My Own Experience With English

My experience with English started when I was about eight years old, I love study English, in fact i try to use english language all the time if is possible, because i think that practice english is the best way to learn new words and improve my vocabulary and it give me the opportunity to have a better job access, travel around the world and share with other cultures.

Knowing another language bring me more opportunities to learn easily another language, on the other hand it is an advantage because it can help us in a lot of common activities like studying, in addition it is important to communicate with people around the world and have an idea of the life of other cultures or communities in the world.

I practice english everyday listening to music and remembering the lyrics, it is so easy, and it definitely help me to improve my vocabulary and my pronunciation.

Finally this fantastic language can give me a lot of knowlegde about many different cultures of the world, and it is an aid for travel around it.

My Experience of Learning English

I have always loved speaking English. I started learning this language when I was seven years old and everything I liked to do was related with that, I only watched music channels that played English music videos the whole day and every day, I always tried to sing every single song the best I could, I couldn’t stop doing that every time, music was in my life.

That was when a close friend of my mom who was an English Teacher noticed my abilities and how easy I could interact with the language, my fluency and the way how I could memorize every lyric I listened helped me too, he thought I could be much better and learn so much and so fast if I studied that, and he was right, I presented a test with which I was send to start directly to the third level of kids, with the years I continued studying until I was fourteen and I had the age to get into adults levels. I took a huge step and started on the fourth level, since that, I have been doing every course and always with a proud average, my ratings not were less than 4 ever, I was really fine at what I was doing.

Now I am sixteen I’m finishing my last level and with all this time I realize the best decision was to learn this language, no I know how important and fundamental it is on my life and how essential and effective it can be to my future and for all the projects I am going to be and to do, English cannot be definitely out of my life!.

My experience with English language

English is a very important language. Nowadays, it is recognized as a universal language. Opportunities to travel around the world, to know about other cultures or getting a scholarship to study abroad are some of the advantages of learning English. I could summarize my experience in four stages: during my high school, at the private school, at the university and during an exchange trip.

We have to study English during our school and high school, but unfortunately the education strategy in our country is not good enough to build a solid basis of knowledge in a foreign language like English. Along our eleven years studying, we just learn some basics about this language but we are not able to speak fluently or even slowly. Hence, during this phase I passed always the English course but I wouldn’t survive alone in New York.

An important fact when you really want to learn English in a more advanced level is that you might study also in a private language center. That was what I did, thanks to my parent’s support. I entered to the language center at University of Ibague when I was fifteen years old. I studied during one year and a half; hence I got a reasonable English level. I was lucky because I participated in classes with native English speakers during my studies, I learned a lot, but unfortunately I couldn’t finish all the levels, altough I improved my skills a lot, especially my speaking capabilities.

Later on, during my bachelor studies, I had to read most of the time in English. I am an electronic engineer and most of the manuals, books and important magazines of my field are written in English, then I was forced to practice learning more and more vocabulary each time. At this point, I started watching videos on internet about science and technology; I couldn’t understand anything but those were my first steps. At that particular moment of my life, I was able to read and to express myself, but I was having problems with my listening, and my writing was just acceptable.

A big change started during the fourth stage of my English experience. I started studying a master in Control engineering at University of Ibague, and then I really had to read in English. I also had the opportunity to share with exchange students, specially with a student from Libano (Arabia). He spoke in French and English and he didn’t know anything about Spanish. I took advantage of this situation and I practiced my English during his 3 months staying in Colombia. In this master I got a scholarship to travel to Belgium to do my thesis, I stayed there for thirteen months, so I practiced everything I had learnt, my reading, listening and writing improved on one hundred percent.
I have had the opportunity to live in a foreign country, I have learnt from my own mistakes and I made some good friends there. They helped me to correct my English’s faults. Nevertheless, my experience learning English has not finished yet; on the contrary, I could say that it has just begun. Nowadays, I am probably living a new stage of my experience learning English. I have started a preparation course for the TOEFL test. I am really excited about this course and this exam too, I’m doing my best to learn more and more, these classes are really useful. I have seen how despite my experiences living abroad I still make too many mistakes.

I could conclude based on my own experience, that taking a course is not the complete solution but just the first step. On these courses you receive some guide, some help to correct your mistakes, but you have to realize that learning any foreign language depends totally on you. If you are really interested on learning English, then you should use each minute to learn more and more, besides, there are many tools to help you. For instance, Internet is one of the most powerful tools if you use it correctly; but you must decide having the endurance to success learning this very useful and marvelous language called English.


