Twenty Years of My
Language Journey.

昨天直播的时候，有一些来自西方的小伙伴问：你的英语这么好，是怎么学的？于是我就想着借着这个机会，系统地分享一次我个人的英语学习经历吧 ～

第一小节从我小时候的经历说起，主要分三方面，分别是有趣的开始，持续的兴趣，以及科学的方法，我们依次来看：

1. 有趣的开始

在我正式在学校里开始学英语之前，我的妈妈给我报了一个暑期的英语入门兴趣班，在那个时候我只觉得这个班很好玩，因为老师会根据我们每个人表现出来的性格特质，给我们取对应的英文名字，所以我小时候第 1 个英文名字其实叫 Alice（对，就是来自于爱丽丝梦游仙境里边的那个 Alice），其次她教我们一些基础的英语音标，然后会选择一些西方经典电影里的角色对话，让我们做角色扮演，整个课程的内容并不难，但非常有趣，所以即使没有作业，我在上学放学的路上，也不自觉的就会反复的去模仿练习这些对话。

我小的时候很崇拜我的这个英语老师，因为有时候我会听到她打电话，她在电话里都是用全英文和自己的朋友聊日常，在小时候的我的眼中觉得哇这太酷了，太高级了！我将来也应该要这样。

在将近 20 年的学习之后，我回头来看，其实当初的那个时间节点，以及我当时学到的内容是非常重要的。主要表现在两方面：一是这个课程培养了我对英文的兴趣；二是这个课程系统的讲了音标的知识，所以后来我单词句子的学习是比较轻松的，而这个看似很简单的内容，竟然是很多人在学校里不会学到的，我有的同学因为不会拼读单词，而用中文的方式写在单词下面去记，所以拼读对他们来讲是很难的。

Yesterday during a livestream, some friends from the West asked me: how did you learn English so well? So I thought I would take the chance to share my own English-learning journey in a systematic way.

This first section begins with my childhood, in three parts: a fun beginning, a sustained interest, and a sound method. Let's take them in turn.

1. A fun beginning

Before I formally started English at school, my mother enrolled me in a summer English-introduction class. At the time it just felt fun — the teacher gave each of us an English name that matched our temperament, and my first English name was Alice (yes, the Alice from Alice in Wonderland). She taught us the basics of phonetics, and chose dialogues from classic Western films for us to act out. The material was not difficult, but it was very enjoyable. Even without homework, I would unconsciously repeat those lines on my way to and from school.

I admired that English teacher of mine. Sometimes I would overhear her on the phone speaking entirely in English with her friends about everyday things, and to my child's eyes that looked extraordinary — so high, so refined. I should be like that someday, I thought.

Looking back after nearly twenty years of study, I see that the timing and the content of that early class mattered a great deal. In two ways: it gave me an interest in English; and it taught phonetics systematically, which made later vocabulary and sentence learning easier. That simple-seeming foundation is, in fact, something many people never get at school — I had classmates who, unable to decode words, wrote Chinese pronunciations under each English word to memorize them, and for whom pronunciation remained a permanent obstacle.

2. 持续的兴趣

在最初的产生兴趣之后，后来我在学校里开始学英语，在第 1 次的考试中，当时有 4 个班，有 200 多个学生，我在第 1 次测试中以满分的成绩获得了年级的第 1 名，这其中包括了我曾经那个课外英语老师的孩子。

这可能是一种运气但是在当时的我眼中，我莫名觉得可能自己也有一点天赋。因为上了一个短暂的兴趣班，就获得了第一，甚至超过了那些在英文环境下长大的孩子。

这激发了我对英语的持续的兴趣。我始终保持比其他人多学一点。但我并没有把英语的学习当做是一种任务，我很喜欢在英语里学到的内容，那是一种完全不同于我所在环境的一种文化。

我的家乡是一个小县城，并没有非常丰富的各种生活。英语的文章让我了解到世界上不同区域的人，他们会有和我们完全不一样的语言，喜好以及生活方式。他们会教会我很多，与我周围的人教我的完全不一样的东西。

我很喜欢阅读英文的文章，不仅局限于老师安排的任务，其他相关的教辅资料，我都会去看。看的多了，有时候会发现自己看过的内容就出现在了考试中。

3. 科学的方法

后来随着学习的内容越来越多，我慢慢就发现，单纯地靠简单重复式的方法去记忆单词，是比较困难的，我曾经在初中的时候尝试过把一些我记不下来的单词，写在我的手上。利用一些空闲时间，比如吃饭的间隙，去记忆它。但是后来我发现这种方法并不太可行，看了很多遍，但是仍然会忘记。看到这个单词很熟悉，但是想不起它的意思。

多番尝试之后实践下来我发现最有用的方式就是阅读。先对单词有一个大体基本的印象，然后通过阅读的方式来深化对这些单词的理解。因为通过阅读，实际上我们是在试图去理解这个单词，包括它具体的含义，它适用的语境，它相关搭配的用法而不是在通过机械式的重复。

掌握了这个方法之后，我的英语之路就变得更加顺畅了，整个初中阶段，英语一直都是第一，根本没有对手。

2. A sustained interest

After that initial spark, I began to study English at school. In my first exam — across four classes and more than two hundred students — I took first place in the grade with a perfect score, beating even the child of my former extracurricular English teacher.

It may have been luck, but in my own eyes at the time, it felt as though I had a little talent — after one short hobby class I had come first, even ahead of children raised in English-speaking environments.

That kept my interest in English alive. I always made sure to learn a little more than the others. But I did not treat English as a task — I genuinely loved what I learned in it, a culture entirely unlike the one around me.

My hometown was a small county town, with little variety to its everyday life. English articles let me see how people in other parts of the world had entirely different languages, tastes, and ways of living. They taught me things the people around me could not.

I loved reading English — not only what the teacher assigned, but any supplementary material I could find. After enough reading, I sometimes found that things I had already read showed up on exams.

3. A sound method

As the material grew, I came to see that brute repetition was not a good way to remember words. In middle school I tried writing words I could not remember on my hand and reviewing them in scraps of free time, like between bites at meals. But the method did not work for me — I saw the word many times yet kept forgetting; the word looked familiar but its meaning would not come.

After many attempts, I found that the most useful method was reading. First get a rough impression of a word, then deepen your understanding of it through reading. Because in reading you are actually trying to understand the word — its specific meaning, its context, the collocations it lives in — rather than repeating it mechanically.

Once I had this method, the road grew smoother. Through middle school I held first place in English, with no one to compete with.

初中英语稳坐第一的宝座之后，没有太多意外，我通过提前批进入到了我们市里最好的高中，并被分配在了最好的一批班级里。

我以为我的高中将延续我初中的辉煌。但是后来我才知道，实际上我的排名是这批优秀的人中非常靠后甚至是倒数的，一瞬间我就感觉自己像是鸡立鹤群。

曾经在那个小县城的环境里，老师同学都夸我厉害，但到了这里每个人都很厉害，他们的厉害是不仅学习成绩好，还会各种才艺表演比如跳舞、书法等等。甚至就连我引以为傲的英语，在他们面前也显得不过如此。他们总是在谈论着一些外国电影或者动漫，其实很多我连听都没听过，但是我只能假装理解地笑着点头附和。

后来我才明白，在绝对的教育资源碾压之下，所谓的努力和天赋都显得尤为微不足道。

但是那时我也并没有因此而放弃。进入高中的第 1 年，我就疯狂地学，我把那些他们提到过的外国电影全都找来看，甚至于把其中主演其他相关的电影也拿来看。也是在那个时候，我通过罗马假日，乱世佳人了解到了奥黛丽赫本和费雯丽等等。平时他们提到的那些杂志，我也全部买来看。学校的图书馆里有很多很优质的免费资源。所以我的英语学习在这个阶段不止局限于上课听老师讲，以及完成相关的阅读作业。我会去图书馆借很多经典的英文原著来读。包括很多讲英语语法以及发音的原版书籍。

