Literacy Autobiography

I started learning English when I was a 5th grader, but I did not learn it in my elementary school. At that time, the government did not implement any English courses at the elementary level. I began to learn English at private cram schools before entering junior high school. At the cram schools, I had English speakers (American and British) and Mandarin speakers (Taiwanese and Hong Kongese) as my teachers. It was a lot of fun in the class because grammar and writing were not the main focuses. The classes emphasized oral literacy and some of the conversations were real-world related while some of them were in textbooks. I did not really get to write or read that much until I entered junior high school. However, I wrote to my cousins who live in Vancouver and Philadelphia constantly to practice my writing. I continued going to the cram school until I graduated from junior high school.

After entering junior high school and senior high school, the classes were exam-oriented. The teachers were Taiwanese/Mandarin speakers. Each chapter in the textbooks had the same layout – a short article, a vocabulary list with Chinese definitions and example sentences, sentence structures, and questions about the article. We spent a lot of time on drilling and grammar structures. The only time we got to talk was when the teachers asked us questions (questions listed in the textbooks) about the articles. However, not everybody had the chance to talk because the class size was too big (around 45 to 50 students). I was able to make simple conversations before entering junior high school and the class was not that difficult, except grammar. We were not taught how to do real-world writing, but were drilled with example sentences. We are not asked to draft, revise or peer review our writing and never got feedback from the teachers. What we got back was grammatical corrections. The ultimate writing goal was to pass the high school entrance exam.

The English class in high school was slightly different. We had to keep a diary once a week to exchange with another student from other classes. It was fun even though nobody checked the writing. I was not sure if what I wrote was correct. Other than the diary, we were taught to practice writing to fit the goal of college entrance exam (250 words for the writing). It was not too much fun because the writing style is the same as junior high school. No writing techniques were introduced, like outlining and brainstorming. Oral literacy was not emphasized and grammar still possessed the most valuable position. The layout of the textbook was similar to the one in junior high school.

I majored in English when I was in college. The classes were different from high school but they were still kind of teacher-centered. The writing classes were boring and drill-oriented. Grammar correction was still the focus. We read many different kinds of books, but mainly only for class purposes. I tried to talk with my classmates in English in order to practice but they did not seem to appreciate my efforts.

I learned Japanese in college too. The teacher was a Taiwanese speaker who knows how to speak Japanese. The experience was a failure. What we did in the class was to repeat what the teacher said on the textbook. We did not get to do any real conversations. The only thing I remember was that we were asked to do drills. It was really boring and I did not get to practice Japanese at all. Now I can only say some simple greeting phrases which I learned from my grandparents who were under Japanese education a long time ago (they were educated in Japanese in Taiwan and then went to Japan for higher education). As for the reading and writing, we read the passage in the class as a group, but did not have any chance to write. I guess our level was too basic to start writing. I can barely speak any Japanese now. I wish I could have spent more time on Japanese.