12/15/2009 Maxwell Wang

ESL Writing 2A
Maxwell Wang
12/15/2009

Three Things That I Learned

-The way of grammar.
Grammar is basic of English, if you want to learn English and to be better, you should study grammar first. Grammar also is first term of ESL class. Grammar which is new for me is difficult, but we have to study grammar. In the beginning, I think present, gerunds and infinitives are the most difficult which I confuse about. I always get the lowest grades on the test. For example, I got 34 % on my first grammar test. Billy told me, “You should find the way that everything could be easy to learn. You should remember these words. This is an only way can be faster to improve your English.” so, I who try to find the way changed the way. I did more exercise in ESL class and listened carefully. My grammar is improving. I can that solve about grammar questions get better grades in ESL class. I sometimes can get 100% on test. I think I found the way to lean grammar, as Mr. Nakagawa’s words, “You need to push more.” I will follow the way until I think it is enough.
-The Way of Writing.
Writing which is harder than the simple grammar depends on grammar. I learned four things about writing from ESL class. First, prewriting, at this step, we begin to get ideas and make a topic. The topic has to specific and small. For example, once my topic is “My friend”, it’s not specific. We should show the reader “who is he or she”, “How is she or he” in the topic. After prewriting, we need a controlling idea to follow the topic. Then we should write complete sentence, these sentences have to be in order and make sense. We should write the example about the topic or controlling idea. We need to make sure they are organization, and they are true. You cannot write “second, what we do something” for first sentence. Third, edit, we need to check the grammar and fix them. My writing likes Chinese English, and this is my problem. Like good good study, day day up. This is classic Chinese English. I shouldn’t write that. These sentences we should edit out are nothing about topic. Like your topic is “My friendly friend is Alan”, you should edit out this sentence, “Kevin is quite.”Finally, concluding sentence, do not doubt we have to make a good concluding sentence. If you have a good one, we will call it has a beginning and an end in China. In my opinion, these four steps that easy to write can help me to write a complete article. I should follow these steps every times when I get writing. This is the way I learned from ESL class to write.
-Listening Skill
In fact, the listening skill is useful to live and to study. You who don’t have listening skill cannot do anything, but you also can learned it from everything. I also learned the listening skill from ESL Grammar or ESL Writing class. My problem is pronunciation: I usually do not know what teacher and students said. I asked the teacher about conversations that is hard to read, I talker more with classmates and teacher. When I was listening , I paid enough attention to the important words , it’s a easy way to know other people said .I also can understand the people said, even if some words that I cannot understand, I can guess the meaning form the begin of the sentence and then end of the sentence. For example, math words are difficult, but I can understand the math teacher said. From these ways, I’m sure my English is changing all the time. I can understand Mr. Nakagawa said. I think if I listen the radio and talk more to follow this way that can be great. The listening skill is easiest to improve and it is of great use for study and lives.
Thanks these skills which learned from ESL Class, these three things help me to study and live better in America.