Saturday, June 14, 2014

International student have difficulty in English courses in the States. I need advices.?


International student have difficulty in English courses in the States. I need advices.?
I'm an international student from Malaysia; Malaysia born Chinese. I'm studying in one of the college in Texas right now. I'm a freshman this year and I started studying this summer so that I won’t be so busy and able to focus on some major courses. I'm taking Freshman Composition 1 and the U.S. & Texas Politic/Constitution for summer. Summer school just started and I went to my first English class on the first day. I was excited about what I’m going to learn and thought I will be able to catch up. But I was wrong; I got STRESSED out after class. I found that I have difficulty to understand some students’ point of view and professor’s questions and given quotes during discussion, even though it’s a small class. They use the vocabulary that I have never thought of… While doing our in-class writing assignment, I sneaked a peak on one of my classmate’s writing (I’m not cheating, I’m just trying to see the way they write!). I STUCKED for a while by their standard of writing… I went back to my work and all I can think of myself is… “I suck….”. I feel kind of upset that day, feel like I can’t continue and the end of the world LOL… just kidding, but yeah, I need to work harder on that. ** My high school didn’t help us to prepare for college writing, so… yea… ** For political science, I don’t have any problems, just… my professor has a strong Texan accent so I need to focus to listen and take notes all the time. Guess it takes time… anyway, textbook and newspaper (he talk about current event) are my best friends after all… My problems is that: - I seldom speak English because of discouraging people around me. So I lack of ability to speak English fluently. During my junior year in high school, I tried to brush up my American English slang by mimicking the way actors speaking in the movie, singers and also some vloggers in Youtube. This is, although, awkward but helps. - Limited knowledge on vocabulary to write and speak, probably because I don’t read a lot. I use simple English while chatting and discussing, which sounds very unprofessional. But usually I just sit aside and keep quiet, feel sorry for that… However, I do use some American’s slang so that I can actually “mix” or “socialize” with them. (e.g. “kinda”, “like”, “sort of”) Oh, I even have problems on socializing with people... ** I passed my TOEFL with a score of 87, highest in listening and lowest in writing and speaking. ** Any international students encounter this problem before? Or I’m the only one… Sorry for such a long question, I just want it to be informative. In summary, how can I brush up my SPEAKING, VOCABULARY and WRITING effectively? I am a person who has a strong will. I will work my butt off for anything I want. I need advices and steps to improve from professional English teachers and experience students. I will appreciate what you did for me. Edit: I have registered for some of the workshops offer by the school, but I still need to know something that I can do on my own, self learning...
Studying Abroad - 2 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
go to the college's tutoring center. all colleges have them and they are free to the students at the school. many colleges have writing labs. go to the school's library and talk to a librarian-not a student who is working there. tell them you need to work on your writing for US college level. ask for books to help you. study with students from the same class you are in. talk to your English teacher. check out amazon.com for study guide books
2 :
Usually colleges and universities offer ESL courses for people who don't reach the toefl score that they ask for. I suggest that you investigate whether or not your college offers such a program and how you could enter it. Otherwise as DRIP mentioned colleges also usually offer writing labs to help students learn how to write effectively at higher levels. Or you can do a little research on '5 paragraph form' yourself. For listening and vocabulary-what you are doing for ordinary language and slang is great, keep it up, but you may want to supplement it with some more professional/academic resources. Try http://www.cambridgeofpescara.com/resources. It's part of the website of the English language school I run in Italy. Most of the sites on the page are for lower levels, but there are some good listening resources as well. "I seldom speak English because of discouraging people around me" Don't let these people get you down. If they were put in your situation most of them wouldn't be able to handle it. Study hard, read as much as you can-and not always academic stuff- and put yourself out there a little bit to make some real friends who can help you.

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