The first time I got to know about English
was during Primary 3. This is because I come from China and the government only
introduced English to upper primary students back then. I had quite a positive
experience when I just started learning English. The grade was not counted for graduation
so I started learning English without any stress on the academic results. I was
just curious about English and wanted to know more about it. I had fun trying
to use the newly learnt vocabularies to communicate with friends. Although
sometimes we might use it wrongly and created jokes, I still learnt and
improved through the mistakes.
When I went to Secondary School in China , which
was during the beginning of 21st century. Due to globalization, the China
government had paid more attention to the importance of English. That’s when
English is treated just like other subjects such as Chinese and Mathematics. We
had proper English lessons and tests where grade became a concern to us. I was
lucky to have a really nice English teacher, Miss Lin in my secondary life. She
was only 24 years old back then but she already obtained Test for English Major
Brand 8. (Some certificate issued in China for English language). She is
knowledgeable and friendly. She treated us more like her younger friends rather
than her students. She was always able to make the class so interesting to
capture my attention. I would say, without her, I might dislike the English
lesson just like a lot of other students in other school did. Without her, I
might not even dare to come overseas to study in this English based education
system.
Wow! Thank you for your post Desheng, it provided an interesting insight into your life as a student in China right before the globalization era. This piece of information is definitely an eye-opener for me because as I grew up in Singapore, English has always been my preferred language when I communicate with friends from other races. I am impressed by your open-mindedness and excitement to learn a foreign language.
ReplyDeleteThat having said, I do have some feedback for you. Constructive criticism, I hope!
1. Repetition on certain phrases
- E.g. “…when I just started learning English. The grade ... so I started learning English…”
- I suggest you adopt other sentence structures. Instead of using “I started learning English” twice, you might want to consider saying “…so I learnt English”.
2. Parallel tenses in the same sentence
- E.g. “… we might use it wrongly and created jokes…”
- Instead of using “use” and “created”, which are present and past tense respectively, maybe you could standardize it – “we used it wrongly and created jokes”.
That’s all for now, thank you!
Hi De sheng. It was interesting reading your blog post! It is nice to hear that you had a positive experience on learning English! Also, I can relate to your experience of learning English where you mention that “I had fun trying to use the newly learnt vocabularies to communicate with friends”. I also had a fun and enjoyable time when I tried to learn Japanese on my own. You mentioned that your teacher, Miss Lin, made the class very interesting. I wonder in what ways did she made the classes interesting?
ReplyDeleteHey Desheng, your post gave me a lot of insight into the Chinese education system and it was a really enjoyable read. It's inspiring how your relationship with Ms Lin had actually motivated you to pursue excellent grades for your academics. Just a few minor points to note about your writing!
ReplyDeleteI think that when you say "She is knowledgeable and friendly." it should be "She was knowledgeable and friendly." because you are talking about the past.
Also I think the word more in this sentence "She treated us more like her younger friends rather than her students." is not very necessary.
But thank you for sharing about your secondary school life and I hope that we can both learn more and benefit from taking this module.
Thanks very much, Desheng, for this post. As you see from the comments from your peers, you've done a good job of providing us with insights into your English learning experience.
ReplyDeleteYour classmates have already mentioned a few language issues. Let me add that there are a couple sentence structure problems:
When I went to Secondary School in China, which was during the beginning of 21st century. Due to globalization, the China government had paid more attention to the importance of English.
>>>
When I went to secondary school in China, which was during the beginning of 21st century, due to globalization, the China government paid more attention to the importance of English.
And here is a verb tense problem:
That’s when English is treated just like other subjects such as Chinese and Mathematics. >>>>
Take note of these when you do the rewrite.
Thanks again!