In Indonesia, English is one of the compulsory subjects in public school. My first encounter with English is when I was in kindergarten. I learned how to count in English, basic vocabularies and children's songs like Itsy Bitsy Spider. For me, from primary school until high school, English has always been easy as I could ace my tests without having the real need to study hard.
It was when I needed to prepare for TOEFL test that I realized that my English was not that good. Sure, I did well on my school tests, but I never really used English in my daily life. I realized that I did not read that much in English, nor could I speak fluently in it. I was always confused when I had to write in English, especially when it concerned academic related matters. I felt that my foundation was not strong. I only learned English because it was compulsory in school but I did not put any extra efforts to really learn English as a language. Now that I realized it, I want to not only learn English properly but also master it.
When I enrolled to NUS, I needed to take the QET and assigned to this ES1102 class as I got the band 2. I did not feel ashamed or something like that because all my Indonesian seniors told me that being in the band 2 is very common among us. On the contrary, I feel happy to be able to take this class so I can polish up my English. I will try my best to pay attention in class and I hope my another English learning journey in ES1102 with Brad and you guys will be useful yet fun :).
Edited on 3rd February 2014
Hi, Adella,
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think that your entry is rather clear and coherent. However, I would like to point out certain grammatical errors to take note of. For example, "...English was always an easy subject when I could score high on tests without really need(ing) to study hard." and "...and I (am) always confused when I need to write(,) especially for academic related matters."
- Shu Kai
Hello Adella!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your entry, I got to see an overview your english language learning journey!
I really want to encourage you to never give up your goal of mastering the language:) It is also a goal of mine, and we can both work towards it! I can also relate to you about having a weak foundation in english, but I believe we will learn and improve with this course.:D
Anyway,l just a slight note, adding on to shu kai.
I think for this sentence, "For me, from primary school until high school, English was always an easy subject when I could score high on tests without really need to study hard.", instead of "when" it should be "that". I hope I did not misread and change what you are trying to say. :>
Oh one last thing, you mentioned public school in Indonesia, and I am really curious to know how is the education system like? Is it similar to Singapore's? :>
Look forward to see you tomorrow, hope you have had a great weekend!
Hi Adella,
ReplyDeleteI could really see the effort you have put in into making your blog post as vividly as possible. I have enjoyed reading your post and I hope you would continue to bring life to your writings just as what you have done in this post. However, amidst your post, I realized what whenever you are structuring long sentences, you tend to be confused with your tenses and verbs, just as Kai Soong had pointed out in the two examples above. Even though my English is not excellent, I believe that no efforts will go unnoticed! So lets work hard together and make our English-learning journey as fruitful as possible. :)
Regards,
Wan Xian
opps! Shu Kai I mean!
DeleteHi Adella,
ReplyDeleteThat was an interesting post from you! I tweaked some sentences to make them more grammatically correct, but I’m not sure if they are correct though!
From: "My first encounter with English is when I was in Kindergarten."
I don’t think there is a need to capitalize the letter “k” in the word “kindergarten”, unless it’s the name of the kindergarten, e.g. Aadeen Kindergarten. The whole sentence should also be in past tense since your kindergarten days have already ended.
To: "My first encounter with English was when I was in kindergarten."
From: "English was always an easy subject when I could score high on tests without really need to study hard."
To: “English has always been easy to me as I could ace my tests without having the real need to study hard.”
From: "I realized that I didn't read much in English, I couldn't speak fluently in English, and I always confused when I need to write especially for academic related matters."
To: "I realized that I did not read much in English, nor could I speak fluently in it. I was always confused when I had to write in English, especially when it concerned academic related matters."
From: “I only learned English because it's compulsory in school but I didn't put any extra efforts to really learn English as a language.”
To: “I only learned English because it was compulsory in school, but I did not put in any extra effort to learn it as a language.”
Thanks, Adella! I appreciate the positive attitude demonstrated in this post. Luckily, your seniors have given good advice. You've also garnered lots of helpful feedback from your classmates.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading more of your posts!