My Journey in the Learning of English Language (3)
It was sort of cool when I was told sometime into Form 4 by the school principal to stop writing composition.
"You are still young. You will not make much progress even if you try harder for the time being. Stop writing and help a group assigned to you. If you cannot solve their problems, come to me. After you left school, you could make drastic improvement with more life experience or you would just maintain your present level."
After this, I was exempted from writing composition in class. How my classmates admired me! No course work anymore until I graduate from secondary school.
My English teacher and school principal was right. A taste of real life after I entered the labor market was indeed helpful.
For a guy to work as a secretary in an office is quite weird. Anyhow, I was able to use longhand to take shorthand from a visiting managing director from our UK principal. He was quite amused about this.
I joined a publishing company as my second office job in the position of Chief Accountant. That was the
first time I came into an environment that was not merchandise related. The style of English was naturally different from what I used in a trading house. The managing director was writing English letters in a very simple and concise way - a style that really opened my eyes.
My conclusion is that a style like that is only possible when one is very clear about the subject matter, has the authority to decide on the matter (or has been briefed very well by one's superior) and of course has good command of the English language.
For me, I am fully aware of the burden of the Chinese language on English language learners. Students tend to write in long complicated sentences initially. It will take someone quite a while and also persuasion from one's teacher to break them down into smaller units for easier understanding and the minimization of errors.
If you are habitually writing in long complicated sentences now, take my advice. Drop that habit. Write clearly in shorter sentences. When your skills pick up later, you will know naturally how to reformat your writing in such a way that it will fit your target reader.
Have you done any precise writing? You read a long article and use much lesser words to sum up what you
have read. It is a good way to train yourself in the use of English. I have not heard anyone mentioning about this in China yet so far. Students may have assignments like this, perhaps.
This will complete my 3rd deposit into my journey in the learning of English language.
[原创]My Journey in the Learning of English Language (2)
Please excuse me if I sort of sidetrack at times as I am writing this more like a blog than a well pre-planned piece.
QQ Zone is not really a good place for posting in English as one has to be careful with the pagination. Like a lot of Chinese sites, QQ Zone is not geared to posting in English language and so is unfriendly if one expects a good display for the post.
I will carry on here for a while to see if these display problems can be tackled with. Apart from abruptly moving part of a word down to another line, the Qzone is replacing some letters with asterisks (*) like busine** **nglish. I will write to the Service Support of QQ to see if they can explain what why it’s like that and also see if the faults can be rectified.
Oh, one more draw-back. The loading of the link is taking far too long, so much so some impatient viewers will just give up.
Coming back to the learning of English language, I have actually let off the my secrets many times online unselfishly.
I am repeating here again the secrets in case you have missed it before.
1) Relax when you start studying English. If you get too tense, you cannot do it well.
2) Do not mentally tell yourself that studying English is harder than any other subjects you have to study.
3) For those who have acquired enough vocabulary, refrain from looking up the meaning of every single new word you come across, as this will destroy your interest in your reading.
4) The basis for 3) is that when the same new word shows up again in another place, your guess for the meaning of that word will turn out to be correct and without a second doubt, as the word may appear in an appropriate context which throws light on its meaning. (This applies of course to extra-curricula readings. If you are a student and have to do your homework, you are left with no other option but to look up for the meaning to get your work done.)
5) If ever necessary for you to find out the meaning of the new word, do so with an all-English dictionary. Try not to use English-Chinese dictionary if you like to speed up your learning process. (Reason: Our brain is best kept on one language channel for effective learning of a foreign language. The reason why some of us are stammering when they speak is all the result of translating from Chinese mentally.)
6) So to sum up, throw away your dictionary or use an all-English dictionary if necessary.
I will stop here for the 2nd deposit of my English language learning journey.
(No Chinese translation rendered for this deposit. In fact, I would like to appeal here for someone to help me render the Chinese version as typing Chinese is a problem for me, apart from my Cantonese style of writing.)
[原创] My Journey in the Learning of English Language (1)
Our college graduates most likely have studied English for years. When it comes to the use of that language, they most invariably are unable to do so.
There are a number of varied reasons for this failure. Until the batch of new generation English teachers who really know what's English start their teaching career, most students are fooled by the present English teachers. What they learn are text-book English, not the lively English we can communicate with others. There are faults in the pronunciation of most teachers themselves, and this is really damaging the listening skills of their students.
What I had experienced in the past 4 years as a recruiter of foreign teachers, most English teachers in China fail to meet the standard. They are not able to conduct a decent conversation in this language, the English they use writing emails are horrible to the highest degree: mistakes in grammar, sentence structure, spelling, punctuation marks, breaking up in paragraphs, or new paragraphs without a blank line, etc. They really don't know what they are doing after all. These terrible mistakes are not from the ordinary teachers, but teachers of advanced standing and recognition by the education authorities. That include university lecturers and foreign affairs officers (who are slightly better). As I am communicating with them on my job exchanging emails, I am relaying you the facts.
Where the problems lay with the students?
1) Students have not made any real effort to learn the language, devoting no time and energy to learn it or
appreciate how to express themselves in English.
2) Fooled by businessmen who sell in the name of English training but care nothing more than money -
selling nothing more than a dream.
3) Always on the look for better methods, better teachers, better training centers, better textbooks. You don't feed your tummy by talking about food only.
4) The misbelief that one can learn English only the white teachers. As a matter of fact, a well trained Chinese English teacher can do the job much better.
I am not a traditional English teacher by training, but I have been using English internationally for over 30 years as an international business executive. I set my goal to learn English well when I was small. When I was attending first year high school, I started reading English college textbooks. I ran before I could walk. Besides, I experimented with language training with my own two little kids.
The two younger children (a boy and a girl) of mine was barred from access to their mother tongue ever since they were babies as my circumstances then permitted this. English only were used in the house and once they started talking, they talked like native English speakers. This decision was correct for a very simple reason. Little kids can learn the local language easily when they start going to school. If I had allowed them to use their mother tongue, then expect them to learn English, it would be exactly like most of us are now experiencing - a torture. They are now studying in international schools in Hong Kong, and are learning Mandarin as well. They understand Cantonese of course. Perhaps, they have mistaken English as their own mother tongue.
I have had a lot of international working experience behind me and the skills daling with foreigners. Now that I have resolved to take up English training as the last career in my life, I can show you much more than English language. I will make sure you use English to learn new things outside of China, skills to make a living, and shed away the pain and burden of English language acquisition.
Come on, let's learn English merrily! |
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