Throughout primary and
secondary school, I did not enjoy studying English language. I admit that I
felt the learning process was a torture for me. I found the language a bore as
there were so many rules that I had to remember and follow. Those rules were
complex and did not make sense to me! I could not fully grasp those concepts
and failed to apply them while doing my English exercises such as writing essays
and comprehensions. To make things worse, I did not cultivate a good reading
habit. My English grades were always poor and I had to attend countless remedial
lessons.
When I attended junior
college, I felt that my English standard was inferior compared to others
and I had this mentality throughout the two years. I was consistently failing
my General Paper, and found it hard to cope with the rigor of the subject. It
required me to have a great knowledge of current affairs, but I did not meet
that expectation. Coupled with my poor writing skills, it was a great challenge
for me to express my arguments or points succinctly in my essays. In the
end, I attained a D grade for GP in the A level examinations. Even though it was not satisfactory, I felt
that it was a miracle for me to obtain such a grade as I had been consistently
scoring S(sub pass) or U(ungraded) in the past.
I am really thankful to be
studying in NUS right now but when it comes to English language, I know that
there is a huge room for improvement. I consider ES1102 as a new phase of my
English learning journey. I look forward to improve my writing skills and be
more confident and effective in expressing myself.
(edited: 3 feb 2014)
(edited: 3 feb 2014)
Hi Sili,
ReplyDeleteI guess this is the thing about languages. You need a real interest in it in order to find it enjoyable.
I can probably say the same about my mandarin; the learning process was a torture for me personally. But then again, instead of following the school curriculum of teaching mandarin, I watched Chinese dramas on Ch 8 which hopefully helped at least a little in improving my mandarin.
In life, I believe we need to do things that make us happy. However, if we don't have a choice, then do the "unhappy" things in a way that makes us happy.
Cheers
Darren Chew
Hi, Sili,
ReplyDeleteI like that you described your experience and feeling in this blog post.
As I don't feel that I'm strong in grammar, I cannot really point out grammar mistakes haha.
But then again, let's go through ES1102 for the following weeks together and hopefully we can learn a lot!
Hopefully, you can be more interested in learning English too.
Cheers,
Adella Tiffany
Hi Sili!
ReplyDelete"I have been consistently scoring S(sub pass) or U(ungraded) in the past", the have can be replaced by had, a past tense (i make this mistake too. HAHAHA) :)
Thank you, Sili, for the detailed, honest post. You do a very good job of providing background on your prior English learning experience. While you wrote about many problems in your attitude and learning experience, as I read your post, I thought to myself that there were so many strengths in your fluency that you now can build upon. I look forward to working with you this term.
ReplyDelete