Text 2:

The difficulties of learning English

Well, hello there! My name's Zoe Kosmidou and I think I'm a typical student of English. In this article, I'm going to talk about my English learning experiences. So why don't you read on and see how similar they are to yours? (By the way, don't be amazed by my wonderful English – my teacher's checked everything!)

Do you remember when English was easy?

Mostly it involved drawing 'works of art' – you know, like members of your family – and then you wrote the words Mum, Dad, etc below them. We also did lots of singing, and at the end of term we put a play on. Wasn't it great? No stress, manageable homework and most importantly no big, important exams coming up.

Oh, I know I should keep an open mind about it – there are advantages to being in exam preparation classes. Like what? I hear you say. Exams? No, what I mean is, now that our English is at quite a good level, we can enjoy a lot of things. Take TV, for example. In my country, a lot of foreign programmes have subtitles, so you hear the language being spoken while reading the translation. It's great when you can get the joke in a sitcom in the language they are talking. I find English or American humour doesn't always translate into Greek, so you would miss the joke if you didn't understand the English.

I also make good use of English when I'm using a computer. All of my computer games are in English, and a lot of the information on websites isn't in my language. It's very useful to be able to look up information for schoolwork in English. Lastly, I love music, and a lot of my favourite music is in English. I'm really glad I can understand most of what they're saying.

What about the actual lesson? I know I said exams are stressful, but we do some really interesting subjects in our English class. I'm really into the environment because I think it's important to save our planet. We did a project on the rainforest and deforestation last term, and I learnt so many new things. Next week, I'm going on a tree-planting day with my class. We're going to plant trees in a forest near us which really suffered in this year's heatwaves and forest fires, when a lot of the trees burnt down.

Something else we have to think about is that we all need foreign languages, especially English, for work later. In my country, a lot of employment is in tourism. So you can't really find a job if you can't speak at least English. Also, in many jobs, you might not get promotion or a good salary unless you can communicate internationally. English is an important language for doing this.

So, you may be feeling a little down about the coming exams, but be brave. Keep working hard, enjoy the benefits of learning English, and you'll soon have that important paper in your hands.

Taken from: CHAPMAN, Joanne. Laser B1 +. Teacher's book. Macmillan, 2008.