在持续了大概一年多的高强度学习后，终于在这个新的环境里，我的英语又稳定地站在了班上第一的位置（偶尔第二）。

这开始于一次远超于平时难度的英语测试中我考了第一，开始我们的英语老师都不信，所以他找我，随机指文章让我说出文章的内容。这主要是因为刚进来的时候，成绩太差了，差到以至于一年多的时间，教我们英语的老师，甚至都根本没有注意到我。

我当时的内心其实是非常悲哀的，因为在初中的时候，我们学校全校的老师都认识我，对，包括很多不教我课的老师。可是到了这个新环境里，我即使拼命地努力了一年多，也仍然没有被看见。

但是我也没有放弃。我告诉自己：没有关系，不在意我的人，我也不会在意他。我会一直不断地提升自己！

随着英文的地位越来越稳定，自信心大大提升，全科成绩也开始提升，课外我也去参加羽毛球比赛等，还为班级挣得了荣誉。

我的内心越来越融洽，表现得越来越好，除了英语，偶尔其它科目也神奇的开始拿第一，高考超常发挥。这是我第一次通过努力让自己从倒数一步步走在前列！

After three years at the top of my English class in middle school, I entered, via early admission, the best high school in our city, and was placed in one of its top streams.

I assumed my high school years would extend the glory of middle school. Soon I learned that among these strong students I was actually near the bottom — a chicken among cranes.

Back in my small county town, teachers and classmates had praised me. Here, everyone was strong, and their strength was not only academic — they could dance, do calligraphy, perform. Even the English I had been so proud of looked ordinary beside them. They were always talking about foreign films and anime I had not even heard of, and I could only smile and nod as if I understood.

I came to understand that, under that kind of overwhelming educational gap, so-called effort and talent are slight things.

I did not give up. In my first year I studied like a fanatic. I tracked down every foreign film they had mentioned, and then the other films of the leading actors. That was how I came to know Audrey Hepburn through Roman Holiday and Vivien Leigh through Gone with the Wind. I bought every magazine they had talked about. The school library held many excellent free resources. So my English learning, at this stage, went well beyond the classroom and assignments — I borrowed many classic English novels from the library, along with original-language books on English grammar and pronunciation.

After a little more than a year of this intensity, my English returned to first place in the class — occasionally second.

It began with one test, far harder than usual, in which I came first. The English teacher did not believe it at first — he called me over and pointed at random passages, asking me to explain them. I had entered with such poor marks that, for over a year, the teacher had not even noticed me.

It was a quiet sadness. In middle school, every teacher in the school had known me — including many who never taught me. In this new place, even after more than a year of hard effort, I was still unseen.

But I did not give up. I told myself: it is all right — those who do not care about me, I will not care about either. I will keep raising myself.

As my standing in English grew steady, my confidence rose with it, and my marks in other subjects began to rise too. I joined the badminton team and won the class some honor.

I felt more whole inside, and performed better outside. Sometimes other subjects, not only English, took first place — strangely. I overshot in the college entrance exam. It was the first time I had pulled myself from the bottom to the front by my own effort.

高中面对学习上的一次又一次失败时，我一直告诉自己：我可以失败无数次，只要最后成功一次就好了。

终于我也如愿以偿。原本的期望是能上个一本就不错了，结果超常发挥，上了 211。（我们那个城市只是一个三线小城市，并不是省会城市，所以名列前茅与上 211 并不矛盾）那时我非常庆幸与感激，觉得自己运气真好！！大学去了云大，云大是一座非常美丽的大学，有宜人的气候与浪漫的冬樱，有玫瑰园，天鹅湖和薰衣草花海…

就在我还沉浸在喜悦中时，危机悄然降临。

大学的第一学期就生病了，可能是以前高中三年长期的紧绷与压力，突然放松下来，整个身体就垮掉了，在那一学期经常都需要去医院，检查，吃药，并且因为身体激素的变化，整个人也逐渐变得抑郁。每天晚上一闭上眼，就好像坠入了无尽的黑暗中。那时候还比较年轻，没有经历过什么大病，很长的时间里都很恐惧，有时候就想，如果明天我就不在了会怎么样。可能也有一点自己吓自己，但人在生病的时候，很多情绪是很难自己控制的。

