The longest title that I ever used.
Well, my prior motivation to write this post was to encourage my lovely friend who is not really good in English and looking for a hand to finish her English homework, (bear in mind that I don't intend to offend you, my apologies if it annoys you) but later I found it useful in any other aspects too.
Again, I strongly emphasize that I'm not being haughty or what. As you all can see, my English doesn't sound good as well, there are still loads of grammar mistakes, using inappropriate words, etc... So, please don't get me wrong.
Many of us from Chinese school (including me) seem to share a common problem: poor English. Of course, there are also a lot of English experts and the reason they are good either because they go for tuition or they read a lot. Again, I'm not criticizing our English teachers are useless. I believe they are good teachers and they really make an attempt to teach us. But the problem is learning languages aren't just listening to your teacher, you have to read more, write more, listen as well as speak more! Everyone knows this fact, but how many of us follow it?
Sad to say that our education system is really a failure comparing to our neighbour, Singapore. Isn't it amusing to have subjects like science and maths in both Chinese and English? I don't see any point here except giving the small kids
Shao Lin's style training, the only different is we are using overweight bags instead of two buckets of water. I mean why cant you just bracket up the special terms in different language beside it? It really doesn't help a lot in improving our English!
Back to my personal example, my parents did send me to tuition since I was young. I attended phonics class, I went to Mrs Tham's tuition(Mandy's and Grace's mom, those from FCT will know who) during my primary school. But I didn't pay attention. Shame on me. My parents did send me to tuition when I was in secondary school but guess what? I skipped them. Played truant, and even urged my bro together, thinking English wasn't important for me, I'm studying in Chong Hwa what. (Better don't think so, else you'll end up like me.) You will never know how frustrated when they found out, and I would never forget their faces mingled with anger and disappointment. Shame on me once more! Due to all these, my basics are really weak, even though now. Don't ask me what adverb, nouns, pronouns, gerund are all about, cause I can hardly answer.
Despite text books, I hardly read a page during my secondary school. Exaggerated? Nope. I just started reading after I finished UEC, end of 2007. Yeah, my turning point. Thanks a lot to my x-gf who wonderfully overturned my life. I still recall that she borrowed me the book "
Who moved my Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson. Her English is good, at least better than me and in order to chase her, I decided to brush up my English. (She's same school with me). So, she motivated me. Thanks a thousand times over! Kinda sad that we are no longer in contact, which really put me into depression. From that on, I started to read. Checked almost every single word that new to me. Of course it was really painful to check the dictionary every few lines but I really learned a lot. Although I can't remember all the words I have come across, more or less I did improve. As proverb says,
yard-by-yard life is mighty hard, inch-by-inch life is a cinch, so long that you read, you gain. Agree?
Besides, I took my younger sis's primary books to learn grammar. Hard to imagine a 18-year-old teenage asking a 12-year-old girl to teach him grammar? It's earthly true. God has teaches me to be humble, and he gives me the courage to overcome the so called shame. It did hurt when my sis said '
huh? You don't know this?' but I rather let her laugh than to lose a job in future. Appreciate her patience as well as my bro. See, you have nothing to lose but gaining everything by humbling yourself! So why not?
A friend of mine asked me how do I improve my English and I told her exactly what I am telling you now. Read and read and read. Then she said she doesn't know what to read. It's really ridiculous when your daddy is reading
The Star, your sister buys
Reader Digest and your dad bought you some books regarding business which are also in English yet you say I don't know how to improve my English. Again, I'm not trying to offend you. If I did, sorry. What I'm trying to say is make use of what you have. Don't just keep on saying that you want to improve but no action is taken. You can even read some well-written blogs, honestly I do not recommend mine cause I am still doubting my grammar. Highly recommend you to read
Kennyasia.com, which I just discovered few days ago.
I did struggle if I should post this because it really sounds like acting pro. But in the end I decided to do so because I want to tell you all if a nuts like me can do this, you definitely can do this also. So, don't hesitate anymore. So happened that new year just passed not long ago, jot this down on your new year resolution-
start reading. It is never too late to learn.
