TOEFL and Misfortune

By October 2006, the plan to go to America was fossilized in my mind, and I started trying to get everything needed for the program done. A progress toward the plan was not easy, however. A day on November, as soon as I took a TOEFL test, I declared myself: “I give up! I give up!” I didn’t want to make myself feel hard on marking a high score in the test. I didn’t want to study English to get a grade. But I wanted to study English to improve my speaking and writing skills. I’ve enjoyed studying English, not taking tests.

My misfortune with EOELF began with the first time when I attempted to apply for the test. It was not easy to create my ID and password as well as to register a test because I wasn’t familiar with English letters, English websites. I struggled to get them done, and finally I booked two test schedules. But, the first test was canceled because of some reason I don’t figure out so far. In an attempt to get my money back from the center, I called them over million times, but they didn’t know how to answer the phone calls. And I never call the center again.

For the second test, I woke up at three thirty in the morning since I had to take a bus to go to Kyung-Ki Province to meet the test schedule set at 8:00am. In Kyung-Ki, I didn’t know which bus I had to take to get the university for the test so that I spent almost 10,000 won to get there by taxi. During the test, I was overwhelmingly frustrated by my actual English ability, especially in coping with the test. Also, I was seriously unwilling to take the test through a computer screen so that I couldn’t concentrate on the test for reading and listening sections. After the first session, I gave up the other part of the test, and made up a goofy excuse to get out of the place and talked to a director: “I have to go back. I have to meet someone.”

Seriously, that’s not all about my misfortune. No bus has arrived at the bus station I was staying for almost one hour. When a bus finally came, it just passed me; the driver intentionally neglected me, and the bus was out of my sight slowly. I went back by taxi to Kyung-Ki express bus terminal, 10,000 won again. The day, I was terrorized by the test and by the bus driver.

After all the bad passed away, I headed back to Yonsei University by dragging an exhausted body and shattered mentality. The day turned into full of darkness when I got there. I tried to calm down myself. I sat in front of a library, drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying a deeply depressed mood. While the feel sweeping away my all positives was in full swing, I got a phone call from a friend of mine. During the conversation, she encouraged me to keep chasing my goal. (I will let you know what specifics went on during the dialog in Chapter 3-4.) She played a vital role for my future. (I thank you so much!)

During the winter vacation after completing all days in Hanyang and Yonsei University, I got back to Ulsan University, and started studying TOEFL with some friends by establishing a group study. The main purpose in the group study was to strengthen our writing and speaking skills, not to learn how to solve questions.

By February 2007, a friend of mine who studied together in the group gave me a phone call to let me know some IBT tests newly opened. I had a chance to register a test for 3^rd March. I took the test, and got an opportunity to get into the international exchange student program.

Not for TOEFL, But for English

First and foremost, you don’t have to rely on Bob’s ways to study TOEFL since I’ve seen a couple of books to solve listening and reading questions. I didn’t have any TOEFL-specific methods or skills to get a good grade. When I prepared TOEFL, the test type has been changed from CBT, Computer Based Test, to IBT, Internet Based Test. You know that I went to an institution to study TOEFL. The new type, IBT, has been almost perfectly analyzed by instructors, and ready to teach students new strategies to master the test. However, there was a problem for me. The instructors are thoroughly ready for the test, but I wasn’t satisfied with the problem-solving skills. I seriously wanted to learn English, practicing the way to speak in English, listen to English and write whatever I want in English. Some instructors considered test-taking skills more importantly, so that learning English from the instructors was meaningless since I didn’t want to learn those skills, but wanted to learn English. Also, it was just useless for me to learn DEF before ABC.

After taking the classes, I guaranteed myself that I didn’t have to go to there to learn English, and the way I will develop myself would be more beneficial and effective for me. My point was to learn English, not to attain test-taking skills and not to get a high score. The instant knowledge will be eventually vaporized within a few weeks after taking a test.

