I love reading. I read all sorts of books and it really does not matter who the author is, what the title says or even how the book cover looks like. When we were younger, my parents always brought my siblings and I to the library every weekend. Though I have to admit, the first book I picked out from the shelves was a Tamil book and I started reading it upside down. A blur child, I was. Unsurprisingly then, in Primary School, reading time was probably my most favourite period of the day. My passionate love affair with reading books stems from the fact that it indulges my imagination as I grant my mind to run wild, letting visual images glide by as the story flows.
Alas, it is an entirely new experience learning English in the classroom. As I stepped into the Secondary / Junior College years, it got frustrating knowing that every word has to be clearly defined and categorized. We have to learn the endless list of rules that give structure to every sentence in an essay. It gave me a sense of restriction that I was uneasy with, after being used to the freedom of narrative style writing I enjoyed back in Primary School.
Being concise and well-structured is crucial in academic writing. It is a skill I have yet to develop, especially since writing great essays is fundamental in NUS Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. In order to achieve this, I have to broaden my mindset and deliberately pay attention to the different styles of writing as it would allow me to adopt one that I would be comfortable with and, hopefully, be proficient in.
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Thanks, Aisyah, for this brief overview of your experience with reading and writing in English. I'm glad to hear that you're generally interested in reading, and it's impressive that your parents would take you and your siblings to the library every weekend! Great!
ReplyDeleteJust a few comments on language:
1) Fragment (and conversational): "Though I have to admit, the first book I picked out from the shelves was a Tamil book and I started reading it upside down."
> (Though) I have to admit that the first book I picked out from the shelves was a Tamil book that I started reading upside down.
2) Verb tense consistency:
"Alas, it is an entirely new experience learning English in the classroom. As I stepped into the Secondary / Junior College years, it got frustrating knowing that every word has to be clearly defined and categorized. We have...."
3) capitalization:
...into the Secondary / Junior College years... > into the secondary / junior college years
Why?
Let's look at this.
I appreciate the effort!
Hi Aisyah!
ReplyDeleteI nearly posted the same picture as you! Haha
I envy your parents for instilling the reading habit when you were young. I didn’t have that habit and I’m kind of lazy if you asked me to start reading then. Library will not be a place that I will even enter. Haha.
Good job for this reflection! However, do be careful with some forms of grammar. Example, “My passionate love affair with reading books …”, I think you can omit the word ‘books’ here as it is kind of repeating the meaning of reading.
I feel you. The numerous English rules made me want to smoke my way through. Haha. A bad habit I have here, but this is why I'm regretting now. :S Let’s improve our English together!
Li Jun
Hi Aisyah! I can totally relate to you about your love for reading! When I was in primary school, the library was my favourite place to go to. I have to admit that the air-condition made it an even more attractive place to visit. Haha. I hope that you still have the same fiery passion about reading like in the past as mine has sadly dwindled over time. Just a suggestion here, I think you can separate your last sentence into two parts as it seemed a bit long. My English teacher told me that longer sentences are more prone to grammatical mistakes. Other than that, your post is well-organised and coherent. Good job on that! :)
ReplyDeleteDear Aisyah,
ReplyDeleteIn my younger years, I similarly, enjoyed reading novels. I agree with you that they allow you to take a short break to let your imagination run wild.
But for me as in entered my secondary and Jc years, the length of the texts were just a major turn off. That was probably why the standard of my English grammar dropped tremendously.
Regards
Boon Siang