ENCOURRIGING STORIES OF
LEARNING SPOKEN ENGLISH
英语口语学习励志故事
Tittle：《在加大印象最深的英语课》The Most Impressive English Class at UCLA
（节选自John Y 长篇英语回忆录《ENGLISH SPEAKING-AN ECHO ONLY FROM COMMITMENT》）
The most impressive English class at UCLA
Most international students enrolled in UCLA, according to the rules of the school, had to retake a few months to one year ESL (English as a Second Language) program to make up their language proficiency, and graduate students were usually mix-grouped with undergraduate students.
During my first year at UCLA, I had taken one semester of ESL course as well. On the name list there was an eye-catching Chinese student Wang Ji(王姬) from Motion Picture Department, who was quite popular for her role in Chinese film and TV, but not with me in the same class. At that time there were another two female Chinese celebrities, “the Double-Queen of Chinese Film Festival” Chen Chong(陈冲) and Zhang Yu(张渝), also studying in LA. Chen was able to enroll in the Film Department of California State University at Northridge because of her excellence in English benefitted from her family, but Zhang was not that lucky. Lacking college diploma from China and not passed the TOEFL, she failed to enroll into any major universities in the US, and could only take some part-time English program at a local “Adult-school” in downtown LA. This story told how critical the English background was for foreign students to qualify education in the US.
I still remembered once I had communication with Zhang in English.
One day my roommate Zhao Jin had not returned to our rent house throughout the midnight. According to his pre-advice I dialed Zhang’s phone number and asked:
"Hello is this Miss Zhang Yu?”
”Yes, speaking.”
” Zhao Jin was not back yet up to now and seemed disappeared. Do you have any idea where he is?”
"Oh, my god! Is he always like this?"
Though there were only a few English words, her voice was so impressive and powerful that just like reading some actress’ lines on statge.
In my ESL class all students were from Asian countries including Korea, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, except that only I was from China. Surprisingly I found that all their oral English were better than mine, particularly a mixed American-Vietnamese boy could speak authentic American English that made me really envy. I thought it should be because these Asian countries successively experienced some special relations with the United States after the World-War Second and people took the advantages of the English language environment.
The instructors for ESL classes were all senior graduate students from UCLA Linguistic Department and were native English-speaking Americans. They worked at TA (Teaching Assistant) status, not only gained wages but also enjoyed a easy job, just like Chinese graduate students from Chinese Literature Department of Beijing University to teach foreign students basic Chinese, that’s a piece of cake.
The teacher who taught my English class was also a local American girl from the linguistic department. But I didn't appreciate her teaching style, because she still undertook the "cram-education", students listened to her mostly and seldom had the chance to practice themselves in English. At the same time she’d like to talk lots about English grammar. I knew she wanted to show the importance of learning grammar, but it didn't apply to me. Because we students from China had already learnt much English grammar in the middle schools, which were of more breadth and depth than in American schools.
So, although our teacher spoke authentic American English, but after half a year I found my oral English got little improved. It was not even as good as communication between students themselves from different countries.
I recalled then there was a pretty Vietnamese girl in my class, who liked to chat with me often, and I’d like to response to her excitedly and never being tired, why not? It was then I found a "law" of practicing communication in English among youngsters, that boys liked to talk in front of or with girls in public to show off their English, while girls liked to talk to boys with good English skills for making progress. This was in response to a famous Chinese saying: “Men would never get tired while working together with women".
All in all, ESL class at UCLA didn’t leave me much impression, but the final was an exception. That was an oral test which the teacher used to assess students’ achievements, arranging each student to give a featuring presentation in class.
For the test, topics and contents were all prepared by students ahead of the class, while the teacher would give tips as advice. Each speech limited in ten minutes, and the teacher as well as other students might ask questions after it. Finally the teacher would give remarks and grades based on the speaker’s performance. I remembered that the title of my speech was "How to melt into the multi-national melting pot in America and to overcome the culture shock?"
Although I was not quite satisfied with my performance, but my teacher rewarded me with a lot of encouragement. Only during this process, I felt my ability to speak English substantially enhanced and my desire to express muself in English was greatly promoted.
