My English Language Learning Journey

My mother used to enroll me in many classes when I was younger, including a English phonics class. However, despite being in an English phonics class, I was never really good at English.

I came from a Chinese speaking family and was hardly given any opportunities to practice speaking English. On top of that, I went to a Chinese school and from primary one through four, my friends were all Chinese speaking. Hence, it was natural for me to be better at Chinese than English.  

The realization of the importance of English only came to me when I got to primary five. I was posted to a better class and suddenly, everyone was English speaking. I had no choice but to start getting used to speaking English. My new friends influenced me and I started reading English storybooks and listening to English music. Eventually, the language grew on me and I enjoyed it even more than I enjoyed Chinese books and music.

My English began to show an improvement, and this could be seen especially through my results in school. I was commended by my secondary school English teacher on my well-written composition, and this was something that usually only happened in Chinese classes. My confidence increased and I started to love English more and more.

It was a huge disappointment to find out that I had to take an extra English module in university because I thought I had written well for the test. Thus, I went for the first lesson reluctantly, but was pleasantly surprised to walk out at the end of it feeling the opposite. Brad gave us a different perspective on the class. I agreed that I might as well make the best of it and learn more about the language that is so important in our world today, and strengthen my foundation in English because I know that it is not strong enough. Now, I am looking forward to learning things that I never knew about the English language that I’m sure would benefit me a lot!

Edited: 3rd February 2014