A lot of my students often ask me how I learned English well to become an

English teacher

Then I have to tell the same story to different students over and over

again

so I thought I

could share my learning experience in this film

for those curious about my learning history

Hopefully, they can figure out a way to achieve their learning goals

I first had

English classes in junior high

Than all the way to high school

I just learned whatever my English teachers taught

did homework

and took tests, just like everybody else

At that time, all our school English education focused too much on grammar

reading and translation

So, although I always got good grades on English tests, I could only speak some

simple English

and I couldn't even write an essay

um... That was really frustrating because I wanted to be excellent in English

so I made a plan to improve my english to reach advanced levels

uh... Here's the plan

For listening

I watched an American soap opera weekly

watched an American movie monthly

and listened to an English radio program every day

and I took notes while listening to them

For speaking

whenever I learned a new word, I made sentences with the word orally

When I watched an American movie, I tried to mimic what the characters said

and when I had chances to talk to English speakers, I was very active to

talk to them as much as possible

I also bought some conversation books with tapes to practice speaking at home

Before going to bed, I would talk to my tape recorder to keep track of what I had

done every day

after I finished the tape recording

I would listen to it again to see if I made mistakes

then I corrected the mistakes

and took my voice again until I thought it's correct

However, if

I didn't know how to say something in English

I would look up the dictionary

to get the answer

For vocabulary, I had never made a list of new words to memorize them

because I wanted to make sure the usage of each word

so I learned

vocabulary from reading different kinds of

articles, books, magazines, newspaper, and so on

In this way, I could understand its usage in a sentence or context

However

for anything in my house

i didn't know how to say in English

I made word cards and attached them to the real objects to remember them

For gramm, reading, and writing

I attended a language program at a local university

The program was

for outsiders interested in English literature

It offered

English classes

lectured by the professors at

the English literature department

The classes were very challenging, and I learned quite a lot there

Two years later

I decided to study in the USA

so I took TOEFL preparation courses in a private language center

where I learned the test-taking

techniques and

took many practice tests

to be ready for the TOEFL exam

Three months later, I took the TOEFL exam

then fortunately I passed it

and had an opportunity to apply for the universities in the USA

When I studied in the USA

I learned even more because I was totally immersed

in the real English environment where I had to use English all the time

Even though I had

studied there for years and got my bachelor and master degrees

now I still keep polishing my English

because I know if I didn't, my English would get worse

After all, English is not my mother tongue

and I don't live in America anymore

So you can tell from my learning history. There weren't any tips or short

cuts to my learning goals

but I had a plan with strong ambition

carried it out with all my heart and never stopped

I believe many successful learners do the same thing

By the way, I read the stories of some perfect TOEFL score holders

They shared their learning experience

I found out they have some things in common, and I thought

you mignt want to know

First of all

they all love English and they make plans to advance their English abilities

Secondly

they all work very hard on vocabulary learning

so they know lots of words

and they read a lot

Thirdly, they all think it's better to start learning English from childhood

Finally, they are very active to create English environment by themselves

On the whole, I just want to say

a language is just a communicative tool. It's not a subject

The more you use it, the more you master it

so there are many different ways to

learn English successfully

You just have to figure out the most suitable way for yourself to use

English frequently

Don't be afraid to make mistakes

We all learn from mistakes

Above all

be patient and never stop learning it. That's it