The differences between "should" and "must"

Since there are so many English expressions that exist, most Korean students confuse what to use when they choose one expression among some expressions that have similar meaning. One of the most often used words when they both speak and write is should and must. Many students use these words when they try to convey duty or obligation. To find out the differences in meaning and usage of should and must, I examined 100 KWIC concordance lines and compared both words from The Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies, 2008-). Some interesting significance could be found through the process of examining two words by The Corpus program.

First of all, when people speak, should is mostly used with “be”, which means it is usually used as passive forms. According to the list of the words usually come after should, top three words are “pointed,” “banned,” and “ashamed.” “It should be pointed (out)” and “smoking should be banned” are some examples of usage of should in passive sentences. Contrary to the way most Korean students use should, object, not subject, is usually placed before should.       

In addition, must is used when people describes their feelings in a spoken setting. Because most Korean students use must as imperative sentences, this finding would be remarkably interesting, especially to Korean students. For example, the way students usually use must is “You must go right now;” however, the way must is used in The Corpus is “it must be very frustrating for you.” The words that usually occur with must are “awfully” and “frustrating.” In other words, it was found out that must is usually used as describing feeling rather than imperative sentences.

Furthermore, it was also found that should and must are differently used when people write. According to The Corpus, should is often used with “maybe” or “probably.”  “You probably shouldn’t be a smoker” and “maybe you should do what I do.” are some examples of should in newspapers. When it is considered, people use should when they are less certain about something. On the other hand, people use must when they order something to someone in a more emphatic tone. The words usually come after must are “obey,” “begin,” and “pay.”  

The corpus study indicated several differences in usage between should and must in both spoken and written settings. To learn these confusing expressions and words will surely help Korean students speak and write in English more naturally.

Reference:

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

The results of the survey_ private English education

Introduction

Unlike other countries, a very unique phenomenon occurs in Korea today. As most parents in Korea are paying more attention to their children’s education and putting more emphasis on their education, they are eager to educate their children outside of public education. Especially, studying English is becoming the most significant issue in Korean education. To satisfy their zeal for children’s English education, the number of English private education opportunities, such as institute, home-study materials, and tutoring, are increasing.

Method

In order to find out the effects and significance of private English education in Korea, 10 questions were designed. The basic information of participants were first asked of the participants. Next, other 8 questions about their own experiences and opinions on private English education were asked. Students who are taking ELT & English Essay took part in this survey and answered the designed questions. It was hypothesized that most Koreans who have had private English education before would think that private English education would not be necessary for their future children.  

Previous Education Experience

Most of the students first started learning English in elementary school; one third began to learn English before elementary school. Half of the students started learning English in public school, and the other half of them had home-study materials to start learning English. For previous education experience, all the participants have had private English education in many different kinds of institutes, and two thirds of them have experienced home-study materials.   

 

The Effects of Private English Education

As to positive effects of private English education, more than half of the students think that it provides high quality of education and helps to get better grades in public school. Other benefits of private education can be improving English skills and offering more chances to learn practical English.

In regards to negative effects of private English education, two thirds of the respondents find it too expensive; half of them believe that it would make students depend too much on private education so that they might take on a passive attitude. Other disadvantages can be that students easily feel fatigued when they have both public and private education simultaneously.  

The Effectiveness of each skill of English

Among reading, listening, speaking, writing, and grammar parts, the grammar was the one that all the participants believed that private education helps students. In addition, most participants agreed that private education helps students improve their reading skills as well. Half of them thought that it provides high quality of education that helps students improve writing skills. Most of them disagreed that private education would be helpful to improve listening and speaking skills. The result of this survey shows that a number of private English education systems lack attempts to teach practical language, such as speaking and listening.

Satisfaction with Private Education

As expected, all the respondents have previously had more than one kind of private English education. Contrary to the hypothesis, however, more than half of them were satisfied with private education that they had, and they would let their children have these kinds of private English education in the future. There was only one reason why they thought so. That was because all the other children will be given these private education.

Conclusion

In short, the survey revealed the significance of private English education in Korea. All the participants have had private English education when they were child. Even though they had difficulties having both public and private education, most of them were satisfied with it. Moreover, more than half of participants are willing to have their children get private education in the future. More research on the effective way of teaching English both in public and private educational institutes will be needed.

EEE Week 6 Assignment

          As to choosing an appropriate literature for high school students, the most famous one in our class is “To a Daughter Leaving Home.” Even though the other poems have some good reasons to be taught in high school, there must be better and stronger reasons because half of the class selected the poem as the most proper literature for high school students. Many students posted the essay regarding the reasons why they chose the poem on their blogs. Two main reasons could be found on three different blogs. According to three bloggers, “To a Daughter Leaving Home” is suitable for high school students since it may cause students to feel sympathy and it has easy yet challenging vocabularies for students.    