但可能是因为想的次数多了之后，慢慢也就觉得没什么大不了的，人都会死的。

现在想来，那一次的经历也很好，因为在我还比较年轻的时候，我就能够开始去思考关于生死的问题，开始重视健康。

后来随着身体的改善，我自己心态的调节，规律性的运动以及有营养均衡的饮食，身体渐渐恢复。

这一次的经历把我从短暂的喜悦中迅速拉了回来，我开始平静而严肃地思考：我的人生到底想要什么呢？

我也不知道…

我开始持续地跑步，持续地思考，我们学校有个绝望坡（因为很陡，爬坡很困难而得名），我沿着学校的外围一次又一次地从那跑过，感觉自己就像是那个在一遍又一遍地推石头的西西弗斯…

Through all the small failures of high school I had told myself: I can fail any number of times, so long as I succeed at the end.

And I got what I wished for. My honest hope had been a first-tier school of any kind; instead I overshot and went to a 211 university. (Our city was only a third-tier town, not a provincial capital, so being top of my class and going to a 211 are not as contradictory as they may sound.) I felt enormously fortunate and grateful — what good luck, I thought. I went to Yunnan University, a beautiful campus with pleasant weather, romantic winter cherry blossoms, a rose garden, a swan lake, and fields of lavender…

Even as I was still in that joy, the crisis arrived quietly.

I fell ill in the first semester. Three years of held tension in high school, suddenly released, may have collapsed the body. I went often to the hospital for tests and medicine that semester. And because of the hormonal shifts that came with the illness, I grew quieter inside. Each night when I closed my eyes it felt like falling into an endless dark. I was young and had never been seriously ill, and for a long time I was afraid; sometimes I would wonder what it would be like if I simply were not here tomorrow. Some of it was probably me frightening myself, but when one is ill, many feelings are hard to govern.

Perhaps because the thought returned often enough, it gradually lost its weight. Everyone dies, after all.

Looking back now, that experience was good in its own way. While I was still young, it let me begin to think about life and death, and to take my health seriously.

As my body improved, with regular exercise, balanced meals, and a quieter mind, I slowly recovered.

That episode pulled me out of the brief joy of getting into university and back into a quieter, more serious question: what do I actually want from my life?

I did not know yet.

I began to run, and to keep thinking. Our campus had what was called the Slope of Despair — named for how steep and punishing it was — and I ran past it again and again on the outer loop, feeling like Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill, and again, and again.

在生病康复之后，我决心开始继续深入地学习英语，我要把英语相关的这些内容全给学了。

我们大学入学的时候有英语入学考试，凭着以前长期的积累，我顺利通过考试，被分到了英语快班，但是这还远远不够，快班里有很多优秀的同学，有的甚至高中的时候雅思就已经 7 分了，而大学的我才刚刚知道雅思这个考试，但是没有关系，我可以学！

从基本的四六级，到进阶一些的高级商务英语，再到雅思，到更复杂的 GRE，再是后面的二级笔译，以及文言文的翻译…

除了上课的时间，我大部分的时间都在图书馆里，或者在食堂餐厅靠窗的位置备考…

四六级我没有特别准备，一次性相对比较轻松就通过了，我的重点是放在了国际上权威性相对更高一些的考试上，因为我想的是我以后一定是要面向国际化的市场的。

准备商务英语的时候，备考时间很紧张，只有 1 个多月的时间，因为商务英语是有和考官面对面测试口语的这个环节，而那个时候口语算是我听说读写里比较薄弱的一项，因为传统教育下几乎都不怎么强调培养口语能力，能够得到的练习机会也很少。

所以在备考期间，我的重点是放在了口语上。我安排了每日早读的环节，会每周去参加学校的英语角锻炼。

顺便说一下我很喜欢去学校的英语角，因为我每一次去都能遇到很多有趣的小伙伴，每次都会有人会说我长得像奥黛丽赫本，或者说我长得像莉莉柯林斯之类的外国明星，还会遇到很多外国的小伙伴，比如说斯里兰卡小伙伴会跟我们分享，他们那里盛产钻石，他妈妈就有一颗很大的宝石，他的记忆力超好，从小家里的书房里就有很多很多的书，我忘了那时我们是在讨论什么话题了…

