The English Language was the weakest subject since primary school. As there was little or no exposure because I grew up in a mandarin and dialect speaking environment. I started learning English when I was in kindergarten because it was a mandatory subject in school. With other subjects to focus on like math and science, I did not realize the importance of English and was always inattentive in class, which leads me to struggle with the subject throughout my primary and secondary education.
However, things started to change when I was introduce to
English comedy and thriller tv series. My vocabulary started to expand with the
amount of movies and tv series I watched. In return, there was a slight
improvement in my English pronunciation which helps me to speak more
comfortably and confidently to my friends in school. There were also general
education and communication modules when I was in polytechnic which allows me
to improve my communication and presentation skills.
Although there are improvements in my English language,
sometimes I still have issue trying to convey my ideas to my classmates during
group project. This is due to constant usage of singlish with my friends. I
also find it difficult to speak in proper English and I always have to take
some time to think of proper words to use before I can reply.
All in all, able to communicate in proper English in our
daily lives is important especially in a multi-racial country like Singapore. I
have learnt that in order to be proficient in English, I have to speak in
proper English and also seek for advice from friends who are good at it.
[ Commented on Fira's English language journey ]
[ Commented on Fira's English language journey ]
Hi Edmund!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post about your English Language Journey, I could not believe that English was your weakest subject in school as your command for the language is pretty good! And I definitely understand how you are able to improve your English through watching comedies and thrillers shows on TV as it is the same for me. I believe that by watching shows or listening to songs on what we love can really help us improve on our language skills.
However, I realise that there are some minor grammatical and sentence structure errors in your writing such as:
1. "The English Language was the weakest subject..." - English has been my weakest subject....
2. "As there was little or no exposure because......" - As there was little to zero exposure.....
3. "...I still have issue trying to convey my ideas..." - ...I still have issues/problems in conveying my ideas...
All in all, I really like how you convey your feelings about the English language in this blog post and that in time, your language skills will improve and would not cause you anymore issues.
Thank you!
Thank you for the constructive input.
Deletewill look into the improvements that you have suggested!
Hi Edmund,
ReplyDeleteI feel that your reflective writing is quite well written as it is concise and clear. You did state the challenges you faced and how you felt about it. However, there are some areas where you did not described in details. For example,"which leads me to struggle with the subject throughout my primary and secondary education." You could have described on how you have struggled with the subject and what did you do about it. I also realised that you have some grammatical errors such as "when I was introduce".. - It should be "when I was introduced".
Overall, it was quite well done. Enjoy your English learning journey!
Greatly appreciated your comment,
DeleteWill look into the improvement you have suggested!
Thanks, Edmund, for the effort with this self critical reflection. It's very interesting that your negative view of English evolved thanks in part to the TV programs that you enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteYou've gotten some good feedback on your post from classmates. I look forward to seeing how you might respond to that via revisions.