Speaking, listening, & writing...

[gdpt-]

Among speaking, listening, and writing in English, I had always tried to determine which one was the hardest.
- Exerpt from Bear Lac Loi's 'Have Pen, Will Write (http://tienganh.net/showthread.php?t=2391).'

QUESTION: Among speaking, listening, and writing, which is most difficult to achieve fluency in? Which is easiest?


As proposed by Bear Lac Loi, please allow yourself 20-30 minutes to write freely.

*Whispers: Then, give yourself 10-15 minutes to edit any grammatical mistakes*

:-?

[Handsome Bear]

QUESTION: Among speaking, listening, and writing, which is most difficult to achieve fluency in? Which is easiest?

As proposed by Bear Lac Loi, please allow yourself 20-30 minutes to write freely.

*Whispers: Then, give yourself 10-15 minutes to edit any grammatical mistakes*

:-?

Based on a long (really long) life experience, I believe that listening is the easiest. Speaking comes second, and writing is the hardest.

When I was a baby - a real tiny little baby, all I did was to listen, unless crying is counted as speaking. After months of listening, looking, smiling, crying, and hand signaling, I started to roll my tongue, trying to call my mom. I didn’t know how to write until the cow comes home, which is quite awhile after my first cry in life.

The pattern changed when I studying a second language in high school. I probably relied on writing to identify a word, but reading took the place of listening. Writing came second. Speaking? Hadn't the French priest threatened my life with a big bamboo spanking stick, speaking would never come. In monastery, there weren’t any girls around; therefore, shyness probably wasn’t the problem. It might just be the level of difficulty.

When I’d just come to the US, the old pattern returned. I mostly listened and smiled to people around, which include a nice looking American neighbor. While nodding my head, I smiled. While shaking my head, I smiled. I smiled when I waved my hand, shrugged my shoulders, or when I just stood there, listening to people speaking in a weird language.

After awhile, I plucked up my courage to say simple sentences. Broken conversation came slowly, with me doing most of the listens. People around me thought that I was a quiet kid. I smiled. During that time, I did write a little. It was sort of inconvenient to keep carrying a pen and a notebook everywhere I went, but it helped. I was glad that American didn’t use characters to write like Chinese.

Real writing came when I started college after 6 months of tending garden, in exchange for English lessons from the neighbor. An additional torturous semester at an English Language Institute helped me meet the minimum requirement for TOEFL score and qualified me as a regular foreign student at a university. Being dumb, ignorance, and full of stupid sense of determination, I chose not to take advantage of the ESL program. Instead, I took regular composition classes with American students. I crawled through English literature classes and suffered along with Beowulf and Canterbury tales. Anh yes, the class did find that it was amusing hearing Romeo expressing his love to Juliet with a Vietnamese accent!

Oops, time’s up. I’ve got to conclude.

Except for the comfortable time in the French classes during high school, a real life pattern has proved that the level of difficulty ranges from listening, speaking, then writing, with listening being the easiest. What do you think?

--- o0o ---

Cái cô Jeedy này khôn lắm nghe. :devil: Cổ cứ ra đề cho học trò viết như là writing a letter hay là viết 20-minute essay nhưng cổ hổng chịu viết examples cho học trò noi gương làm theo! :chair: I'm gonna tell on you ... mommy ... :bochay:


:thankyou:

______________________
By the way, Miss Jeedy, how does one laugh with an accent? :yahoo: