My English Language Learning Journey

    English, is a familiar and yet a foreign language to me. I have started to learn English since primary school. Despite 14 years of English learning, I still fail to master English. English is considered as my third language, after Mandarin and Malay. For your information, this is a quite general phenomenon for Chinese in Malaysia.

    Although Malaysia and Singapore is just one causeway apart, there is a disparate culture differences in these two countries. The most observable culture difference would be our mother tongue, which is our first language being taught. In Malaysia, we usually use Mandarin as our daily conversation medium with family and friends, and Malay whenever we visit to government department or integrate with Malay friends. In my primary school education, school syllabus is being conducted in Mandarin, and it was compulsory for us to pick up English and Malay as well. In secondary school, classes are conducted in Malay except for the three sciences subjects and mathematics. Basically, I only learnt English theoretically and technically instead of practising it.

   Learning English was once a tedious and monotonous task for me. For the every new beginning of school term, we always start our English lesson with the same grammatical rule for instance simple past tense, future present tense and so on. It was a really dreadful task for me as all the teachers keep on repeating the same things. However, my mindset changed after I went into college and got in contact with native English speakers. It is really imperative to be able to communicate in English so that they feel comfortable with you and also to avoid any miscommunication. A t the same time, mastering in English is essential for me to express my idea and concept clearly for academic purpose. The only way to enhance my English proficiency is to adhere to the principle of read more, write more and speak more. Thus, it is crucial to foster the use of English in my daily life.

    As for my English performance, I have obtained an “A” for English in SPM examination, “A2” in Cambridge 1119, and overall band score of 7 in IELTS . I hope that I will be able to rectify my grammar mistakes, more familiar with the appropriate use of vocabulary and also improve my English proficiency and fluentness in daily conversation by the end of ES1102. However, I understand that picking up E