My English learning

I feared it like a demon breathing on my shoulder. Before every exam it creates enough
fear that my health gets a hit. Other exams never posed any threat ever to me. I could
master physics , chemistry , mathematics and even SST to a great extent but when it
was English language I was a dead duck. Even Sanskrit or even my own mother tongue,
Bengali I could manage pretty well but when it was with English language I was the first
causality.

It was a mystery to all my esteemed teacher why I could not understand the laws of
mood or the parts of speech or why the simple change of voice simply makes me
completely derailed on the ground.

I try hard but I really could not extract any juice from the subjunctive mood or the
change of active voice into passive voice or the changing an assertive sentence into
negative sentence with meaning unchanged.

The english language class was always dry and boring to me. The notes simply went
over head and when by chance I fall in line of questioning it was the most stupid site
ever on earth. The best way to get away with this english menace was to mug up every
words and every lines.

In class Xth stanard the menace was only for one paper of 100 marks so the quantum of
mug up was less but in XII std it was two papers on top of that the second paper was
fully unseen paper so the amount of my mug up was pretty huge and very very
straining . But I got it over....

In XII std. There was one precise writing of 80 words and one essay writing of 300
words. Believe me ! in those days I could memorize 30 precise 15 essays word to word
and sentence to sentence. Reasonable enough that the marks I used to get in english was
hardly 60% . Whereas in phy ,chem , math my score was always well above 90%.

Seeing my condition our headmaster arranged special language classes for weak
students like me but in those classes I used to solve the mathematics problems of the
other fellow 'weak' students.

I was an unique student - weakest in english language and strong in all other subjects.
This was a complete mystery for my teachers.

It was couple of months before the board examination. My preparation in English

language was horrible. One day our favorite mathematics teacher tried to teach me voice
changing in his special funny mathematical way. He made good progress and I learnt
voice changing pretty comfortably that day. Seeing my progress he got enthusiastic and
further taught me mood and precise writing. I learnt the trick pretty well and by the turn
of next month in the mathematics tution class my math teacher taught me english
grammer in a mathematical way.

He had a funny way of teaching everything. He first taught me in his funny way why the
hell it was required in english language . How can someone create a theme using
jugglery of english grammer & language. He had a big library in his house. After
teaching a new lesson in english he used to read few good lines from his huge stock of
books.

In the confined of his library I started loving those lines read by him . Slowly but surely
I learned how great this english language is.

Later in that board exam I got 60% marks but in that exam first time I wrote english not
by mug up.

That day I learnt one pure simple truth of teaching. All students are equal and If learning
can be mixed up with fun the learning becomes intense and most successful. Having fun
is an essential part of life.

S. Bera
Powai