Letter to Fiona

Dear Fiona,

After three years of studying Environmental System Sciences with a focus on geography, and regularly attending language courses, I realised that I had ended up studying because of the languages and not because of geography.

I decided to change my subject because I am keen on exploring foreign cultures and marvellous landscapes and I strongly believe that as a translator in English and Russian I will have these opportunities.

There are aspects of the English language like grammar and tenses that I feel quite confident about. I quickly understand the structure of sentences and know which tense to use. At school our teacher set a high value on our oral competence and tried to help us to improve these skills by leading discussions on controversial topics and providing us with appropriate vocabulary. This was one of the reasons why I have always been enthusiastic about English.

Something I really worry about is my range of vocabulary. I have been out of school for three long years now and have never been to an English speaking country for longer than two weeks at a time – but I want to tell you that I am here to learn!

One thing I know for sure is that practice is everything when you learn a language. Therefore I try to spend as much time as possible watching English news and documentaries or reading articles and books – but these are just passive activities. Now I want to focus more on active practice like writing with penfriends, talking and doing grammar exercises.

One of my goals for this year is to improve my vocabulary and get more confident in talking again!

Yours,

Sarah

 My first English homework! I was really enthusiastic about that and had the ambition to give my best!  Well, I should soon realise that it might not be that easy... 

On Wednesday morning, Fiona told us that we would get back our first homework in a few minutes. While writing the letter, I had a good feeling about it ( I thought that I used the right vocabulary, tenses and so on...) - but before I got back my letter, I wasn't that sure about it anymore. Now I know why...

 When I saw my corrected letter (and the version above is already the corrected Version)  I just felt angry with me. Having a closer look at it I realised that I had made such unnecessary mistakes like using time instead of the appropriate word tense or writing sentences that make no sense at all. Can a teacher increase our vocabulary? Thinking logically he or she of course can't. A teacher might help us to improve but that's all.

And in my text there were so many other mistakes that I could have avoided by being more careful.

But well, as I have written in my letter "I am here to learn". And what I have already learned from this first homework is that studying English at University means that it's not enough to just write a text - you really have to  work precisely, think about every sentence, every word you write: Does it make sense? Does this sentence make sense not just to me but to other people who read it? Are the sentences cohesive? AND SO ON! There are many, many things to think about and to concentrate on but for my next homework I will try to keep all these things in mind and write a far better text! :-)  (At least that's my aim!)