, this proclamation of poor English after more than ten years of study (and its sad reality) is indicative of failure somewhere in the learning process, be it the curriculum, the instruction, or the students themselves. It is easy to blame the instructors and books and easy to seek out “better” methods, and many students do just that in their pursuit of better English ability. Yet, when have students worried about their own ability to study?

Never may be the correct answer for many students. Some are probably too busy studying to think about studying. Others are undoubtedly so weary of studying that they cringe at the very word, as they do with the word “grammar.” It may even seem ludicrous to question their ability to study when students have spent thousands of hours studying, but the problem is that many students are not good at truly studying. Many are very good at “studying” instead.

Although many students think merely attending class is studying, it is not. If merely attending class were studying, the desks in the classrooms would have multiple doctoral degrees. The desks don’t have degrees, and neither should the students who sit in desks warming them to perfection while sleeping or hung-over. It is not the number of hours you spend “studying,” but how you spend them. Do not merely be present physically; studying requires mental engagement and effort.

The commercialization of education would have us believe that spending money on tuition and books is studying, but it is not. Buying a new textbook, as fun as that may be, has no benefit. Paying for a class in university or at an academy, likewise, does not give you an education. You may spend exorbitant amounts of money to buy more books, learn from better instructors, and attend better classes, but without engagement and effort, your money is only buying you wasted time and a full bookshelf but an empty brain.

Many students do put great effort into studying but only just before the exams, and they believe this is studying, but it also is not. Facts may be memorized quickly, but proficiency requires understanding which requires contemplation, and contemplation is impossible overnight. Marinating brains in alcohol or distraction all semester and trying to quickly memorize and regurgitate unprocessed information is not studying, but wasted opportunity despite the last second effort.

Everything so far essentially says, “Studying is not doing the bare minimum,” and that couldn’t be truer. Read the assigned readings or textbook from the first week of the semester. Read about your classes, not just the assigned readings. If your professor doesn’t assign readings, read anyway. Be prepared and on time for class, not flustered and late. Be awake, alert, and not hungover in class. Be prepared to engage the information and ask questions to deepen your understanding instead of just warming a chair. Start assignments the day they are assigned, not the day they are due. It doesn’t matter if you write a few ideas that you discard later or if you only start thinking about the assignment. It doesn’t matter either if you don’t finish until the due date. What matters is that you started before the last moment (and could get help if you needed). If you wait until the last moment, if you come to class mentally unprepared, if you do only what you must, you are only doing the bare minimum; and the bare minimum is a D, not an A+, so don’t expect one.

Many students in my classes have surprisingly different English abilities despite many years of studying English. Some barely scrape two sentences together. Some fluently discuss a wide range of topics with apparent ease. Most are between these extremes, struggling at times and fluent at others. Yet, that variety of English ability is not always directly correlated to their final grades. Despite students’ mind-numbing but superficial obsession with their English ability, it is more often the students who seize the academic moment, engage the material and actively try to master it – the students with greater proficiency at studying – that are the most successful.

By Prof. Bradley Smock
Dept. of English Lang. & Lit.
bradleysmock@gmail.com