其他时候我会在图书馆里找一个相对空旷的地方（我们学校图书馆很大），搬个凳子，把重点核心的话题内容材料，先进行朗读，积累好的表达，熟悉了内容之后再尝试用自己的话去表述…

学习的时候练，在路上的时候练，跑步也练，睡觉前也练，一切能够利用的时间我全部都用来练习，同时我得兼顾学校的课程以及相关的作业，一度都很焦虑，每次焦虑我就去跑步，跑了之后会放松很多。我还有一个比较有用的方法，就是**只专注在当下**。我练英语，我就只想练英语的事，完成学校作业，我就只想完成学校作业的事，其他的都不想。

After I recovered, I made up my mind to go deeper into English. I wanted to learn the whole of it.

At university there was an English placement test on entry. My long accumulation got me into the fast-track class. But that was hardly enough — the fast class had many strong students; some had scored a 7 on IELTS in high school, while I in college was only just learning what IELTS was. No matter — I could learn.

From the basic CET-4 and CET-6 to BEC Higher, then on to IELTS, the harder GRE, and later the second-class translator's qualification and classical Chinese translation…

Outside class, most of my time was spent in the library, or at a window seat in the cafeteria, preparing for one exam or another.

I did not prepare specifically for CET-4 and CET-6 — I passed them in one sitting, fairly easily. My focus went to exams of higher international authority, because I knew I would have to face an international market in the future.

For BEC Higher, the preparation window was tight — only just over a month. BEC included a face-to-face speaking test with an examiner, and at the time speaking was my weakest of the four skills, because the traditional system had hardly emphasized spoken English at all, and chances to practice were rare.

So I put speaking at the center. I scheduled a morning reading session every day, and went to the school's English corner once a week.

(A note: I loved the English corner. Every time I went I met interesting people, and every time someone said I looked like Audrey Hepburn, or Lily Collins. I also met many international students — a Sri Lankan friend told us about how their country produced diamonds, that his mother owned a large gemstone, that he had an extraordinary memory because the study at home had always been full of books since he was a child. I have forgotten what topic we were on…)

Other times I would find a relatively empty spot in the library (our library was very large), pull up a chair, take the core topic material, read it aloud to gather good expressions, and then, once familiar with the content, try to put it in my own words.

I practiced when studying, on the road, while running, before sleep — every minute I could use I used. I also had to keep up with normal coursework and assignments; at times I was very anxious. Whenever the anxiety rose, I went for a run, and afterwards felt much lighter. There was one more method I found useful: *only attend to the present thing*. When I am practicing English, I only think about practicing English. When I am doing schoolwork, I only think about schoolwork. Nothing else.

高级商务英语持续学习之后去参加考试，当时的水平考了 B2。

出于兴趣，我又学了 GRE，因为它最难（如果 GRE 的难度是 10 分的话，那么雅思的难度就算 4 分），我想挑战一下自己。

每天早上七点钟，宿舍里的小伙伴还在睡觉的时候。我就背着书包，带着 GRE 白皮书先去食堂吃一个 2 块 2 的米线（这是云大的特色，现在不知道还有没有），然后坐在二楼餐厅靠窗的座椅上，开始沉浸式学习，眨眼之间，4 个小时就过去了。

开始学 GRE 的时候，是比较痛苦的。很长很长的段落，就一两句话，很多很难很生僻的词，即使我长期以来都有比较坚实的英语基础。但是我看着那整段整段的英文文字，最开始脑袋也是嗡嗡的，我学了很多老师的课，终于在两个月左右的时候，我的长难句分析技巧突飞猛进，这也为我阅读能力打下了非常坚实的基础。

虽然我没去参加 GRE 的考试，但我在受尽了 GRE 的折磨之后，再去学雅思，就有了一种降维打击的感觉。当然这并不是说考雅思的过程就很轻松，但是相对来说学习起来时就没有那种头痛欲裂的感觉了。

雅思的阅读和写作，因为我长时间的学习和积累，所以相对提升起来是比较容易的，所以我的主要精力集中在听力和口语。听力有一段很艰难的时间，就是基础题型能做之后，再想往上就怎么都提不上去。我最开始尝试过精听，每天花大概三个小时左右的时间去听复盘，持续了两个月左右。但是能力也没有得到提升，听不懂的还是听不懂。

