For Moon Dan-yol, a popular English lecturer who is also known as Daniel Moon outside of Korea, English speaking is a subject closer to physical exercise. "When we sing a song, we use about 400 muscles, and the same complicated muscle movement is involved when we speak," Moon told The Korea Herald.
Moon is widely regarded as one of Korea's top English teachers, particularly in the field of speaking, and said there are three basic principles that bolster a successful learning process for verbal communication.
The first principle is the internalization of key expressions and sentences. "The key is how many times you actually speak the phrase or sentences of the target language," Moon said. "When we pick up our mother tongue, we just listen to the language input and try to imitate the sound in a constant cycle of input and output that forms the crucial connection between listening and speaking."
Unfortunately, Moon said, there is a persistent misunderstanding about the connection between listening and speaking. Some experts, including English teachers and study guidebook authors here, argue that listening constantly to English input will lead to an improvement in speaking ability somewhat automatically.
Moon said this theory is not valid.
"Listening to English audio tapes endlessly does not guarantee your English speaking proficiency will improve. You have to speak the sentences yourself, internalize the sentences and make them your own," Moon said.
If they had interviewed the other guy I would have pooped my pants.
Or one of the white people.
