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
Thank you, Keng Hwa, for this heart-felt effort. I appreciate your willingness to be so open about your attitude and experience toward English in the past. The way you detail your experience here in Singapore is also impressive. I sincerely hope that our work in ES1102 can impact your writing skills. Let's start by having a look at this in class.
ReplyDeleteHi Keng Hwa, we have somewhat similar circumstances! I was also from a Chinese school and thus didn't have much opportunities to converse in English. Lets work hard together and improve our English by the end of the semester!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey Keng Hwa,
ReplyDeleteIt is good to know the difficulties you're facing, I guess some of us have the same experience.
Just to take note, in the last sentence of your first paragraph, I think you could use "were directly translated" instead of "are directly translated".
Also in the 2nd paragraph, it should be "to go online" instead of "to went online". In the last sentence you could have used "and was required" rather than "and required".
As Brad mentioned, we should take note of the consistency in our grammar.
Let's work hard together and we will do just fine!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you're trying very hard to improve your English. Here are my points about the post:
"As a result, the chance for me to speak and write English is very limited."
It should be "...the chance for me to speak and write English was very limited."
This is because you are referring to your past education in Malaysia.
"In fact, majority of my school time I was using Chinese to communicate with my friends and the remaining time mostly used Malay language communicate with friend of other races."
It could be changed to "...I used Chinese to communicate with my friends and used Malay to communicate with friends of other races"
Since the sentence is set in past tense, you should use "used" instead of "was using". Majority is the same as mostly therefore these two words need not be used twice.