这个时候我就想我的方法肯定是有问题的，然后我就学了很多老师的课程，学他们的技巧方法，看了很多的资料。

后面是掌握了很多英语发音技巧之后，听力才实现了质的突破。

口语有很多的话题，准备起来压力也很大，但之前备考高级商务英语的经历，所以至少心态上来讲会好很多。

P1 和 P2，我花一些时间基本还是能够搞定，我没有采取背诵一些模板，或者说背参考答案的方式，我先把他们按照不同的场景梳理出来，然后一个场景一个场景的练习。

P2 的话题我是每一个都思考，然后练习，最后再用手机录音下来，看一看自己的表现，有问题的地方及时纠正复盘。

但是 P3 内容又多，有时候有的问题问的又很奇怪，我首先是全部浏览一遍，从最难的，我完全不知道怎么说的开始准备，有一些相对于简单的或说比较常见的话题我就把他们集中归为一类，统一的练习。（**注意这是高分备考逻辑**）

两次之后终于拿到了目标的分数。

After continued study of BEC Higher, I sat the exam and reached B2 at that time.

Out of curiosity, I went on to study GRE — because it was the hardest (if GRE were a 10 in difficulty, IELTS would be about a 4). I wanted to test myself.

At seven each morning, while my dorm-mates were still asleep, I would shoulder my bag, take the GRE prep book, eat a 2.2-yuan bowl of rice noodles in the cafeteria (a Yunnan University staple — I don't know if it is still there), and then sit at a window seat on the second floor and study in a single absorbed stretch. In what felt like a moment, four hours had passed.

The first weeks of GRE were painful. Very long paragraphs containing only one or two sentences, with many difficult, obscure words — even with my long-built English foundation, those passages made my head buzz. I took several teachers' courses, and after about two months my ability to parse long sentences leapt forward, laying a very solid foundation for my reading skill.

I never sat the GRE exam in the end, but after enduring all that GRE preparation, going back to IELTS felt like coming down a dimension. That does not mean IELTS itself was easy — only that the studying no longer split my head.

Reading and writing on IELTS came up relatively easily thanks to my long accumulation, so I focused my main energy on listening and speaking. Listening had a hard stretch: once I could handle the basic question types, I could not push higher no matter what. I first tried intensive listening — about three hours a day of close listening and review, for about two months. My ability did not rise. What I had not understood, I still did not understand.

At that point I decided my method must be wrong. I took many teachers' courses, studied their techniques, and read a great deal of material.

What finally broke the wall was mastering English pronunciation techniques. Only after that did my listening make a qualitative leap.

Speaking had a huge number of topics, which made preparation stressful — but with BEC Higher behind me, my state of mind was much steadier.

For Part 1 and Part 2, with a bit of time I could handle them. I did not memorize templates or sample answers. I first sorted them by scenario, and then practiced one scenario at a time.

For each Part 2 topic I thought it through, practiced, then recorded myself on my phone to listen back and correct what wasn't working.

Part 3 was different — many topics, and some of the questions were strangely framed. I first read through all of them, and began with the hardest, the ones I had no idea how to answer. The simpler or more common topics I grouped together and practiced as a single block. (*Note: this is high-band prep logic.*)

After two sittings I reached the target score.

Toastmasters International 是一个在全球 140 多个国家，都分别设有俱乐部的非营利组织。主要是培养成员的 Public speaking 和 leadership。我当时所在的这个英文俱乐部，里面的成员都非常厉害，基本上不是大学老师，就是英文机构创始人，多年英语老师等。

我刚刚进去的时候，就像是个小白。虽然我持续学习英语很长的时间，也有很坚实的基础。但在真实生活口语的运用中，经验其实是相对匮乏的。

于是我又开启了我的进一步提升之路。每次活动有备稿演讲和即兴演讲两种形式。都非常有助于提升我的口语能力。一次备稿演讲光是写稿子，我往往就需要两个星期的时间，还得加上不断的练习，一次演讲之前往往要练习 50 遍甚至上百遍。

