英文寫作3 To sir with love (吾愛吾師)

My English Teacher, Bob

I was eager to learn English for a long time. When I came to US to be a visiting scholar at Lamar University, I was happy that I should have a good environment to learn English. However, the department, Deaf Studies and Deaf Education of Lamar University which I visited do not use English as their classroom language. They use American Sign Language to communicate with each other in classroom. So I prayed every day to have more opportunity to improve my English.

When my friend, Sumalai knew my aspiration to learn English, she said maybe her American friend, Bob can help me.

 Sumalai told me that Bob was an English literacy professor of Lamar University. He retired from Lamar about five years ago and started to manage a nice used book store with his wife, Joyce.

At the first time I met Bob at his book store, I asked him to be my English teacher. I do not know why I had courage to do thus presumptuous thing. He did not answer me instantly. 

A few days later, Bob and and Joyce invited my family to dinner at their lovely house,then announced he could teach me English and I do not need pay him money.

I could not describe how excited I was. I run around at my apartment and cheered “I have my own English class, ya! ya!” I thought I was the happiest person in the world.

Bob asked me to read aloud some sentences to test my pronunciation and he taught me how to pronounce those words better at the first class. Then he gave me the Academic Word List to increase my English vocabulary, and he encouraged me to  embarrass myself  at least twice a day using English. “If you don’t do that you are not trying hard enough,” he said. It was really a wise idea. From that time, I encouraged myself to take the initiative in talking with an English-speaking person every day. If I could understand what the person said I felt happy. If I misunderstand other’s words, I felt fine, too because I have done my embarrassing experience homework.

During Bob’s English class, He would ask me many interesting questions to improve my English speaking and share his life experience to help my English listening. For example, “Who is the boss of your family? “ “What makes you angry?” I enjoyed the conversation with Bob. He is a wonderful listener, always paying attention to my words, having eye contact with me. He made me feel comfortable to say anything to him. He is a good story teller, too. He can talk about the issues of science, religion, political affairs, history philosophy and NBA players. He knows much of different cultures of many countries, especially Asian countries. When we talk about the geisha he shares his young life experience in Japan. He told me the true feeling of leaving his Japanese girl friend, pretending she missed him and never had another boyfriend. He introduced me to the movies “ Sayonara” and “Teahouse of the August moon” to let me understand the interracial issues. He is the most Humanistic quality man I have ever met.

He not only taught me English, but also gave me important inspiration of my life. When I told him, I was worried that there would be too much work to do when I come back to Taiwan, he said, “Follow your bliss, you will be successful easier.” When I told him I missed my husband so much, he helped me to write a poem to relieve my suffering from missing;

When I talked about my disappointment that I found if someone wanted to make his article published on famous journal, he should try to have a good relationship with the editors of the journal. He said” Try to tell someone your idea, let more people understand you.” These words were kind of “Shan” to me. It made my mind free from worries.  

The feeling of sitting in Bob’s English class is just like bathing in the spring wind. I will treasure the fate with Bob. I don’t know how to thank Bob, who has taken me from shy to brave in English and taught me how to respect the others who have different culture. I don’t know what I could give Bob in return. However. I will pass Bob’s kindness forward to another person.