When i was little, my parents were afraid that i was mute because I never spoke till the age of 4. I was very bad with pronunciation and attended many speech therapy sessions.
During my primary school days, I learned most of my communication skills from my mother. When I went to school, people around me would start to giggle and laugh at me whenever I said the word "alarm". I didn't know why until I was in primary 5. A friend told me that i was pronouncing it wrongly. At first, I didn't believe him and stood my ground, insisting what my mother said was correct. Over time, I knew it was wrong and became embarrassed over the whole situation. I started to put in more effort to pronounce words correctly from then on.
In secondary school, I spoke often in English and got better at the language. My teacher had high expectation of me and pushed me for a better English grade. But I did not do as well as she expected me to be and felt guilty that I had disappointed her. With that at the back of my head, I told myself that I would do well in JC.
In JC, General Paper (GP) was on a totally different level. We had to paraphrase sentences instead of just copying it. To make things worse, my GP teacher wasn't dedicated in teaching this subject at all. My passion for learning the language plunged. However, since GP was a compulsory subject for the 'A' level, I studied on my own and managed to scrape through.
When I entered NUS, I thought to myself: HOORAY no more GP anymore! And that's when i saw the QET. I knew I can never escape from my nightmare of learning this subject. I went for the QET hoping to pass it. But guess what? Here I am in class ES1102 learning English again.
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PS: I am looking forward to face my nightmare once and for all.
Edited ( 8/28/2014)