So, back in Ulsan University, I didn’t take any classes for TOEFL, but studied it with some friends by organizing a group study for speaking and writing. I don’t specifically remember the framework and detailed programs of the group study. It was pretty casual, and I have felt something better when I studied like that.

You should be able to know the purpose of TOEFL: measuring a test taker’s English proficiency. Why does the test measure your English skills? Let’s take an example. The university you want to go to might want to know your English ability to check on whether you are capable enough to take classes and handle them. That’s the first purpose of which you take the test. I know that the test can’t be a perfect criterion to measure students’ English levels. But basically your English can be evaluated through the test. By solely concentrating on problem-solving skills, you can make the grade, and enter into the university you want. Your actual English ability, however, will presumably disrupt your performance in class since the efforts you made were not for your English ability but only for the test. Here, I don’t mean you can’t go to school and take courses there. You can handle them all successfully. But you are going to need additional efforts to improve your actual English ability. In terms of dividing your efforts into marking a good grade and improving your actual English level for your academic performance, you might waste your time if the procedure flows from marking a good grade to improving your English. The procedure should be flown from improving your English to making your grade higher not to waste your time and effort. By improving your actual English skills for use, you can increase your test score. But by only studying how to solve questions, the English level you expect can’t be achieved since you learned problem-solving skills, not English.

Short- and Long-Term Views for Your English

Here, you’d see the way to reduce the time in learning and advancing your English and why you should redeem your actual English competency, not problem-solving skills. To get a test score, it’s effective to study English in traditional ways in private English education institutions or through cracking knowledge from various books. But you should know that it’s a short-term perspective that makes you forget your knowledge easily. You are going to more easily forget what you’ve studied in English since you’ve studied English based on test. You should increase the test score by studying English, not test. You need to study English based on firsthand speaking and writing experience, active English. You have to study English by speaking and writing, not by solving grammar- or vocabulary-related questions, and not by memorizing grammars, expressions and vocabularies.

The way directly using English to learn English might take longer time to take a score you expect than the traditional ways. But, in long-term perspective, I assure that you can eventually lessen a humongous amount of time by bettering your actual English ability and then by taking a test. You need to replace your obsolete methods with up-to-date ones for your English skills you can speak and write.

You can improve your TOEIC score by speaking and writing. To speak and write, you need to know how to speak and write. You are going to have to study grammars and expressions to speak and write so that the overall efforts you do for your speaking and writing competency would increase your knowledge of English for tests as well as the practical use of English.

Let’s put an incident. You need 900 in TOEIC. If you study TOEIC, not English, you can get the score in five months. But if you study English, not TOEIC, through speaking and writing by yourself, it might take a longer time, probably one year. At first glance, it seems like studying TOEIC is better than studying English to take the score. It’s true. But here you need to know why you need the TOEIC score. You may need the score to enter into a company. And you get the score by studying TOEIC, not English, in five months. After that, you get a job in the company, and you are positioned in International Trade. Now, you may feel hard because you are not good at English in practical use. Even though your TOEIC score is 900, you are not good at speaking since you haven’t spoken in English and you haven’t practiced speaking skills. You’ve only studied TOEIC. So, to increase the speaking skills you are required to possess, you register an English conversation class. You go to there to learn speaking skills after your job.

Here’s the point. Regardless of whether you get a good grade in the shorter time, you have to learn speaking skills again to improve your skills which are seriously necessary for your job. To be good at speaking, you might have to participate in the class approximately for one year, actually more than one year. Let’s try to calculate. It takes five months and one year for both taking a test score and getting speaking skills. Even though you’ve put your time for the TOEIC score for five months, you have to additionally practice speaking skills to use English. In doing so, you have to spend more time and money.

Otherwise, in case you try to improve your English ability, not TOEIC score, you can reduce the time and money you have to spend. As I mentioned before, you might need one year to get 900 score in TOEIC if you study English through directly writing and speaking, thereby getting practical English knowledge. In that case, you don’t have to additionally put your time and money to improve your speaking skills for your job because you are already good at speaking you’ve practiced through active practical learning. You can get the TOEIC score from speaking and writing.

