I came from a
Chinese based primary school and a Malay based secondary school in Malaysia. As
a result, the chance for me to speak and write English was very limited. In
fact, majority of my school time I used Chinese
to communicate with my friends and used Malay to communicate with friends of
other races. Unlike Singapore, the first language in
Malaysia is Malay language. Thus, it is normal for us to use Malay language to
communicate with people of other races. Along with these facts, my English
language did not improve. In fact, most of my English writings were directly
translated from Chinese.
Four years
ago, when I first time came to Singapore for my tertiary education, Ngee Ann
Poly, I did very badly in an English module in the first semester. After that,
I made myself to speak English with my friends, but it turned up I spoke a lot
of “Singlish” instead of proper English. Before I got into NUS, I made use of
the breaks to go online to search for some grammar study materials like “The
Blue Book” (as one of my friend recommend for me) to prepare myself for the QET
test. But at the end I still did very badly in the QET test and required to
take ES1000 last semester and ES1102 this semester.
After enrolled
into NUS, I got more chances to speak English and I hope to improve my
communication skill. Moreover, I believe after taking this ES1102 module, I can
improve on my writing skill, as Mr. Brad really catches my attention in the
first tutorial class and I will look forward for the next 12 weeks’ classes!
(280 words)Edited on 3rd of Feb 2014
