A Personal Essay About Learning English as a Second Language

According to a famous Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step. (Lao Tzu). I have embarked on a journey that began in September 2020 to improve my English proficiency, because I failed the ELPT exam. I heard depressing stories about the Foun 1019 course by some past students which made me anxious. Consequently, I felt discouraged because the course started on a rocky road with no clear destination, but the journey soon began to make sense as circumstances improved and my pathway began to be manageable to travel.

I eventually got a new teacher by the name of Miss Tereka Brown, because the previous class was overcrowded, she is a very patient lady and has the skills to make the English Language seem simple to manipulate. Also, my classmates were easy to work with, and they made our sessions entertaining. Our classes were held every Monday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. with our seminar session being the first hour which entailed summary, critical reading, writing, and compression skills, then our lab sessions that lasted for the next two hours which dealt with grammar.

Get quality help now

Marrie pro writer

Verified writer

Proficient in: English as a second language

5 (204)

“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

I looked forward to attending the classes as I began to learn a lot especially in areas where I did not pay attention before, such as proofreading my work. However, two areas that stood out most for me were identifying grammatical errors and ways to improve my reading and comprehension skills.

While on my journey, the first sojourn which is the most memorable event will be focused on grammatical errors.

Previous to this Foun 1019 course, I seldom offered ample attention to my grammar, nor did I proofread and edit my work. Now that has changed, as I now look out for comma splices, tense shifts, run-on sentences, etc. My new skill is not only limited for school purposes, but I practice it in my everyday activities such as reading a book or writing a text message. The proofreading and edition logs have proven to play a vital part in my improvement as it helps to reinforce the use of correct grammar and tract to see if I am improving or if I am creating the same grammatical mistakes. An example from my proofreading and editing log featuring tense shift, taken from my third reflective piece, "In high school, students were allowed to select their subjects 'base' on their career choice". I have changed the word 'base' to 'based' because the sentence is talking about the past, therefore the word needs to be in the past tense form.

The second stop on my journey is quite important as this is where I have learned how to critically analyze paragraphs and determine the tone of the author, whom the author is writing to, the intention of the author, and how to write better summaries. This skill has helped me to summarize articles and books that are vital in conducting good research for school purposes. Also, comprehension skills are essential to get across what one intends to say and to understand what was read. My favorite summary was the article by Michael Abrahams as it spoke about the working conditions and unfair treatment of the nurses in Jamaica. I found it to be informative as I am entering the said profession. Before Foun 1019 much attention was not given to analyzing articles but now that I am in school this skill has proven to be very helpful.

Ending my journey, I now conclude that Foun 1019 semester one has been a pleasant experience, despite initially being scared. Thanks to my lecturer and classmates that made the experience wonderful, with no doubt my sense of identifying grammatical errors and improved reading and comprehension skills this course has been beneficial in many ways. Overall it was an educational and fulfilling experience, I look forward to continuing and improve my English Proficiency next semester.