English language was introduced
to me for as long as I can remember. As a child from Mandarin speaking family, English
was not really utilized in my daily life before I began school. As Singapore is a multi-racial
country, English had become a common language for everyone to converse in. Thus,
I always find it a struggle to communicate with my friends or even to understand
what the teacher’s teach in class. This had made me felt inferior compared to
others, thinking why and how are they able to do it so effortlessly.
However, this does not prevent me
in improving the language that I am weak in. I started to think of ways such as
reading more books to widen the range of my vocabulary, watching more English drama
and learning the difference in grammars, paying extra attention during English
classes to overcome my weakness. Although over the years, I could not say that I
had master this language, but at least, I could speak fluently and converse
well with me teachers and peers.
English is
an interesting language to me. There are so many stuff to it. Being able to
converse well does not mean that u have a good ability of it. There are tons of
stuff that I can still improve on my English such as learning how to structure a
proper sentence, writing a formal tone of email, proposal which all will be
needed once I am in the working society. I am glad that I did not give up on English
even when I am weak in it previously.
The English Language is indeed a fascinating subject. The English Language may not be the most spoken language around the world, but it definitely is the most common language that people will use to communicate on a daily basis. In order to improve our ability in the English Language, we should always read more, speak more, listen more and write more. As Robert Collier once said, “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” So with perseverance, I believe you will be able to master the English Language!
ReplyDeleteI have the same perspective with Derrick’s post. During our grandparent’s period of time, they did not have a proper education in Singapore because it was not developed yet. Thus, they could not speak English at all and this becomes a language barrier with our grandparents.
ReplyDeleteSingapore’s education system is bilingual in teaching such that English language is our first language in school followed by our Mother Tongue language. This allows everyone who attends school to learn it and has helped us build a strong foundation in English and we are able to converse well with one another.
I would strongly recommend Derrick to watch Channel News Asia news or read ‘The Straits Times newspaper. By watching the news Derrick can understand how to pronounce words he has never heard of. On the other hand, reading the newspaper will help Derrick to know more vocabulary and the sentence structured. With the positive attitude in learning, nothing is impossible.