Ron's ESL Blogs

When I was in middle school, I begin to study English. At that time, I studied very hard, because there were too many words we needed to remember , and we also needed to understand grammar. I also remember that when I took examination I always think that English is harder than mathmatics , so my grade of English is always horrible.

When I graduated from high school , I planed to go to the US. and get a bachelor degree. I need to study English as hard as possible.

Fortunately, I had a great teacher at a workshop in Shenyang. He had studied in England. He taught us his method make us get lots of benefits.

First of all, he told us that you shouldn’t take too much time to study grammar. When we studied in high school, our teacher spend their most time teaching us grammar. That is a wrong way. What is most important? The answer is words. To remember any words whatever you studied. Although it is boring, we also need to do it.

For this point, I collected a lot of methods to remember words. Like Association Memory method, super-imagination method(associative image).But the most important staff is our effort.

Second, we need to get a good sense of language. Just to realize that when we were a child , we did not study any grammar , but what makes us speak fluently? It is sense of language. Therefore we needed listening and speaking practice to improve our sense of language.

Currently my English is not good enough, I also need to study hardly. I study in ESL 6a ELAC. It is a good class with good teacher and friendly classmates.I think I will improve my English a lot for this class experience.

In the USA, English is official language. I come from China. Our first language is Chinese. When we are studying at high school, we are beginning to study English. English is difficult to learn. Some people have a good way to learn English, bus it doesn’t work for me. I just have one way to learn English. Maybe that is not a good way.

Last semester, I had business law class at PCC. This was a difficult class for me because there were a lot of professional words on the notes, and the exam was writing short answers. I need to remember all the notes. Before I had exam, I would use a week to review the notes. This time I learned a lot of words. I feel my English was better.

“It is really difficult to learn.” Some people reply. In my way, I also will say that. If I open my computer, I am not absorbed in my book. I will check my Facebook, check my email, answer my MSN, and download some movies. I don’t focus on my book. When I learn or read book, I must turn off my computer. Then I can focus on my book.

In my case, I am a different student. I can not learn at night. I feel sleepy when I open the book and read for about 10 minutes because I have a class in the morning. I will go to sleep and get up early to learn English. Maybe after sleeping I am not only easily focus on my book but also I can easily to remember the words.

This is my way to learn English. It is tiring way because I need to learn long time, don’t touth my computer and get up early. Although my way is hardship, it is working in my way.

Can you imagine how hard it is to learn a new language , especially if it is the second language for you?

That is very hard. Learning a language is not only learning a new words. The language is the culture and the image of each

country.In order to learn a new language you should know more about the country

that this language comes from.

English language is the most popular language in the world.For me it was so hard

to learn this language,I realize that when I started to learn english in the elementary school.

That was beside essential language ,which is arabic.

During that time,i started to to like this language Also when i reached the high school i started to read

books always.Reading books helped me a lot,because i started to be familiar with many new

sentences and words.I learned  not to be shy ,when I speak English espesialywhen i make many mistakes

Later on,I started to use the internet ,it was so much easier to me than before

Also facebook helped me to communicate with people who speak this language,for example

one day i saw a comment on my profile picture,it was in english,I read it ,but it was so hard

for me to understand.Ientered the language tools and i found the meaning of each word.

Till now I’m still using this way to learn English,beside the class that I’m taking with M.R Lee.

By the way M.r Lee taught me a new way .It is the robot

Finally I want to say that learning English nowadays is not hard,because the technology

in this days gives us too many language that we want .

by Malak Meslmani

Starting to learn English at the 5^th Grade, I cannot believe that I have learned English for more than thirteen years.  Thirteen years is a very long journey in learning something new.  If someone tells me that he has focused on a subject for such a long time, I would think that he must be an expert in this area.  For myself, I am not doing quite well in English.  That’s why I am still learning English now.

At the very beginning, English was all about memorizing some new words and simple sentences.  So I could always get good grade in it.  It became the reason that I like English at first.  Then, when I was a student in middle school, learning English was pretty easy for me.  I only did some review before the test and exam.  In other words, I didn’t spend a lot of time in learning English.
High school was the turning point.  I had to learn plenty of grammar, and there were too much new vocabulary of me.  Besides the class, there were many workbooks and material following.  I started to be tired of English, and my grade was lower.  At the second year of high school, students must choose a subject as major.  I chose English.  Even though I was not a top student in it, the passion in English is in my heart, let me do the decision.  Under teachers’ guide, I did a huge amount of practice for the exam including oral practice sometimes, but it turned out that it’s not enough and not suitable for real English using when I came to the United States.

When I am facing an English speaker, I become very scared and my brain is blank. Worse, I am always tongue-tied.  I really hate myself at that moment.  It seems I have never learned grammar before that I can’t finish a sentence.  These make me frustrated and upset.  It’s time to learn “real English”.  I am having Grammar in school.  After that, TV is a good way to learn daily English. From the TV shows, dramas, and movies, I know the way the Americans speak.  I think the most efficient way to learn a language is to make friends who speak that language.  But until now, I don’t have many American friends, and I notice that it’s my problem.  I need to push myself.

I know I am not a good learner that I am too lazy and not making many efforts.  But I will continue my way in English.  I will speak like a native American someday, I will.

My Way of learning English

            Everybody have the different way of learning English. English use widely across the nation. In order to communicate with people, I had to learn English. I must adapt to U.S customs. I needed to understand people around me, by making effort to study. First, I started to learn English in adult school, and then I went to college. In the end, after studies, I hope I can speak English in fluently.    

After I arrived in America, I went to an adult school to study low-level English. I felt I was like a child because I could only say the easy words in English. For example, how are you; How old are you.  I studied how to pronounce the words, and how to write them. Also I prepared for the class. I spent a lot of time checking the meaning of words and memorized their definitions. I also payed full attention to my teachers  and took notes. After two years, My English improved a lot, I could understand Basic English, and I decided to go to East Los Angeles College.

When I enrolled in East Los Angeles College, my English level was 5A. I felt frustrated because I was a bad writer. When I wrote, I had to think about the topic in a few hours. I had difficulty putting ideas in the paper. If I wrote, there were a lot of grammar errors appearing in my paper, For Example, run-on sentences, fragment and comma slices so on. In order to get better to my writing, I went to professor officer hours, I asked my professor for the advice. Finally, I went to writing center to ask for help. This way of study took a lot of time, but it was more effective than my old way to think about the topic in a few hours. My writing skill improved.

 Right now, I am a 6 a student; there is a big challenge for me to learn English.  I have to write five-paragraph essays and in class writing. I know English is very important to me and my future life. I will overcome my difficulties which I work harder! Read more and listen more.