Dear Mr. Kim
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Dear Mr. Kim It has been so long from the last time that I met you in the secondary school in 2015. Right now, I am a biochemistry freshman in the University of Kansas, and kind of shifting to the pre-med track. How are you doing? Are there any more students that even much annoy than me, haha? I have heard that you had been promoted to the head of English department in our secondary school, so Congratulation! I will try to be back to Vietnam this fall to see you in the old coffee shop that you often taught me some grammar class outside of school. Remembering those old days when I have to prepare from shifting from our small public school to more monumental international school, where ,literally still in Vietnam, has a much cultural changes. I am writing this letter just to tell you about my life after moving to Vietnam Australia International School (VAS). As you has told me, Vietnamese and English are alike but not identical language because our origin somehow was still from the Chinese verbal usage. In English, we do not arrange ‘I paint the red car purple’ to the ‘I paint the car red to color purple’ in that of Vietnamese. Thank you for your basic lesson that I know more about how to use English as a beginner; but this basic needs to improve in this ‘English as the mother language’ environment. Not lying to you, a top student like me in this secondary school got a first D in the global perspective class after 6 months, and your midterm test was the first C for me haha. What a panic experiences! For most of the feedbacks, teachers did not get my point of argument, and the ideas structure arrangement was obscured, unorganized, and hard to follow. My grammar are bad developed so the ideas was misunderstanding, in which I incorrectly used the tenses making the ideas should be happened right now is something ended already in the past, or the bad event that is solved in the past was presented at the moment in my writing. I think this is because the way we use grammar in Vietnamese, no irregular verbs, no tenses at all. There were 2 more students that are the same with me that they were changing from a public school to an international school, and our most common obstacles is the way we arranged our ideas structure in a complex sentences and even a paragraph to a whole writing so that it is logically connected to the next intended ideas. Indeed, my low grade rouse me that if I maintained the same manner, the same linguistic uses, it is hard for me to study abroad and even graduating my international school. And what you have told me: “refusing to study is the one of the stupidity.”, I decide to study the extensive English courses and SAT preparation. Did you suffer the same thing as me when you first study abroad in Philippines and have to change the language uses due to the cultural differences? And are there any advices you can suggest for me? Do you think the same with me that our way of writing is much affected by the way we use in Vietnamese, indirectly approach? We often gained higher score when writing that ‘Of all the animals sold in the pet store, cat is my most favorite animal’ in Vietnamese ways of writing instead of ‘Cat is my most favorite pet which sold in the pet store’; you could see that the English way of writing this sentences is more concise though they have the same meanings, and more directly approach. From this illustration, you can get that how I ramble my ideas around in most of my writing making the ideas needed to be expressed distort and lengthy. Learning in this new international environment sharpen not only English skills but also the soft skills. Can you guest how long would it take me to finish an IELTS reading test? 1.5 hours for 3 short reading passage. There are many factors made me this stagnating reading speed; sometimes, I was too focused on the supporting phrase instead of the key point because I translate word by word from Vietnamese to English. For example, ‘Peter is the scientist, who contribute to the invention of 5-D graphic with George’, by translating words by words and focus too much on the relative clause, I just remember that George is the inventor of 5-D graphic. Overall, reading the passage words by words, and often concentrated too much on small details make my reading speed slow and less accuracy. This detrimental actions are commonly happened to many students who shift language used in a particular culture to a completely new culture, and students are confused and suffered from arranging their thoughts and organized it in the given structure. What are your perspectives about this problems? As you know, I am a pure nature-science student, most of my overall score is dragging up by the high score of nature science related subjects like math, bio, chem, and physics, and it is rarely for me to achieve high score in social science subjects. Indeed, I prefer the reading text that is logically connected, includes the cause-reasons-effects style than an emotional, literature contexts. This also is the factor more my slow reading speed; specifically, the scientific reading passage took me less time to finished than that of the literature/history passage. I often were not concentrated and be discouraged to read more. Why? At that time, I was not understand the meaning of the authors, their implies, and the purpose of these readings, and I also refuse to understand. What a hard head boy, am I! But do you know what is the most effective encouragement? The real exam, I do not know why but I unintentionally registered for the SAT and IELTS, I feel not worried much because these test was just for my placement so that I can know where my stupidity was. Days had passed, and I got 6.5 for the IELTS and 1240 for the SAT. IELTS score are a little above average but I am quite pleases as I did not study for anythings, but the SAT is the other story; my dreamed school required a much higher score, so that I push myself to hit the book, aiming for a straight 1450 certificate. These 5 tough months of SAT practices began! You know what, it is always easier to said than done hahaha. The early process has been not gone quite well, the previously made aim is just for fun, I guess; all I want from attending this SAT extensive class is the class will end as soon as possible so that I can do the other A-level deadlines in school, or finish the Korean romantic series that is half-way done. After first 3 weeks, I was wondering how could the SAT reading so complicated. How and why the tutor can get the author’s ideas through a nonsense sentence (for me); by what means that mentioning about the federal laws can undermine the feminism, etc. It is true that SAT readings are no longer require any True-False-Not given concept, factual easy-picking multiple choice, or gap filling just as that of the IELTS, the SAT are all multiple choice questions that required more in-depth understanding, because the questions require me to know about the author’s implies of the point he made in the text, where is the sentences most likely to driven their thesis, etc. Randomly, I tried all of my concentration just to read and understand a reading passage of the SAT on my holiday trip, the mild cool air from the AC, and the quietness from all sleeping people are the best medium for the high concentration of me going over the passage about how the professor, and his students in a particular university find out the methods using the bacteria immune system to fight against the virulent virus. It turns out that understanding the whole passage is not a tedious experience. As often, I would only need the information about the mechanism of the new discovery itself, but by understanding the whole context, the passage drive me to the whole story, from how the students finding the keys ideas while doing the casual lab experiment and suggest that ideas to the professor to their experiment, analysis of the result and the conclusion for this findings. I think that this sudden change in the way of thinking make me more interesting in reading. By now, the more passage I read, the more story I got, and there is something that I could learn from these. The most worth-telling lesson that I learnt is to reflection; the old me was that if the exam or a test is over, I would told to myself that I did not need to revise anything more, that means things are over. But this thinking will not work for at all, by revising the old work that I have done, I can reconsolidate the skills that I have learn during the practices. Thus, by the multiple reflection, in particular, I can improve my reading skills that also change the way I put my thought and ideas in sentences so that it make more sense more the native people. For example, the relative clause is the supporting details for the nearest things that it placed. As mentioned earlier, not fully interpret the context is because that I did not understand the whole sentences and its relative clause, but this problem is now solved. In addition, my writing skills are also improved, I can utilize the complex sentences in the reading, learning more about the punctuation used, and planning before writing, my ideas is now integrated and arranged in more proper way that it is more understandable than my writing before. I a thinking about how would these things change me? I have recognized that by exposing to the different cultures will shape you in the way that you can blend in, adapt to that environment. Precisely, my language used is changed right now, this also affects my thinking. In the university, there are mass amount of information that you need to ‘absorb’ daily so that you can catch up with the syllabus. Just my sticking to the main ideas and using the supporting ideas to united into a main lesson, I can learn one thing deeply; it solidified that the university life is the independent study progress that I have to focus on the main thing, which is studying new things and learning how to use them, not the other ‘supporting details’ like where will I hang out this weekend, or I will have the help from extra-class tutor like what had you did when I was in grade 8. I wish I can be back to our school as soon as possible so that we can talk more about our life. Hope to see your letter back, Best wishes Old student, a young friend of yours Minh Nguyen tải về 21.66 Kb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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