Stella
My fourth lesson After I got ready for the lesson, I went to a park in front of my house and sat on one of the benches there waiting for my teacher's call. We began a conversation but suddenly, somebody started mowing the grass around the park and it was too noisy that my teacher couldn't hear me. I walked away from the noisy place and stood somewhere quiet at the park. He asked me some grammar questions that were about the present perfect tense. I am always confused by that and cannot see the difference between the past simple and present perfect. So, I don't use the present perfect tense very often, which are very common expressions for native speakers. We talked about them for a while and he gave me a link of an article that was about 'fake nice'. I've never heard that before but I could guess. It seemed like people pretending to be nice who work in customer services. He asked me to read the article within 5 minutes and find what the writer wants to say. I had to do skimming and scanning to read it so quickly but it is one of my weaknesses. I can't read books fast, so I need to train myself to improve my reading skills. Anyway, I tried to read the whole text carefully to understand caring every single word and sentence. However, I didn't have to. I've been doing wrong. I have to find the main information in paragraphs and don't need to care all of the words. If there're some words that I don't know, I can just skip them and guess the meanings. It's a simple rule but not that easy to me. So, my teacher said that I have to keep reading and practicing. The article was about the writer's unhappy experiences in the 'fake nice'. She went to a shop to buy a cream and the shop assistant was very chatty asking different questions to her. The assistant made eye contact and did nothing rude but it made her feel bad because it was insincere. It's become a highly overused marketing weapon. It was interesting. After reading it, I answered 5 true & false questions about the article but I got 3 wrong answers. To be honest, I didn't remember what it was about because I only cared about the time limit, so I couldn't concentrate. He gave me a good advice that I have to improve my short-term memory in English. People have got quite a good short-term memory in their own languages but in the second languages, we don't remember exactly what we hear. It's gone right away. There's only one way to improve it. Keep practicing! Keep listening, reading, speaking and writing in English.
May 27, 2015 2:15 AM
Corrections · 1

My fourth lesson

After I got ready for the lesson, I went to a park in front of my house and sat on one of the benches there waiting for my teacher's call.

We began a conversation, but suddenly, somebody started mowing the grass around the park and it was too so noisy that my teacher couldn't hear me. I walked away from the noisy place and stood somewhere quiet at the park.

He asked me some grammar questions that were about the present perfect tense. I am always confused by that and cannot see the difference between the past simple and present perfect. So Therefore*, I don't use the present perfect tense sentences very often, which even though they are very common expressions for native speakers. We talked about them for a while, and he gave me a link of an article that was about 'fake nice'. I've never heard that term before but I could guess the meaning. It seemed like people pretending to be nice who work in customer services.

He asked me to read the article within 5 minutes and find what the writer wants to say. I had to do skimming and scanning to read it so quickly, but it is one of my weaknesses. I can't read books fast, so I need to train myself to improve my reading skills. Anyway, I tried to read the whole text carefully to understand caring every single word and sentence.

However, I didn't have to. I've been doing it wrong. I have to find the main information in paragraphs and don't need to care about all of the words. If there're some words that I don't know, I can just skip them and guess the meanings. It's a simple rule but not that easy to for me. So, my teacher said that I have to keep reading and practicing.

The article was about the writer's unhappy experiences in with the 'fake nice'. She went to a shop to buy a cream, and the shop assistant was very chatty asking her different questions to her. The assistant made eye contact and did nothing rude, but it made her feel bad because it was insincere. It's become a highly overused marketing weapon. It was interesting.

After reading it, I answered 5 true & false questions about the article, but I got 3 wrong answers. To be honest, I didn't remember what it was about because I only cared about the time limit, so I couldn't concentrate.

He gave me a good advice (<em>More natural would be:</em> "He told me that I have to..." <em>OR</em> "he advised me to improve my...") that I have to improve my short-term memory in English. People have got quite a good short-term memory in their own languages, but in the second languages, we don't remember exactly what we hear. It's gone right away. There's only one way to improve it. Keep practicing! Keep listening, reading, speaking, and writing in English.

 

*<em> In this case "So" could also be used, but "Therefore" sounds a bit more natural.</em>

 

Great entry! I really enjoyed reading it. Very well written.

May 27, 2015
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