Every individual has their own strengths and weaknesses. Ever since I can remember, I’ve had struggles with any form of languages such as English and traditional Chinese. My journey up till now, from all the things that I learned till now shows I still have a lot to improve on.
It all started at the very beginning of elementary school. Ever since first grade, the grades I receive was high 80’s and 90’s in my English tests. I never noticed that I needed extra help with English, specifically speech. I was never aware that I received extra help in my curriculum that a speech period was added and support during test taking. Until middle school, it became apparent that I was put into a class specifically for students that need extra support because a normal classroom would have 1 teacher instead of 2. Even throughout my years in high school and my first year of college, my speech is still not as good and I have difficulty communicating with peers and professors. I don’t think it will ever improve until time will tell.
The writing requirements for high school and college are drastically different. Going into my English composition class in my first semester of college was the cross between college and high school writing. I was learning that everything I was taught from high school was incorrect and I wasn’t annoyed by it. I appreciated the college style of writing because students were able to freely choose their style of writing and topics they want for an assignment. I believe the student’s topic is most important to them because no one would want to write on a topic that the individual won’t be passionate about. Moving into English composition 2, I did terrible on my first writing assignment that required serious revisions. Before the first assignment for English composition 2, we were told to write about the setting the character was in and was able to metaphorically paint a picture. These words mean much more such as “father”, “scolded”, and “tears” to help build a paragraph. For example, “I’m home with my father. It was after school, my father confronted me to discuss with my failing grades”. I tried to incorporate this into my other writing assignments throughout the semester to give a vivid image of the story. I may not have explained it better when I spoke to Professor Hall, and there are many ways to word a sentence better to be understood. Another assignment was the Gilyard’s response taught me ways to fill in words to complete an assignment with analysis. One of the things that I wrote was “Another thing that I liked about this story and that I would prefer in my writings is the use of the first-person perspective. I do not like how this story has people talking to another individual, as reading from a 3rd person perspective…”. This taught me how to add more details such as including my own personal opinions and thoughts if the topic has an impact on my life.
English may not be easy for everyone through countless years of expertise or practice. After all these years taking English class that was taught to me throughout my entire life that is supposed to teach the student how to write. I don’t believe that writing can be taught to students because writing isn’t something that students should be bound to. My writing hasn’t changed too much even though I wasn’t forced to follow a format. When I receive feedback from professors and help centers, I would be told that this is grammatically incorrect, its a run-on, or there is a tense problem. I may not see it the mistakes that other people may see and that’s one thing that I’ll need to improve over time. Another habit I have is being lazy, thus I have to commit and spend time in an excluded room and read my essay out loud. In the end, the effort I put into my work will reflect the grade I will receive.
My weakness will continue to be English. As time will tell, I can’t really imagine myself being good at English. Even with my limited vocabulary, I may not impress the reader. I may not even have a coherent and cohesive essay. However, it should not be the reason that I would stop writing in the future and completing an assignment
