Hi All
I'm 67 years old now. I'm a Japanese male and I live in Japan with my wife and a son. I have a daughter who lives in Tokyo. She has a cute child 2 years old.
I live on my pension and I'm still working on odd jobs. I had finished my monthly payment for my house loan three years ago. As I became to be richer than before, I bought a personal computer. Many things happened from then.
One of them is my learning English on EFI. A friend of mine advised me to have it. I could join Vanessa's class. I've been learning English at her class for three years since then.
At the beginning my purposes for learning English were as followings;
a) I'd like to write a letter in English.
b) I'd like to read news paper and books in English.
c) I'd like to understand what radios say in English.
She gave us three instructions at the beginning of the class. They were as follows;
a) write your journal every day.
b) remember 5 words a day.
c) read many writings in English.
I tried to keep them. However I could keep only writing my journal.
Thanks to Vanessa, I think I made a big progress in learning English. However I am still on the way to my purposes.
Regards,
Sadamu
Thanks Sadamu for the great post. I especially appreciate your details about the learning process. I see huge improvement in your English. I attribute it to your diligence (persistence and just keeping at it) and metacognition or your continually thinking about your learning process and how to make it more effective.
ReplyDeleteHow old is your son?
Are you still working part-time at the hotel? If so, do you get much opportunity to practice speaking English at work?
I can feel that you study hard and take it seriously. Good for you. I think you should be our modle. When I feel frustrated, I will think of you. It is not a solution to give up when we have trouble to learn something new. I will keep up. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteBefore seeing your post I ofen thought I am the only one who is trying hard to learn this language so diligently at this age.But now I think if it is my starting point then I will also be very good in english in few years.I know there is know age of learning as learning is an on going process, but some time we just forget that. you are really a role model for all the student. I wish you all the best!
True, some things about language learning are easier the earlier we learn and the younger we are. Children are natural mimics and acquire - pick up - language more naturally. They won't have as much accent either.
ReplyDeleteBut there's more to learing. Older, we have other advantages. One is knowing how to learn and how we learn best.
Motivation or wanting to makes a difference. Unfortunately, not everybody wants to keep on learning. I know more than a few of that sort, and surely so do each of you.