I’ve struggled with English since elementary school and it was never my favorite subject because of how poor I was in the class. My teachers noticed I was way behind grade level when it came to writing and reading and tried their hardest to get me to practice at home but never bothered doing so because I had no faith in my writing/reading. I finally became more comfortable with my writing during my last year of high school in AP Literature. I’m still not perfect but my teacher taught me a lot about English. The most important thing I learned from his class was confidence! Being confident when speaking and writing is super important in English because it helps you move forward and help improve your understanding. During huge assignments, I was always stuck on what to write and was afraid I might say something wrong. Due to my lack of confidence, I would always leave my assignments blank which lead me to falling the class poorly and gaining nothing. Once I developed the confidence to begin participating and completing assignments, I and my teacher noticed progress. Overall, confidence is key in English because it pushes more broad ideas which are essential to us when we are reading and writing.
Learning English
When I was in China, English was always my worst course, and it is the same now. It used to be because I was not interested in it, but now it is difficult to overcome the grammatical conversion between Chinese and English.
When I first came, I really didn’t know anything about English. The only thing I can remember is the 26 English letters and a few of the most commonly used words, such as he she me. When I first came, I lived in Flushing , there are more Chinese people, so didn’t feel any hard with communication. but when summer ends , once I stepped into the school , I felt as if I had come to Mars and could not understand anything teacher nor students said . But fortunately, there are Chinese students in the school, and it happened that one of my classmates lives next door to me. I would often go to his home after school and study with him. He helped me a lot. At the beginning, we would recite words together, and then after the vocabulary got up, we practiced spoken English, watched the news, learned other people’s words to practice pronunciation, and gradually improved our English level.
Discovering Outlets for Literature
At a young age my teachers had introduced me to reading and writing. Right away I decided that this is something that I resented with a passion. I found it to be very complex and difficult for me to comprehend. As years passed I started to acknowledge all the different forms of reading and writing. I’ve never particularly been a big fan of sitting down and reading a 500 page novel. However, what I did enjoy was story mode video games. It’s amazing how a video game, something that is considered childish, helped me praise forms of literature. It reminds me of how human beings get connected to books, and how it makes them feel so many different emotions through the simple art of words. One of the games that have completely changed my perspective of writing is The Last of Us. Reason being, it possesses different writing components that cause the player to feel as though they are in the character’s shoes. I am forever grateful that video games were presented to me because it proves to me that other individuals who also don’t enjoy sitting down and reading a book will also have an outlet that helps them find their own way to expand their comprehension skills. In addition, I’ve also found that word play and expressing how I feel on paper is something that is not in my skill set. However, my girlfriend who has always struggled with her mental health, found that journaling is something that helps her heal and connect with her inner self . Witnessing how writing has helped her wellbeing makes me appreciate reading and writing as a whole.
