Being brought up in a Chinese speaking family, I was destined to speak Chinese, and the
chances of me using English were very minimal. As such, my English foundation
was not good.
During my course of study in secondary school, I found love with Chinese since it was my forte. I do not hate English but just afraid of it. Whenever I was dealing with my English homework, I was filled with great anxiety and uncertainty. This had not only contributed to my poor English grades - my confidence level was also adversely affected. Thus, English has always been described as my "burden". At the end of the day, I did not score well for my O level English.
The
inferiority for English kept bugging me even when I was studying in Singapore
Polytechnic. In addition, I got worried when I realised that my course
requires excellence in both writing and oral presentation skills. Thus, more
often than not, I would spend hours doing my report and practising my oral
presentation in order to do well. Initially, script was a must "weapon"
for all my presentations. I would not be able to present well without
it. I remembered there was once when my teacher reprimanded me that my
presentation skill is nowhere near a professional. I felt really disappointed
with myself. From then onwards, I practised my oral skills everyday without
fail. I was really glad when my teacher told me that I had improved a lot as
compared to my first presentation. This had greatly encouraged me to continue
to improve my English.
Till
now, I believe that learning English is a process that requires putting in constant
effort to master, just like any other languages. Hence, my English Language
learning journey has yet come to an end. I will take ES1102 as an opportunity
to broaden my interest and knowledge of English.
Word Count: 320
Hi Seokyin!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your reflective post as it is very interesting and detailed. I feel that i can relate to you about your english language journey because I'm from a Chinese speaking family background as well. I admire your perseverance towards learning and determination to succeed.
Overall, I think your writing was quite fluent as I did not spot any major language errors! :)
Emily
Seokyin~~~
ReplyDeleteI really admire your efforts in striving for excellence and to further improve yourself!!! With that determination, let the both of us work hard together!:)))
After reading your post, I think some wordings can be changed to make the sentence better and more concise :)
"During my course of study in secondary school, I found love with Chinese since it was my forte."
"During my course of study in secondary school, I was particularly fond of Chinese as it was my strongest subject." [ps, I'm not too sure if this is correct, but I guess it is personal preference]
Perhaps you might want to review your tenses too!:)
"... my journey to learning English is destined to be a difficult one."
Instead of "to learning", perhaps "in learning" would be better? Since after "to" there should not be an -ing.
I hope that through ES1102, you will regain your confidence once more! ;) Let's do the best we can! :))
Cheers
Thanks for this critical self reflection. I can easily relate to your trepidation about English, Soekyin. You explain the roots of that well in this detailed post.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the effort you have made here and the fact that you are beginning ES1102 with an open mind and desire to improve. I look forward to helping you this term
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