Hi, I'm Angelia
A lot of my students often ask me how I learned English well to become an
English teacher
Then I have to tell the same story to different students over and over
again
so I thought I
could share my learning experience in this film
for those curious about my learning history
Hopefully, they can figure out a way to achieve their learning goals
I first had
English classes in junior high
Than all the way to high school
I just learned whatever my English teachers taught
did homework
and took tests, just like everybody else
At that time, all our school English education focused too much on grammar
reading and translation
So, although I always got good grades on English tests, I could only speak some
simple English
and I couldn't even write an essay
um... That was really frustrating because I wanted to be excellent in English
so I made a plan to improve my english to reach advanced levels
uh... Here's the plan
For listening
I watched an American soap opera weekly
watched an American movie monthly
and listened to an English radio program every day
and I took notes while listening to them
For speaking
whenever I learned a new word, I made sentences with the word orally
When I watched an American movie, I tried to mimic what the characters said
and when I had chances to talk to English speakers, I was very active to
talk to them as much as possible
I also bought some conversation books with tapes to practice speaking at home
Before going to bed, I would talk to my tape recorder to keep track of what I had
done every day
after I finished the tape recording
I would listen to it again to see if I made mistakes
then I corrected the mistakes
and took my voice again until I thought it's correct
However, if
I didn't know how to say something in English
I would look up the dictionary
to get the answer
For vocabulary, I had never made a list of new words to memorize them
because I wanted to make sure the usage of each word
so I learned
vocabulary from reading different kinds of
articles, books, magazines, newspaper, and so on
In this way, I could understand its usage in a sentence or context
However
for anything in my house
i didn't know how to say in English
I made word cards and attached them to the real objects to remember them
For gramm, reading, and writing
I attended a language program at a local university
The program was
for outsiders interested in English literature
It offered
English classes
lectured by the professors at
the English literature department
The classes were very challenging, and I learned quite a lot there
Two years later
I decided to study in the USA
so I took TOEFL preparation courses in a private language center
where I learned the test-taking
techniques and
took many practice tests
to be ready for the TOEFL exam
Three months later, I took the TOEFL exam
then fortunately I passed it
and had an opportunity to apply for the universities in the USA
When I studied in the USA
I learned even more because I was totally immersed
in the real English environment where I had to use English all the time
Even though I had
studied there for years and got my bachelor and master degrees
now I still keep polishing my English
because I know if I didn't, my English would get worse
After all, English is not my mother tongue
and I don't live in America anymore
So you can tell from my learning history. There weren't any tips or short
cuts to my learning goals
but I had a plan with strong ambition
carried it out with all my heart and never stopped
I believe many successful learners do the same thing
By the way, I read the stories of some perfect TOEFL score holders
They shared their learning experience
I found out they have some things in common, and I thought
you mignt want to know
First of all
they all love English and they make plans to advance their English abilities
Secondly
they all work very hard on vocabulary learning
so they know lots of words
and they read a lot
Thirdly, they all think it's better to start learning English from childhood
Finally, they are very active to create English environment by themselves
On the whole, I just want to say
a language is just a communicative tool. It's not a subject
The more you use it, the more you master it
so there are many different ways to
learn English successfully
You just have to figure out the most suitable way for yourself to use
English frequently
Don't be afraid to make mistakes
We all learn from mistakes
Above all
be patient and never stop learning it. That's it