My Language Learning --- Part I

In a summer vacation, my mom taught my brother and I English alphabets. At that time, I was only ten years old. We learned around five alphabets a day. It was a slow process and it was never a burden to us. We did not feel much about it. Only did we know was that English is a universal language and everyone needs to learn it. After the summer vacation, we both know how to write and pronounce 26 alphabets. Except for these, we also memorize some Tang poems sometimes.
One year later, a friend of my mom, she has a son of my age. He went to a cram school for English. In order not to fall behind other children, my brother and I were also sent to the same school. That teacher taught at her apartment. The classroom was so small that it could not allow two people to walk in the opposite direction and only accommodates 12 students plus a teacher.
The first time we went there. We were one hour late. Mom was so nervous because she couldn’t find the way to the cram school based on the description of her friend. But finally we got there. Not only did we one hour late but also we have missed two classes. The teacher was a forty something woman. She made up lessons for my brother and I after the class and she gave me an English name, Jerry. That was when and where I got my English name.
Four months past, I was not interested in English. It was so boring and difficult. Even the teacher tried her every effort to trigger our interests. It did not work on me. What could draw my attention were the cartoons. She usually played half-hour Disney cartoon clip before the class ended. That was my only support to carry those classes. But my parents notice my problem. They decided to let us stop learning English. I can still recall what did we learned in the last class. They are four seasons, spring, summer, fall and winter. Four simply words to me now but almost defeated me thirteen years ago. I was afraid that I would do badly in exams and I knew clearly and English wouldn’t become my career tool in the future.
As far as my mother concerned, she never gave us up. For Taiwanese students back to 12 years ago, English classes started in junior high school. She brought us to the cram school to learn English again and the cram school followed school curriculum which was grade 7 level. I was only in grade 6. I did not shun away from English learning and picked it up again. In the beginning, my performance was ok but, as times went by, my grades fell down gradually until I reached 7 grade. I retook the course, and amazingly I ha done great on every English exams. My confidence was rebuilt and felt comfortable studying English all the way to my senior high school.
In my senior high school, Science was my major. But I felt dull and find no interests in it and did not want to have a job related to it. So, I decided to switch to something I am eager to learn. Then that was English!
I applied for two English departments in Taichung. Luckily, both of them gave me the admission to their school and my final decision went to Chung Shan Medical University. I deemed that because the school specialized in medicine and technology, they were closely to my original major. Even one day, I do not like English; I will have many options to come by. For another reason, I prefer no much emphasis on English Literature. So, Chung Shan Medical University was my choice.
When entering the school, I was regarded as a normal student. Some of my classmates spoke fluent English with good accent. Others had majored English before. And Japanese was our major as well. This annoyed me. Like my English, I did not do well on Exams. But what made it different was that I had the enthusiasm in Japanese learning.

(To be continued…)