Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy

Learning good English to help others

Every year, the National Central University and Hiroshima University hold an "International Hiroshima Exchange Study". These two schools choose a few excellent students to participate in this program. During the exchange, we have to use English for all the writing and oral presentations. I prepared very hard for these papers. After two English reports, I was chosen by the professors and became one of the representatives of the National Central University to attend this exchange study.

Everyone must think that I can speak very fluently English and have an excellent reading and writing ability, hence I can be one of school’s representatives. In fact, I was even very poor at speaking Chinese with much room to improve. So that I could not image that I would have a chance to write my study papers and present them in English one day.

When I was in the elementary school, English was never my best subject. I could hardly speak few sentences. After becoming a senior high school student, my English level was still less than that of my classmates. The average score of the class was eighty but mine was only around fifty. At that time, I just laughed at myself and told my classmates that "it’s not bad to get an almost passing score so that I can have a chance to obtain an improvement award in the future." However, for a person with a high self-esteem like me, it was still a shock. Hence, I determined to improve my English so I started to study hard.

For almost two years, I went to a cram school to study English every weekend and spent lots of time reciting vocabulary. The motto of my teacher in the cram school is, "If you cannot recite words now, you can recite it ten or twenty times so one day you will remember it forever."I kept studying harder and harder and finally my English grade was up to eighty in my third senior’s exam of the first semester. My English teacher gave me encouragement and praises. I was so moved that he gave me a thick English dictionary as a gift. Furthermore, it pushed me to study more in English, but I just studied hard only to improve my grade.

Zhang-men-ren of Tai Ji Men, Dr. Hong, Tao-Tze, was invited by Mr. Jadish Gandhi, the founder of City Montessori School in India to attend "the 9th International Chief Justice of the World" and "the 5th Global Symposium Awakening Planetary Consciousness". I was lucky to follow Dr. Hong to share my view of human rights and the ways of practicing human rights in daily life. After that, we also invited the honored guests of every country, judges and students to attend "the World Summit on Human Right for World Citizen". During this activity, people from all over the world came to understand the ancient Chinese martial arts and culture. Although they came from different countries and spoke different languages, English seemed to be more important than our common language. From that moment on, I found that studying and learning English was not only for getting good grades.
　
Since I was a child, I practiced Qigong in Tai Ji Men. In this environment full of traditional and modern culture, it’s not only making my body healthier but also helping me to learn the wisdom of balance between the body and heart. Moreover, I have lots of opportunities to take part in the international activities and follow the Global trends that makes me connect with international matters more easily. Finally I realize that to be good at English can do more good things. So I don’t pursue grades, and hope to use this language to help more people.

It lights up my passion to learn English and makes me understand the meaning of learning. I will seize the chances to learn English well and become a great representative of the International Hiroshima Exchange Study. English is not just English anymore. With the guidance of Dr. Hong, it has opened my opportunity and vision to study hard in English.