I have studied in GEO Intensive for two years after I entered the university. It's quite long time but whenever I participate each class, I have learned English in new and different ways. Currently, I am in GEO Intensive 30 and I think I am learning and getting especially three things from this class. First, we are studying practical English skills that we can use in everyday conversations. Also, we are learning to fix our common mistakes by listening to each other. Finally, not only things related to study but we can also get special friendship with classmates and even with professor.
First, I learned English skills which I can practically use in real life by watching American TV programs. Actually, I have studied English only with textbooks before I had participated in GEO. I think most of the Korean students are generally same as my case. But in this class, Professor Nigel showed us real American TV sitcoms like 'Friends', 'Office' and taught useful expressions on those sitcoms. For example. I learned the expression 'fall for' which means 'be deceived' or 'be fooled'. After that time, I tried to use it when I talked to my friend in English and Professor Nigel always said it to me in the team meeting. I am really satisfied with this kind of method because I can watch fun episodes of sitcoms and also learn and practice real expressions at the same time.
Secondly, while participating discussion with classmates, I usually learned English and fixed my mistakes by listening their English. As I mentioned, we have a lot of discussion time in class. We talk about our experiences or thoughts with certain topics and I really like this time. Because I can get used to express my opinion in English and also I feel like we become more friendly while we are talking. However, most important advantage for me is that I can learn English skill from others' speaking. I think I learned a lot from other students in our class who were really good at speaking English. Being taught by Professor is definitely important, but I feel I am lucky to being taught by my classmates.
Finally, not only things which is associated to study, I think GEO students can make precious relationships together. Actually most of Koreans including me are not accustomed to speak English because it's not our native language. I think people can become closer when they are doing something that they are not familiar with. In addition, especially students in our class may feel more friendly because our class has only 6 students. We had fun while dividing into 2 teams and doing games or activities together in last class. These kinds of activities build cooperation and make us close.
These are the 3 main things that I learned from GEO 30. I hope we can study many more English for the rest of this semester and also keep our relationships even when our class is ended.
Jiyeon Kim is in Professor Nigel's class, 5-1. She is a student for GEO Intensive 30.