You might be prone to study English only for higher grades for several tests. In the long-term, however, learning English in that way will waste your valuable time, efforts and resources. Don’t see things only for your short-term achievements. Eventually, you might have to spend more, or you might have to come back to where you started to begin the most necessary things.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Dual Degree

There are two international exchange student programs in Ulsan University: Exchange Student and Dual Degree. When I had the plan applying for the program in mind, I had no doubt that “I will be an exchange student, and will go to Portland” because the University of Portland was the only one that had engineering departments including “Industrial Engineering.” In exchange program orientation, however, I knew that some students in my major were in AUM because there are some similarities between Industrial Engineering and Business, especially in Information System and Quantitative Management. My department, therefore, approved to take courses in AUM and transfer the courses and grades taken in AUM to courses in Industrial Engineering in Ulsan University. And exchange students can take both degrees in Ulsan University and AUM if the students can successfully complete the curriculums provided by AUM, and meet qualifications for graduation.

Whether to take another degree or to be as an exchange student was not easy for me to choose because there were different values and opportunities: two degrees with a longer time period and hard work for graduation, or an early graduation with one degree and exchange student experience.

I had to be a freshman again after the military service, so I had no choice but to diminish the time to graduate as shortly as possible since the longer I stayed in school, the more I had to pay. Additionally, and ominously, I heard that taking dual degree, successfully, is not easy because it requires hard work so that nobody guarantees to take both degrees unless students put efforts a lot in managing courses and grades. I had been looking for an answer: “which program?”

Finally, I came to put more value on dual degree program. First, it was more challengeable. Secondly, it sounded adventurous. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Thirdly, I was lured by the scarcity of dual degree program. Not many people have two undergraduate degrees. So, I thought taking both degrees in Ulsan University and AUM might differentiate my capability.

Thanks to

Ulsan University has some international programs: internal exchange student program to Canada, America, Japan, and China etc, and dual degree program in AUM. Thanks to my school, and Mr. Ron who is responsible for international students in AUM, I’ve enjoyed American life.

It seems like I have been achieving things by a series of luck. I ponder on whether the things luckily happened to me is based on my effort or not. Actually, I was more fortunate than others in the similar wishes and in accomplishing things, such as an opportunity to go abroad. There are many people who have helped me to be in America. And there are some programs in Ulsan University that have made me more complete as the person I want to be and should be. Thanks to those dedications from all people involved in this program, I’m now here in America; I’m able to have more dreams and bigger dreams; I’m now writing this. What if there wasn’t this program? Perhaps, there would be no Bob’s. The existence of Bob’s would be doubted.

Ulsan University and AUM have had a special relationship by having some international programs. Students in Ulsan University can study in AUM, and take a degree if they want and try hard enough to get the degree. (I am not sure about how long this program has been so far.) Generally, four students come from Ulsan University a year. I heard that dual degree program has made by a student from Ulsan University in my major, Industrial Engineering, because he has got all A while taking classes in AUM. Because of his performance, faculties in AUM had been impressed so that this program was created.

I’ve been taking more advantages and opportunities with less monetary stress. The tuition fee defined as “out-of-state” for foreigners is normally three times as expensive as “in-state fee” for American citizens. Normally, international students are categorized in “out-of-state” students. Students from Ulsan University, however, pay their tuition fees to Ulsan University regardless of how many classes they take. In the past spring semester, 2008, I took 21 credit hours, and it’s about $11,151 total from $531 a credit hour enrolled as an undergraduate nonresident. It is too much to pay, and I am never going to afford it even if I can. But, my university paid it on behalf of my pocket, and I thankfully paid Ulsan University’s tuition fee in accordance with the international program policy. What if I had to pay AUM’s tuition fee, out-of-state? I’m definitely not going to be here.

