Hi, my name is Franci, and I'm new around here. I've been living in Malaysia since I was 9 months old, to be frank, my parents simply made English as my first language.(Which also caused a great fiasco and trouble six years later when I attended a Taiwanese school) Well, as you see, putting aside those bitter feelings being outspoken in every single English class by a clanky lil girl who couldn't even speak Chinese, I had a very difficult life when I arrived at the school. The only comfort was I still had Westerners, which meant part familiy to me at the time, to listen to what I have to say and sometimes translate my thoughts for me. Well, I was much more friendlier with the Westerners, coz only I could understand their humour in class, and was one of the few in school. My English teachers had been asking why my classmates, or schoolmates couldn't manage all the work, even if it's only a Fareast Textbook. We somehow came to a conclusion in time. Studying in a Taiwanese school, we were forced to use crappy Fareast Textbooks (seriously no offense, those who are Taiwanese here, but imagine being in a country where most people speak enough English to communicate! You would expect textbooks from elsewhere),but even so, our school provides 12 years of English education, and students in Taiwan get at least six! Teachers have been wondering why Taiwanese are imcapable of improving their English average, and we came to a conclusion. It's not ONLY because we don't read English books, you can finish a whole set of Harry Potter in 7 hours and still be the poorest English speaker in the neighbourhood. It's ALSO not because parents don't spend enough time sending their children to cram schools and tutoring them and all that. It's plainly because Taiwanese have so little oppurtunity to use English in real life at all. Alright, you can fault me wrong, but I live in a non-Taiwanese neighbourhood, my brother who's 10 this year didn't get the all-English enviroment I got when I was small, and he's one of the typical kids in our so called Taiwanese School. All of our English teachers have said our school kids' English are not even good enough in comparison with a 12 year old American child. And he's comparing high school students then. Right, does anybody here see the difference now? We live in an English speaking country(coz we can't speak Malay, so we just have to speak English when we go out and all that), and still we don't get enough oppurtunities to speak English! Imagine life in Taiwan! When movies, books, songs, lyrics are translated right there for you, you don't even need English. Anybody who wishes to improve their English, just get their bums outta plain talking and get it done! You just might even start with the English version Harry Potter without having to wait for the Translated Chinese version. Why not just try some English websites and all that? You'll really improve in no time. Ta-dah~ Good luck! --

※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 60.54.28.163 ※ 編輯: Franci 來自: 60.54.28.163 (08/22 23:38)