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This letter comes from Xuesi (in bracket are my comments):
"May I write to you in this free style?
(Yes, you can be forward with me. I won't feel offended. I'm not that
kind of boy. Only allow me to be straightforward with you - two can play
that game.)
"I have read your article titled 'Habeas Corpus, may the court help us'
in the China Daily website and was deeply touched by it.
"I am a university graduate (2005) majoring in Civil Engineering.
(Hold on a second. Which part did you say you're deeply moved by? It
pains me when people appear to have set out to sing my praise but stop
then and there before I have even begun to revel in the good attention.
You're not being convincing, but thanks all the same.)
"I'm very interested in English and want to change my major into
English.
(Civil Engineering sounds good to me. It sounds good to most English
majors I assure. We all want what other people have.)
"I took part in the postgraduate examination before graduation but
failed. However, I have continued to study English, this time setting my
sights on passing the postgraduate exam for 2006.
(This is the best I've heard from you yet. Failing the first time can
only help your second attempt - if you make that attempt, that is.)
"I have also been learning French all by myself. I've worked hard but
still feel confused. My score is not so satisfactory.
(I've heard of people who've mastered quite a few foreign languages.
But none of them seem to have tried to prepare for an exam on one language
by learning another. When you have an English exam to pass, I don't know
if learning French helps. Rather, it could be a distraction. Perhaps
French can wait. In my case, French has been lurking in the back, waiting
to be picked up again something like for ever. Sometime along the way, I
gave up trying, having realized that I was learning French only so that I
could brag about that fact.)
"I learned from the China Daily website that you were an English major
of Beijing Foreign Studies University.
(I was and what of that? Yes, the university gave me everything. It is
the reason, the only reason that I'm writing to you in English now and
still feeling inadequate in expressing myself in that lovely language. I
may have left university almost 20 years ago but I have never wavered in
holding them responsible for my imperfect English. Just kidding.)
"You must know how difficult it is to learn English, especially for a
Civil Engineering major like me. But I'm really interested in English. My
education background means the only way out is for me to go for
postgraduate studies in English. I write this letter in the hope that I'll
get some suggestions from you about the way of learning English and your
feelings of working with that language.
"Best wishes - Xuesi."
Thank you for writing, Xuesi. Here are a few bits of more serious
comments, given in the hope that they can be of help. I wish you good luck
in your upcoming exams.
I don't know how Civil Engineering can be perceived as an obstacle to
English studies. Civil Engineering seems a fine subject to major in. I
don't understand why you should "change" to English. If you think giving
one major up will help you with another, you can forget it. It won't.
Civil Engineering is perhaps even better paying than English to begin
with. Knowing the monetary ambitions of the young in general, I don't want
to see you struggle financially in the first years of your career, if you
mean to tamper with the English language in earnest.
At any rate, Civil Engineering should not be held as something against
your attempt at mastering the English language, or any other skill for
that matter. It may be a good excuse to make, but as excuses go, even the
best excuse is not good enough.
Also, learning English with an aim at passing an exam is different from
attempting to master it at the street level, which enables you to
communicate effectively without the strictures of grammar.
While grammar is necessary, at school it is often taught as the expense
of fundamentals. The fundamentals are the natural process of language
learning, as observable in babies learning their mother tongue.
Babies learn through imitation, through listening and then speaking out
what they hear. They are not bothered about reading and writing until much
later, at which time they are already fluent with the spoken language.
At our school, English is taught something like the other way round,
with the emphasis squarely put on reading and writing.
I know what you're saying: I'm not a baby, and English is not my mother
tongue. You can learn the ways of a baby; you've been a baby before.
Likewise, you can learn to treat a foreign language like it is a mother
tongue. It's no crime doing that.
Tiresome excuses aside, the thing with schools is that may produce
people who can fill out a space nicely by picking out a correct answer for
a question, but the same people may not be able to get back to their hotel
room in time without considerable difficulty when they travel abroad. This
is not an exaggeration - I've seen it happen.
So therefore, now that you've gotten some considerable English
education under your belt, you might want to get back to the basics again.
Be fluent with the easy, and you'll find less trouble with what others
consider difficult, postgraduate exams included.
As for the exams, they are what they are. They may let you pass the
door, but they can't guarantee you any success later on. I think you'll
understand this, having passed exams at various levels yourself and yet
still finding English confusing. It's the same with me and everyone else
(I made this up so that I may sound really comforting).
By the way, this is not a knock at teachers and schools, ok? Let me
make this clear, because there already are too many ungrateful pupils
milling around. Any problem is with the pupil, not the teacher. Any
problem is with the individual, rather than the system. Ask any successful
student, and they'll prove it to you.
To a great degree, language like any other skills, can not be taught,
but can be learned. I think this is partially the reason why you write to
me rather than to Xin Dong Fang, the school that is crammed with exam
experts.
At this point in time, crash courses are exactly what you are looking
for because you have exams coming up soon.
What I'm suggesting is, perhaps you don't have to go to school again to
do it. After going through all the exams to complete college, perhaps you
want to re-think the whole thing over.
The whole logic needs a rethink. It's easy to prepare for exams and
pass the door. But it's hard to stay in the room. I think what you're
really looking for at present is to be able to not only pass a door, but
advance into the living room, sit down and stay comfortably in it.
Now that you've graduated from university, you want to be able to make
a living out of your major rather than just be able to say that I am a
major in this and that. Aside of talking the talk, you want to be walking
the walk, and walking well without wobble.
You've got interest, if I can trust you at your word. That's a major
obstacle cleared away. With interest, there's little obstacle left, the
least of all being a major in Civil Engineering. You can learn English
while being a competent civil engineer at work.
The opposite way of thinking being of course: if I don't study in
a school, I won't get a diploma. Diploma. That's the beginning of all
their troubles. If one diploma doesn't work, they make up for it by
acquiring another. Understandably for the postdoctoral, there seems no end.
If you want to study English full time as a postgraduate, that's fine
too. But don't give up Civil Engineering. If you think giving it up will
help your English. It won't. It will, of course, very likely help you
forget everything you have learned in Civil Engineering all the more
quickly - and that's some way to pay back your teachers
for going through all the trouble with you in the first place, isn't
it?
If I were you, I wouldn't mind about French for the time being either -
it won't have helped your English much by the time postgraduate exams
comes about.
On the other hand, you can master all three subjects if you put your
mind to it. But that will be beyond the judgment of any schools.
Happy learning to you and all. | 