Chapter 1-3: Preparations & Goals for My American Life

In front of the journey, I had looked for the way to enrich the journey. I wanted to be thoroughly ready for it and for the days during the life in it. I pictured myself standing at the final destination looking back my days after the completion of all the things in the journey. To be satisfied with, I needed to prepare everything necessary, right after the day my journey was confirmed.

Are you waiting for something? I don’t want you to wait for the thing; I want you to step further and get closer to it. I got down to planning something that I can do for the upcoming American life as soon as the news for admission was dispatched to me. The plans were efforts to be familiar with the language, English.

I joined two English group studies for presentation and conversation skills. And I made two group studies for writing and speaking. Plus, I tried to take some lectures from free online lectures provided by top-tier universities in America.

In addition to practicing English, I established three goals not to be sluggish, but to be everlastingly active and passionate toward the future life.

Group Study

Two English Conversation Group Studies

English Writing Group Study

Framework

A Disseminated, a Bit Negative, Perspective against Writing Group Study 

Why Writing Group Study?

Presentation Group Study

Framework

Free Online Lectures

Goals 

Group Study

I had joined in some group studies for the first semester in Ulsan University in 2007 while waiting for the time to go to America: two conversation, a writing and a presentation group studies. Things I’ve learned those days have been strong cornerstones for my English ability now. At that time, I also had to handle some classes, so I was pretty busy managing my schedules. Studying and practicing English with group members were a great pleasure for me, though. I’ve mitigated the pressure and stress from classes by studying English and by hanging out with people who were interested in the same purpose, improving English skills. Almost the whole weekdays, I’ve met group members to discuss diverse topics and issues. Let’s look over the specifics of each group study I had been crazy about.

Two English Conversation Group Studies

I ran a conversation group study with ten to twelve members. We divided into two teams to maximize the individual time to speak in English. I didn’t set any requirements and qualifications to conjoin the group, for I thought both parties, those who are good and not good at English, are able to learn something from each other regardless of the proficiency in English. And the group study had no specific topics and schemes. Each member was supposed to prepare any topics s/he was interested in, or just come and talk instantly without any preparation. In case members didn’t bring any topics, we randomly picked some issues currently pervasive and interesting, and discussed them. You might think there are some disadvantages of this framework in slack. But we, members, all enjoyed it. Members didn’t have to prepare something for each meeting so that they were able to concentrate on their main duties, such as studying class subjects or others. Also, members who did not prepare anything could practice how to talk instantly against topics abruptly made. The members might not have thought of the topics, so while speaking without any based knowledge on the topic, they could measure their real English skills. Besides, if there was a person who prepared some topics, the person could get more chances to practice the topic-related vocabularies and expressions during the time to prepare alone and discuss the topics with team members. Regardless of whether members prepared topics or not, they all could get benefits from the group study. This conversation study was casually conducted in terms of the overall scheme. And I soaked up the advantages of this group study by participating and reveling in.

Another conversation group study was run by a student in Electronics Engineering. The number of members would probably be six to eight. This group was more formal in terms of policies and programs than those of the other one I made. The leader prepared topics for each meeting once a week, and we watched news and discussed the topics, or sometimes argued against others’ voices. One day, the leader suggested us to do a role-play as some become interviewees and others become interviewers for a job interview. It was pretty fun and enjoyable, so I at times employ the role-play being an interviewee and interviewers when I do study group activities. I think it’s very useful for job-seekers as well as English learners since the situation gives tension to a person whose role is an interviewee. In practicing English, learners are more likely to benefit from adequate tension or stimulation because they are more prone to pay attention to in those situations.

Through the activities from the two group studies, I’ve steadily improved my speaking skills. Now in America I came to know how much effort I had to put to advance my English skills. The efforts I’ve done in Korea were pretty insufficient to be good at English. Keep in mind, though, a steady effort is the best way to improve your English.