Journal Writing (W2)

When I at last enrolled to EAP course I said to my self that this course will be a trigger and prepare me with academic knowledge to access university to achieve my degree. 11th February 2007 was my first day to EAP class and Mersaline was introducing the EAP course, which cover many units such as speaking, listening, reading, writing, research and computing. She also talked about how the examination will take place, rules, compulsory tasks and course instruction. I can understand Mersaline’s English very well and I think I can cope with EAP well and manage the course well. But then when I come to Darren class I was totally lost and I felt so down as my English is very simple compared to academic English.

Before I thought reading is simple and I like reading a lot but then when I learned about how academic cultures reading and writing are linked together it seems to be very difficult to me. Academic reading is extremely different compared to general reading as the texts need to be skimmed, scanned and predicted. I never learned about English Academic in my life so I felt very nervous. The writing unit is very demanding and I can see clearly that all the text, article hand outs that Darren gave as well his English are academic and I can understand only 70%. I find it hard to write the academic writing and I really don’t know how to get started.

I remembered the first day when Darren gave the class the text about deforestation and I have to write the comparison about the academic culture in my country with my own experience, just then my mind went blind. I just sat still and really didn’t know what to do. Then I decided to write something which I was not so sure whether my writing is relevant to what the teacher required.

Nevertheless I calmed my self down and encouraged my self that I came to EAP class to gain such knowledge, learn from the teacher and grasp what they teach. And if I did any mistake by writing, I’m sure that the teacher will correct me so I tried to finish my writing and hand over my writing paper to Darren without hesitation.

I see that all the teachers are very nice, expert, well educated with abundant knowledge and information to input to the class. The class is very lucky to have the entire expert teacher and they are more than happy to help the class whenever there was a problem in our study.

Listening, seminar presentation and computing unit are alright with me at the moment and finally I can say that no matter how hard this course is, I would not give up. Instead I will give all the effort and try my best to pass the course and be competent.