To Learn English Well, Focus Correctly (Part 1)

To Learn English Well, Focus Correctly (Part 1)

Teacher Rowena

With 25 years of experience teaching English, I have witnessed many students suffer from varying degrees of fear and difficulty in learning the language. To enhance students' interest and quality in learning English, I have published books and developed a method suitable for Chinese speakers called the Double R Amalgamation (see www.doubleramalgam.com for details), which enables students to learn English more effectively and systematically.

The 2019 HKDSE has commenced, with the four core subjects—Chinese, English, Mathematics, and Liberal Studies—arriving one after another in waves. Approximately 65,000 candidates are facing a public examination that may affect their entire lives. April 4th was the date for the English writing and reading papers. Shortly after the exam ended, I received an anxious message from a student: Should the topic 'Write an essay for your English teacher' be interpreted as writing an essay on behalf of the English teacher, or writing an essay addressed to the English teacher?

This sentence came from one of the optional questions in the 2019 English writing paper. The student thought the topic required candidates to write an essay on behalf of the English teacher, but many classmates in other classes told her it meant writing an essay to the English teacher. This shook her confidence, and she became very worried that the content and structure of her essay would be marked down, so she immediately reached out to me, as her former English teacher, for help.

My first reaction was that this year's English exam question perfectly reflects the most common error among Hong Kong students: focusing only on advanced [verbs] and [nouns] while often ignoring the role of [prepositions]. Students see 'write' and 'English teacher' and intuitively assume it must mean writing to the English teacher. However, 'write to' and 'write for' have two completely different meanings. The former is what most students referred to—writing to the teacher, where the author writes from their own perspective and stance. The latter means writing on behalf of the English teacher; the reader is not the teacher, and the author starts from the teacher's position and arguments. Therefore, the meaning of a sentence cannot be understood word by word; instead, one must follow an important rule I often advise my students: look at words in groups. [Verbs] and [prepositions] have their own original meanings, but when a [verb + preposition] becomes a [phrasal verb], it becomes something else entirely. This is also the biggest difference between English and Chinese.

Many students who are eager for quick success think that to 'get a star,' they must use complex vocabulary, the more, the better. Consequently, they start rote-learning vocabulary that is rarely used and difficult to understand, thinking that these words are necessary to get high marks. However, based on my observations, these difficult words not only fail to gain high marks, but if used incorrectly or inappropriately—appearing out of place with the rest of the text—they can often do more harm than good. This is what I often say: students have lost their focus on English and will never truly master the techniques of using the language.

In fact, all DSE candidates must have encountered the [prepositions] [for] and [to] thousands or even tens of thousands of times during their English learning journey. Yet, it is unimaginable that they would be tripped up by them today. Three years of hard preparation is certainly not a short time. I advise Secondary 4 and Secondary 5 students currently preparing for this battle to earnestly understand what the correct focus of learning English is, so as to avoid similar panic and confusion in the future.

So, how can one focus on learning English, stand out, and realize the dream of 'getting a star'? I will analyze this with readers next time.