All of the three bloggers believe that students would be easily able to relate the poem to their real life. Hyewon Choi says that some opportunities to remind of their childhood will be given to students when they read the poem (2014.10.12). In addition, Hyeonkyeom Cho points out that because they are at the stage where they should be ready to leave their parents like the girl in the poem, high school students would feel sympathy with the poem (2014.10.11). Eunji Kim also adds that students can reflect themselves. She writes, “[By] reading this poem, they can reflect what they had done to their parents” (Kim, 2014.10.14). All their points considered, using “To a Daughter Leaving Home” can be an effective way of teaching high school students because it will arouse students’ sympathy, which is associated with internal motivation.

The other common reason why the bloggers think the poem is appropriate for high school students is that the vocabulary of the poem is neither too hard nor too easy. Both Choi and Kim mentions that the poem is proper for high school students because there are some simple words and repeated structures with useful expressions. Choi also says, “According to the input hypothesis, it is good to teach +1 difficult level than student’s level” (2014. 10.12). She puts emphasis on the importance of the appropriate level for learners by mentioning the input hypothesis. Cho writes, “The level of vocabulary is not that difficult and there are many literary devices that students have to learn such as symbolism and metaphor” (Cho, 2014.10.11). Given this, by reading and learning the poem students will be able to learn the vocabulary at an appropriate level.    

In short, all these three bloggers believe that “To a Daughter Leaving Home” will be the best literature for high school students for two reasons. First, students can relate the poem to their real life. Second, the poem has an appropriate level of vocabulary.

References

Cho, Hyeonkyeom (2014.10.11) “Poem recommendation - To a daughter leaving home” [Web Log Post] Retrieved from http://lovelycho.blogspot.kr/

Choi, Hyewon (2014.10.12) “EEE Week5 Assignment” [Web Log Post] Retrieved from http://eeehyewon.blogspot.kr/

Kim, Eunji (2014.10.14) “To a Daughter Leaving Home : good to teach to high school students.” [Web Log Post] Retrieved from http://kimd2828.blogspot.kr/

   

EEE Week 5 Assignment

When it comes to teaching, one of the most important things is a teaching material, which is the thing that you need for a class or a particular activity. It would be always hard for teachers to choose appropriate materials for their teaching. The most famous and typical material that many teachers use in class might be literature, such as poems, novels, essays, etc. Especially for language teachers, using literature would be an effective way to teach a target language, for learners would be able to naturally acquire language while learning about the stories. Therefore, among many pieces of literature, choosing some that will be effective, instructive, and helpful for students would be challenge for teachers. I believe that a suitable piece of literature should be relevant to students so that they can be interested, and it also needs to be challenging enough to have students not only learn language but also reflect other things beyond the stories. All things considered the poem, "To a Daughter Leaving Home", would be the most suitable for high school teachers.

First of all, since "To a Daughter Leaving Home" relates to many students’ real life experiences, they would be easily motivated to read the poem. According to Keller, a famous pedagogist, motivation plays a key role in teaching and learning. In other words, there is no use in good strategies or environment of learning if a learner is not motivated to learn. Keller says that one of the indispensable things for motivation is “relevance.” As the theme of the poem is teaching a daughter riding a bike and seeing her leave home, and the dad’s emotional changes, it would be familiar for most students. Once the students realize the material is related to their life, they would be interested and motivated. Therefore, choosing a poem, "To a Daughter Leaving Home," which has a familiar and interesting content, would be a great idea when teaching high school students.

In addition, "To a Daughter Leaving Home" has challenging and many practical vocabularies that are used in a real world. When language teachers teach learners a target language, most are concerned about vocabulary. One of the teachers’ roles is to make sure that vocabularies students would be learned should not be too easy nor too difficult, which means it should be challenging. In the poem, "To a Daughter Leaving Home," some words such as “taught,” “in surprise,” and “screaming with laughter” are easy enough to understand context of the poem, at the same time there are some challenging vocabs such as “lope,” “wobble,” and “sprint.” One of the reasons why the vocabs in the poem are useful is it has many practical words. These words, such as “loping along beside you,” “you pulled ahead down the path,” “kept waiting,” and “you grew smaller,” are not only for the literature but also for the real world. If teachers explain that the vocabularies are useful and practical, students would be able to practice the words in the context of the real life.

In conclusion, many pedagogues put emphasis on an “authentic task”, which means learning should relate to learners’ real life. To give the authentic tasks is one of the important roles teachers should play. Therefore, teachers should be sensitive to choosing the materials they will use. "Like To a Daughter Leaving Home," it should be interesting and relating to learners, and it should have many challenging yet practical vocabularies in it. If so, learners must be motivated and be able to learn and apply it to their real life.