This article is for anyone who wants to improve their English, especially their reading skills. Since I’m a programmer myself, I’m here to help you discover how to improve your English skills with my own experience.

A bit of history

First of all, in middle school, although I was very interested in English at the beginning and got high scores in the exam for several times, I gradually began to dislike learning. When I took the college entrance examination, My English was stuck at the passing line of 90 points, and then my score was only enough to be admitted to a junior college and I started my career as a programmer.

motivation

In fact, my motivation to learn English was not because all technical documents were in English. At that time, I only knew to read Chinese documents translated by others, and sometimes I didn’t know there were mistakes and omissions. When I was working at that time, I suddenly decided to read a rise, so applied for the network education institute of Peking University, and then successfully enrolled. In the second semester, we all need to take an examination of bachelor’s degree In English commonly known as English level 3, in order to get the degree certificate, a full score of 100 points to get 60 points to pass, this to graduation before each semester can take an examination. The first time I take an exam is naked test, think than four levels will be simpler, who knows for many years without the English level has dropped, the result only took an examination of 56 points. I’m staring at this 4-point grade! Why is God so unfair to me, so close (maybe better than 59). Then suddenly inspired me to fight, I want to study English!

Learning process

After deciding to learn English, I bought a set of new concept English, from one to four, each set includes textbooks, self-study guides, exercise books, contact details. In high school, my teacher said new Concept English was recognized as the best English textbook, so I chose it without thinking. Open the first book, found are relatively simple dialogue and words, I learned the first book this way

  • Every day two lessons
  • First, learn the new words in each lesson and write them silently five times
  • Don’t read a book. Listen and see what you can understand
  • Listen again, this time is fine listen, listen to the repeated listen, until four or five times completely listen to not come out
  • Listen again to the full version and verify it
  • Listen to the book and underline what you hear wrong
  • Finally, read after the tape
  • Look at the detailed part of the text and self-study guide to understand the grammar and sentence patterns.
  • Finish all the questions in the textbook and exercise book, including the composition, and check the answers to understand the mistakes.

Just like this, I learned 144 lessons in the first book for about three months, and then I started the second book. The second volume because of the text is longer, more questions, changed to a lesson a day. When I learned more than 20 lessons, it was time for the second degree exam. I scored 76 points this time, which was not a small improvement. Then DURING the study period, I developed a lot of interest in English, began to listen to English songs, read some simple English news and materials. Thinking that since you have learned English, you should not put it down, so you continue to insist on learning. During this period, I also successfully read the original English book Of Spring MVC in Action, which was the first English book I finished reading. Of course, I read it very slowly, looking up the dictionary and thinking over the sentences. Fortunately, the style of this book is simple and the words are normal without too much extension. After reading, I gained a lot of confidence. Then I read official documents when learning new technologies. Although it was very slow, I thought the new words would become fewer and fewer, and I only needed to accumulate them gradually. Fortunately, the technical documents are basically in the web page, it is easy to use all kinds of dictionaries can delimit the word translation, after learning new words, do not deliberately to recite, do not add new words and so on, one is not remember, the second is the new word is certainly not to see, out of context, a word simply does not have so many meanings. What we should do is continue to read, high-frequency words will always repeat many times, slowly see more and more will be remembered. During this period, I read the official documents of Java EE, PHP, JavaScript, Android and other technologies and related frameworks. And found that the technical vocabulary is relatively simple. Look at the wilderness original English novel, is really every three words there is a do not know, but later, slowly become better.

# # toefl and GRE undergraduate course graduation, in the company a chance to listen to other people say go abroad to study, and then I suddenly want to see what is the technology of foreign standards, and then selected the United States, began to prepare for the toefl exam, had just learned the second volume of new concept, the third book about lesson learned in less than 10, then saw the toefl official guide to bare bottom go to, the test Got 82 in the first time, feel is good, and then two months time, every day I brush a set of TPO, and go on studying new concept, and then with each big English site, including geography, history, biology, culture and so on, also didn’t see how many actually, because just like last time again to learn, to convert the learned English, is really boring. Later the second time took an examination of 95 minutes, because fast too late to apply for, stopped, GRE naked take an examination of, did not have time to prepare to take an examination of 309, not much, do not have reference value, one is my math is not good, the college entrance examination 58 can think by themselves, the second is the language part of the word is really anti-human. Forget it. Let’s do it. I applied to about seven or eight schools, and I got accepted by NTU, Stevens, USC. At that time, USC did not admit students until the spring, and I had already chosen Stevens. I had already done my visa and air ticket, so I turned it down. When people can not capricious.

conclusion

Please do not think that MY English is better after studying abroad, because after studying abroad, I almost lived with Chinese students, and I teamed up with Chinese students to do homework in class. At most, I practiced listening in class, and then I got familiar with the names of places near New York and New Jersey, as well as some food names. Because our technical documents basically only need reading ability, I was less than 2 full marks in TOEFL reading at that time, so it was enough to deal with these. By now it’s almost completely out of the dictionary. Now I have also developed a hobby of reading Quora, there are many wonderful answers, and they are all true, but also can improve the oral English ability, by the way to solve the dilemma of life, make chicken soup.

This is basically my personal experience, in fact, it doesn’t take much effort to learn, as long as I keep at it and gain a little bit every day, learning English will be natural. I am still insisting on learning new concepts, and have reached the fourth volume, because the middle work and study break for a long time, so I also progress with everyone. We must have the determination to overcome difficulties, and then have a little restless with the status quo, to learn new knowledge, and then look back, found that they have made a big step, this is the so-called progress and growth. I hope you found this article enlightening.