English….
How was my English?
If I would to recall my performance in English subject since I’m in secondary and primary school, I tell you all… really really bad!
In my secondary, at that time, there were only 4 grades to grade your cleverness in English subject. So, guess my grades?
I’m always in C grades! I never get less or more than that grade. So, for my UPSR, I also get C in my English subject, just ngam-ngam to pass the paper.
In my primary school (form 1-3), they add another grade to make it 5 grades all together. Again, I’m always in grade C, better than passing marks (D). Is that means that I’m improving? Am not sure…
Ok, continue with my form 4 until form 5 results. At this time, they don’t use A, B, C, D and E anymore. They use A1, A2, B2, B3, C4, C5, C6, P7, P8 and F9 to grade the subject. Guess my grades then? Hehehehe… As I always perform ngam-ngam, this time I stay at grade C6, also for my SPM’s result. Again, I never get worse than that or improve better than that grade.
After my SPM, I continue my study in UTM. I thought I will never see this subject anymore when studying in university. I was wrong! If I’m not mistaken, I had to pass 2 papers during my university time. To be honest, I hate any languages subject (includes Bahasa!). So, when the lecturer gives us an assignment, that’s the time when I starts having nightmare! I’m just to slow for this subject. I hate all those grammars, composition, debates, presentation and other things inside this subject. And to make things worst, my parents had no education background on English at all. I’m not blaming them. I’m telling you to give you a picture of my origins. So, could you imagine why a “kampong girl” like me couldn’t catch up with those English stuffs easily? Am just not familiar with them! I only expert on Sabahan and Semenanjung accent at that time.
Anyhow, as time goes on, I finish my degree without failing my English subject. And as usual, I got ngam-ngam only.
Then, I started my career as an engineer in PJ. This was the era where I started building my confident to converse in English, because I have to! It was a multi-racial company. Most of them communicate in English at all time. So, to join them, I have to starts learning, listening and catching every word that came out from their mouth. To be honest, I was too shy at that time because almost all of the professionals there could fluently speak in English. It was like I’m the only person who crawling and carefully watching every words that in and out from my mouth!
Nevertheless, for me, they were really helpful friends. They were so patient to people like me. They never laugh or tease you even if you wrong. They even helped me to correct every wrong wording and act like a dictionary to me. So kind of them…. This is the place where I taught to write a letter in English, speaks in English to customers, architects and other stakeholders. My English was really improved when I left the company. But, still you please don’t ask me about English’s grammar. I still couldn’t use it correctly!
Then, in year 2005, I joined another company in Shah Alam . Again, it was a multi-racial company. So, they also use English to communicate to each other. This time around, I didn’t face any communication problem, as I managed to learn it from my previous company. The only thing that I have to do here is to make up my capability in conversing in this language.
After 2 years servicing, I left the company to join the public sector. As you all know, in public sector, we mostly use “Bahasa” in our daily business, as well as the conversation language. So, I’ve been here for more than 2 years already. We rarely use English to converse each other. I’m now afraid that one day, I will lose the confident to speak in English to others, and also in writing letters.
I had some initiatives to avoid that to be happening:
1. I bought new dictionary and one book called “English for Malaysian”.
Since I’m not a bookworm type, until to date, I only manage to read few pages of the book. I’m really bad in understanding the wording inside the book. Really bad reader! (Actually, I hate reading. I will only read gossip and blogs! So bad of me huh!)
About the dictionary, it does really help me a lot!
2. I’m planning to join English course organized by INTAN next year. Hopefully I could improve my grammar after joined this course.
3. Writing some of my entries in this blog in English, which I’m doing now! (Though I’m pretty sure the grammar all going haywire. Pardon me for that ok.)
p/s: dear readers, please correct me if anything that I wrote in my blog is wrong. Be it in grammatical or spelling or anything that is wrong. TQ so much for helping! Really appreciate it!
4. Reading other people’s blogs (written in English blogs).
With all those alternatives, I hope I could improve my English to be at least better than previous previous year.