Written by:
Jairo Andres Hernandez
Preparation Course for TOEFL test
12th of June, 2011

MY EXPERIENCES OF LEARNING ENGLISH

I remember my first 4 English levels they were like a nightmare for me. I hated them but I had to take them because my parents forced me to be in those courses. It was like a torture for me to have to go to those classes because they were on Saturdays and I did not like waking up early on weekends. After four levels I realized how really important English was for everybody but specially for me and for my future. Since that magical and clever idea I started to pay more attention in class and I promised myself that I will speak English because I wanted to be someone in the world.
The next levels I was incredibly willing to learn as much as I could and I did it. I found out how easy English was and how quickly I could adquire that language. The fact was that I had decided that English was going to be my second language and without realizing how and when, I only watched American T.V programs and listened English music. I was the best at English class in the school because I already knew what the teacher was going to teach to my classmates, so the school was really easy for me. Actually I did nothing at English classes, I just listened to music or talked to a friend and at the end of the period I always got a ten.
It was really cool because when I wanted to say something rude or something that I did not want the other people to hear or know, I used to tell it in English and they did not understand what I had said. It was funny and helpful sometimes because I used to say out loud what I was thinking without hurting anybody. For example when my mommy scolded me I started to talk her in English and she did not understand anything of what I was saying so that made her furious and she just told me something like: “you know what Paula Camila? I did not understand any word you are saying, so do whatever you want and I just hope you are not saying rude things”. This was hilarious but then I had to talk to her to apologize.
Nowadays, I am more than thankful with my parents for the fact they paid my English studies and I am satisfied and happy because knowing this language has opened so many doors for me and I can not imagine how many other doors English could open in my future. I think learning English has been one of the most successful experiences in my life because it has allowed me to do different things and to know different cultures.
English language is as necessary as your native language because English is the universal tongue, so if you want to know what is happening in the world and you want to be part of it you have to speak English. That is why I am going to study French philology and foreign languages and English language. Because thanks to this experience I realized how much I love the different languages and cultures in the world and that is what I want to do with my life, learn as much languages as I can.
PAULA CAMILA GOMEZ
I remember my first 4 English levels they were like a nightmare for me. I hated them but I had to take them because my parents forced me to be in those courses. It was like a torture for me to have to go to those classes because they were on Saturdays and I did not like waking up early on weekends. After four levels I realized how really important English was for everybody but specially for me and for my future. Since that magical and clever idea I started to pay more attention in class and I promised myself that I will speak English because I wanted to be someone in the world.
The next levels I was incredibly willing to learn as much as I could and I did it. I found out how easy English was and how quickly I could adquire that language. The fact was that I had decided that English was going to be my second language and without realizing how and when, I only watched American T.V programs and listened English music. I was the best at English class in the school because I already knew what the teacher was going to teach to my classmates, so the school was really easy for me. Actually I did nothing at English classes, I just listened to music or talked to a friend and at the end of the period I always got a ten.
It was really cool because when I wanted to say something rude or something that I did not want the other people to hear or know, I used to tell it in English and they did not understand what I had said. It was funny and helpful sometimes because I used to say out loud what I was thinking without hurting anybody. For example when my mommy scolded me I started to talk her in English and she did not understand anything of what I was saying so that made her furious and she just told me something like: “you know what Paula Camila? I did not understand any word you are saying, so do whatever you want and I just hope you are not saying rude things”. This was hilarious but then I had to talk to her to apologize.
Nowadays, I am more than thankful with my parents for the fact they paid my English studies and I am satisfied and happy because knowing this language has opened so many doors for me and I can not imagine how many other doors English could open in my future. I think learning English has been one of the most successful experiences in my life because it has allowed me to do different things and to know different cultures.
English language is as necessary as your native language because English is the universal tongue, so if you want to know what is happening in the world and you want to be part of it you have to speak English. That is why I am going to study French philology and foreign languages and English language. Because thanks to this experience I realized how much I love the different languages and cultures in the world and that is what I want to do with my life, learn as much languages as I can.
PAULA CAMILA GOMEZ HERNANDEZ!

English Experience Hans Rojas Valencia

https://docs.google.com/document/d/107sxtEFee7LRY921RWiek9qgR8exDOHio1CRT3Yfw2g/edit?hl=en_US#