Tomoko Imai is from Japan. She was a student in Teacher Lisa Spark’s Writing Intensive Class for ESL Students. This past summer, she won first prize from the San Mateo County Fair for her story, “Playland on the Moon,” in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Adult Exhibitor Category.
You can read her story here.
I sat down with Tomoko to find out about how she learned to write English so well and what she hopes to do in the future.
Here, with her permission, is her interview:
When did you start taking classes at SMAS?
In January 2019 with Teacher Lisa’s Writing Intensive class.
Where did you learn English?
I arrived in the States last year. I used to live in N.Y. when I was a child - for about four and a half years. That is how I first started to learn English. I’ve worked for foreign affiliated companies in Japan. I’ve always worked using English. I used to live in the Netherlands. Because my children attended international schools there, I spoke English and also Dutch. I spoke fifty percent English, forty percent Dutch, and ten percent Japanese.
Do you enjoy creative writing? Have you written other stories?
Yes, I have. I’ve always written stories in Japanese. The story that won the contest -- actually I wrote the story in Japanese about eight years ago. Since I thought the story matched the theme of the contest, I re-wrote it in English. I translated the story three or four years ago back in the Netherlands because I had friends with the same hobby, and we wanted to share stories. I attended the writing course at the Adult School and Lisa taught us how to be more creative and descriptive. I think this is how I improved the expression in the story.
Do you have any advice for students here at SMAS?
I think there are several ways to improve foreign language skills. One of them that I would highly recommend is accumulating good sentences. When we first start to write or learn foreign languages, teachers often encourage us to write in our own words, but the problem for us is we don’t have enough words to express what we want to say. I think it’s a good idea is to learn good sentences and learn them by heart. In that way, we learn good writing and a sense of the language.
Another way is to have your writing corrected by native speakers. I think I’ve had my writing corrected by native speakers for over ten years. I think I should admit I still make mistakes. There’s a huge gap between native and non-native speakers. But by having the writing corrected over and over again, we can improve step by step.
These are the two ways I recommend, in addition to basic repetition of grammar practices and vocabulary building. Grammar and vocabulary are also very important.
How did the SMAS writing course help you meet your goals?
I’m really thankful to Lisa. I found her course very interesting. Especially learning the descriptive paragraph. She taught us how to write by stimulating the five senses of the readers. It was the first time that I learned that sort of technique and it was very, very interesting.
Lisa’s course was designed for non-native speakers. The range of expression was very limited, but she still taught us the academic styles of writing. I think it’s very beneficial for adult learners since we have to live in an adult world. I think as non-native speakers, it’s very important to learn to be very persuasive in order to communicate with native speakers here in this country.
What are your new goals?
I’m going to CSM in the Fall. My ultimate goal is to learn programming and also the method of teaching languages. I would like to develop good software or applications to learn languages. I started to study French at eighteen and then Dutch when I was over thirty. I started to learn English when I was eight. How to learn languages is very different depending on the age or knowledge. I’m very interested in developing apps that are suitable for each age level.
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