For studying abroad. Those colleges and universities I want to go to require an English language score, and I need at least 6.5 if it is an IELTS score. At the same time, the authority of the country I want to study in also needs my language score to obtain a study visa. What’s more, the IELTS is a widely accepted English test and there are many learning materials and courses both online and offline so I can get these easily.
As an older young man, I haven’t learned English for many years since I graduated from university(or senior high school). Besides, I hardly learned English listening from my first year in high school, as our national college entrance exam didn’t test listening during those years. So, it’s difficult for me to study English well. It’s hard for me to understand the examiner’s questions, and I don’t know how to express my ideas fluently as a native speaker. I took my first IELTS exam a few days ago, and obviously, I have to take the next exam in the future.
According to my own analysis, I think I have these problems at present. First, I lack sufficient vocabulary and I need to remember more words and phrases to make sentences in writing and speaking. Secondly, I didn’t read enough articles so I can’t catch the author’s meaning when I was taking the reading test and sometimes I mistook their purpose. Thirdly, I need to write more essays to familiarize myself with writing and I also have to improve the logic of my essays. Finally, I can enhance my pronunciation by chatting with foreigners who are native speakers, and I can also talk with chatbots such as the chatGPT with a plugin called ‘Voice Control for ChatGPT’.
In fact, before that exam, I chatted with a British teacher named Jack Fitzgerald on a learning app called Italki and he taught me some experience about speaking and modified my errors. Jack gave me a pdf file and PowerPoint as study materials, and he encouraged me and praised my English(thanks for his encouragement and that made me full of confidence). I can remember the scene where I met Jack in the conversation video. I was nervous and I didn’t know how to express myself. I told Jack that I used to be a software engineer and I wanna go to Canada to study. Jack offered some advice but I can only understand part of it. He said, “Since you are a programmer, your English should be good because you need to use a lot of English in your work”. Maybe my English is just not as bad as others. After that conversation, I also took part in some chat rooms to further my speaking, but I found those people in chat rooms were really good at speaking, and I rarely got them. Some of them even speak like real British men, which is incredible. I envy them having such a wonderful speaking level.