It’s All about Practice

We are in eleventh week of English 103 class. We have read more than 900 pages from books so far. I have never read this much pages in English in this short period of time. We also have issued more than 10 blogs. We have written 4 essays in the class so far. And we had so many other activities which require all reading, writing, and critical thinking process. We are in fact loaded with assignments!! We have had various types of activities which as individual work, group work, peer response, discussions…etc. Just reading instruction of assignment requires reading skill. Those various types of assignments provide opportunity to improve writing skill. I feel much more confident in English writing than before, because I improved my writing skill through applying my reading and writing skills constantly through various assignments.

When I started this class in February, I already became overwhelmed by reading the class syllabus, because I was so intimidated by reading in English. Since Japanese is my first language, I have tendency of being scared by alphabets; it may be like non-Japanese speaker trying to read Japanese. Those letters do not click my brain at first sight; I have to pay good attention in order to understand the concept of the text. I often bump into the words I do not know the meaning, so dictionary is my best friend when I read in English. Those facts slow down my reading speed so much, and make me feel like I am first grade elementary school student. On the other hand, when I read Japanese, I can just scam the text, and I get most of the concept written down. Therefore, start reading English text immediately after reading Japanese text is one of the worst moments; it reminds me the sad fact that my English reading level is relatively very poor comparing to one in Japanese, because my Japanese reading is non-stop, but my English reading becomes chopped by inserting often dictionary time; worst consequence is forgetting what I have read before by taking time in finding definition by dictionary, which makes me to repeat the sentence in order to understand the line. Therefore I have tendency of avoiding English reading. Since I do not have much vocabulary, problem with grammar and the articles (there are no articles in Japanese), I feel uncomfortable in English as well, so I have no volunteer spirit to write in English.

However, when it comes to class work, I become responsible because I focus on maintaining good grade from the class. Thus, this class’s assignments helped me so much to improve my writing skills through practicing my reading and writing skills to earn credit. I practice my English skills so much from constant assignments which require such skills. I personally believe everything will improve by practice; without practice, there will not be improvement. In fact, now I do not feel that intimidated by reading or writing in English since I am building my confidence by practicing it and recognizing the achievement I have done in the class. Especially group work and blog response assignments help me to be comfortable in writing since those writing process involves communication; I like to communicate with people, so those writing process take my uncomfortable feeling toward writing. This new aspect of communicating mainly by writing increased both comfort and confidence in writing by actually liking it. Therefore, now I am sure that I feel much more comfortable in writing comparing to the beginning of the semester. So I am looking forward to improve my reading and writing skills through more practice in the class. It’s all about practice!