English as Lifelong Learning

Chi Le

I've been using English for my job since I lived in Vietnam. However, I only read comprehension some articles in the fields of information technology and computers, and I rarely use English for any other fields. Due to the need to integrate and work, when residing in the U.S. four years ago, I determined that I should spend more time in pursuit of learning English. Once settled in, I started to enroll in college. In the first days at college, with poor English, I was really difficult to communicate with everyone. This led me not to understand lectures and requisitions of instructors; however, reading comprehension skill has helped me, and I began to feel more confident after one semester. Moreover, while being an ESL student, I am always challenged to study other subjects, such as law, business, philosophy, and English to complete the ESL classes.

Sometimes I think an ESL student as a disabled, and schooling at ESL classes is like to restore missing functions of the disabled. Clearly, they cannot effectively use four English skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. they can listen to but not understand and say but people not to understand. Then they can read but not understand and cannot properly write what their thoughts are. These are the most violent initial challenges which they meet.

Fortunately, when living in Vietnam, I have learned and used English, but also just reading comprehension and some knowledge of English grammar. My reading comprehension skills help me study some subjects well, such as mathematics and accounting, which professors require only reading comprehension and calculating; otherwise, some other subjects that require me to listen to professors and take notes for exams are really difficult for me.

However, in general, the courses in college are at a very basic level, so they are not really difficult for me to study. Eventually, the most difficult subject is still English. Moreover, being likely to transfer to a UC, English will continue to concern me as the important subject. In addition, I have to spend time on my work as an accounting programmer for a company in Vietnam. The work which I have been still hired since I started living in the U.S. comes to me every evening to 12:00 am next day through the Internet. Finally, it is sure that my English cannot be fluent as a native person, so I will meet some of the challenges in the future. The challenges ahead of me are much different to integrate into the community, know the law, acquire new knowledge, and respond to natural disasters.

ESL learners often have a limited English vocabulary or improperly use vocabulary in context in their papers. Through my work, I usually read many articles in English, but my vocabulary from reading is limited only in a field that I'm working. When reading articles or papers in other fields, my vocabulary is not enough to understand immediately those articles. In that case, I turn to analyze sentence structures and look up dictionary some key words. Then I continue to enrich my vocabulary. Although I can read comprehension well and always extend my vocabulary, in my papers I sometimes use improper words, causing confusing and misunderstanding readers. For example, in one case I use the word “appointment” instead of “dating” which their meaning is too different. Moreover, I often think with my first language and then translate to English. This causes confusing readers because sentence structures are too different between Vietnamese and English. The translation of a sentence is easy to put words in misnomer, as the example above, or creates a complex grammatical structure of the sentence, being difficult to understand because the sentence was described earlier in Vietnamese structure. And then, I am trying to write some long sentences with many phrases, but it seems I haven’t succeeded. I believe that I have good knowledge of English grammar and strengths in reading comprehension, but weaknesses in listening and speaking skills, so I'm trying to practice the weak skills daily. Someone recommended I should listen to the English radio a lot and practice pronunciation, so I have been practicing the skills since the last semester. Obviously, I have found myself more improvement in English, such as less afraid to communicate with other people, although it's not yet like I expect. In study for various subjects, I usually take online or hybrid classes because I believe in my reading comprehension skills.

I like to study hybrid and online classes, and I've learned a lot of the classes past semesters. I notice that hybrid and online classes, any other disciplines, often require students spend more time for reading comprehension more than if compared lecture classes. Maybe, lecturing compensates for reading. In contrast, the hybrid classes don’t spend much time to travel back and fore, and learning time of students is more flexible. However, the classes require students have self-discipline in learning and a serious schedule of learning. A timetable which is not clear and not taken seriously can lead to a late submission of homework and exam. This lateness is inevitable if online students are neglected and unserious. Consequently, online classes require students have high self-discipline in learning as well as awareness of learning by themselves without by others. I think colleges should remind students who must have self-discipline before enrolling online or hybrid classes. On the other hand, professors teaching online classes should have a clear and stable schedule and avoid disorder. I believe that writing essays on the computer helps students approach actual life better in comparison with writing handwritten essays because nowadays people almost use papers from word processing software. During writing on the computer, I can write comfortably because I know I can reorganize and correct vocabulary after writing. One sentence is written in the first paragraph before reorganizing; it can move it to the last paragraph after reorganizing. Moreover, I have to expose my idea quickly, so I can write some words in my first language, and then I will find English words to replace after correcting. Clearly, those cannot be fulfilled upon handwriting. Of course, there are other factors which need to be analyzed particularly to realize what to teach writing better, but computers and the Internet really are essential for my papers and work.

In the study process, the Internet helps me a lot in finding information, and sometimes it also helps me correct some grammar errors. Because today there are many websites, teaching English grammar, I easily search problems of grammar which I suspect in my writings. There are also several websites and word processing software that automatically corrects the English grammar, but they are not entirely accurate. Moreover, if I suspect a phrase is an idiom upon reading papers, I just search the phrase plus a word "idiom" on the Internet. Immediately I will have a result after that. In addition, for an ESL learner, I determined that learning English is a job for life; therefore, in any cases communicating with anyone or anything, I try to learn English when I can. For example, during reading books of accounting, if I meet a sentence or a phrase which I can use for my papers, I immediately mark the phrase. As the following sentence, “Its profit margin is unusually high in comparison with the industry average of 8% and J.C. Penney’s 1.4%,” I mark a phrase “in comparison with” which I believe it can be used in your papers.

As ESL students, I encounter many difficulties for communication, integration into English society which can cause to lose confidence in study and life. With persistently striving, I regain confidence after one semester in college and learn better. In addition, I determined learning English should be pursued as lifelong learning, to integrate and to overcome the cultural differences as well as job search. Therefore, in the future, I will still have to concern English though I finish ESL classes.