When I was young, I used to think that learning English was very
redundant. This is because I hardly had the opportunities to speak in English
given the fact that I lived with my Chinese educated grandparents. However,
this thought changed completely as I grew older. The internship has instilled
me the importance of English.
I realized that if one is weak in English language it causes a lot
of inconveniences to people working around you. As I interned in a ship
managing company, one situation that I encountered was that whenever a vessel
was having a downtime, a report was needed to be submitted explaining the
details. However, my colleague who wrote the report was incapable of
constructing proper English sentences. Therefore, after the report was sent,
another person was needed to spend extra time refining that report and
correcting the mistakes made. It was not only time consuming, it also slowed
down the efficiency as the time used could have been put to better use on other
tasks. Without the ability to comprehend English, a person would not be able to
excel in their areas during work and might misunderstood what your superiors
are asking you to do.
Also, during work, there will be instances where work is needed be
presented to higher-up staffs and without fluent English, one may not be able
to bring the message intended across causing misconceptions. I feel that with
poor English pronunciation, people may find it hard to catch what was presented
and leaves an impression that the presenter is not well prepared. This makes
the whole presentation unprofessional which in turns affect the confidence and
image.
Therefore, I feel that English is very important to me as with the
above reasons explained and how it is an international language being used
almost everywhere makes it even more significant.
Commented on: Camille, Cherlyn & Khia Meng's Blogpost
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ReplyDeleteHi Clara!
ReplyDeleteI can understand where you are coming as I used to live with my grandmother when I was young too. Hence we do not have a strong command of English.
I feel that your blog post is very clear and coherent as I am able to understand at once what you are trying to get across.
However, the sentence in the last sentence of the first paragraph seems to have an error. Instead of writing "Especially during the internship...", it can be rewritten as "Especially... in polytechnic, it has helped to instill the importance of English in me.".
All in all, let's work hard and improve our English together.
Best Regards,
Camille
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Clara,
ReplyDeleteIt was nice reading your article as it is very relatable to me. I used to think learning English was redundant as well. Glad to be able to find someone of the same background.
Your article is very concise and complete as you did not beat around the bush and got straight to the point and even went further elaborating your point with an example. The flow of your story is very smooth like how you started with your background story before getting to the main point which is the importance of English to you. This really helped me in understanding what you were trying to send across as I know where you are coming from.
However I do have some minor points that I would like to point out.
1) 'after the report is being sent'
I believe it should be 'after the report has been sent' as at that point of time, the letter is already on its way to the destination. Thus, past tense would've been a better fit for the sentence.
2) 'It is not only time consuming but slows down the efficiency as the time used could be put to better use on other tasks.'
As you are trying to connect 2 points together to further emphasize on your point, I believe you should include the word also to connect the 2 points together.
So it should be,
'It is not only time consuming but ALSO slows down the efficiency as the time used could be put to better use on other tasks.'
Thank you for reading my comment. See you around in class.
Regards,
Azrie
Dear Clara,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for this article.It was a pleasure reading your article as your story is short and clear.I find your story relatable to mine because during my internship days, I faced similar problems understanding what some people might say as they did not speak in proper English. Therefore, I agree with you that English is very important especially in communication.
However, just some points for you to take note will be:
For the first paragraph, the word "changes" should be changed.
For the second paragraph, "after the report is being sent" ,it should be change to "after the report has been sent" and for the word "misunderstood" should be misunderstand.
It will be even better if you are able to include details such as what you intend to do to improve your English since it is so important in your daily life.
Thank you for reading my comments!
Best Regards
Cherlyn
Thanks, Clara, for sharing in this reflection. Your essay is self critical while at the same time your experience seems quite typical in the Singapore context. In particular, there is the idea that you really didn't see English as important until you were studying in poly.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to discuss this in class, in the spirit of learning.
I really appreciate your hard work.