我记得我第 1 次在不同地区的 joint meeting 上进行备稿演讲时，评委区坐的就是当时大西南区的演讲总冠军，他是一个菲律宾人。虽然准备了很久，但讲的时候依然非常紧张，表现不算特别好，但其他有多年经验的小伙伴，演讲时就很淡定，气定神闲，与我自己的紧张形成了鲜明的对比。

我当时内心是很受挫的，感觉自己学习了那么久，努力了那么久，准备了那么久，但是一上场去演讲，还不如人家随便表现一下。

当然这是受当时情绪波动的影响比较大。

后来我就专注于提升自己。参加了很多和其他国际俱乐部的 joint-meeting 去学习，既有来自于沙特经营着几家公司的企业家，又有全球的演讲冠军，还有美国的一个俱乐部分享提升幽默与互动感的等等...

跟着组织内部的 pathway，一直去做演讲，一直去练习。后来终于有一次在内部会议上的一个即兴演讲中拿了一个第一，当时都非常非常开心了。

一路往上走，半年的时候，从小白到被推荐成俱乐部主席。后来因为我需要忙公司的事，经过和俱乐部其他官员的沟通，最后把这个位置安排给了一个牛津回来自己开咨询公司的一个小伙伴～

Toastmasters International is a non-profit organization with clubs in more than 140 countries, dedicated to training members in public speaking and leadership. The English-language club I joined was full of impressive people — university professors, founders of English-education companies, long-time English teachers.

When I first joined I was a novice. I had studied English for a long time and had a solid foundation, but in real-life spoken use, my experience was thin.

So I began another phase of training. Each meeting had two formats — prepared speeches and impromptu speeches — both of which lifted my spoken English. Writing one prepared speech alone often took me two weeks, plus continuous practice; before a single speech I would rehearse fifty, sometimes a hundred times.

I remember my first prepared speech at a joint meeting with another region — the judging panel included the speech champion of the southwest at that time, a Filipino. I had prepared for a long time but on the day I was still very nervous, and the performance was not strong. The veterans, by contrast, were composed and steady on stage, in sharp relief to my own tension.

I felt very deflated. I had studied so long, worked so hard, prepared so thoroughly — and once on stage I was no match for what others did almost casually.

Of course much of that was emotion in the moment.

I refocused on improvement. I attended many joint meetings with other international clubs — entrepreneurs from Saudi Arabia running several companies, world-level speech champions, and an American club that gave a session on humor and audience interaction, and many more.

I followed the organization's pathway, kept giving speeches, kept practicing. At a club meeting, I finally took first place in an impromptu speech, and I was so happy that day.

I kept moving up. Within half a year I had gone from novice to being recommended as club president. Later, because I had to attend to my own company, I spoke with the other club officers, and we handed the position to a young man who had returned from Oxford and was running his own consultancy.

在雅思 8 以及在国际组织做到俱乐部主席之后，我慢慢开始创办自己的公司。

也许与大多数人不一样，我从小的梦想并不是寻找一份完美的工作，而是成立自己的公司，所以一路以来我都按照这个路径去培养自己。

不得不承认我是比较幸运的，因为我从小一直坚持学习英语，持续获得了不错的成绩，并且因为平时的一些分享积累了一波信任者。比如说大学，我们最后一门英语课是相对比较难的学术英语，我就会把我自己平时所有整理的课程重点内容资料分享给周围的小伙伴。（**这个课我自己是拿到了 top2 的成绩的，而且资料甚至直接押中了原题**）

因此最开始是周围有学习英语需求的小伙伴愿意付费来找我学习，慢慢的有学员介绍学员，加上我自己后来开始做自媒体，分享更多的内容，就积累了更多的信任者，几年来累计辅助了 **1000+** 的小伙伴。（我在深圳，课程一直做的都是线上，因为学员各个地方来的都有，所以暂时没有做线下）

说起来容易，但其实遇到过很多的困难，但比较幸运的是以前的种种经历磨难，成就了我坚韧的意志。

第 1 年开始做自媒体的时候是最艰难的。因为虽然有英语相关专业的经验，但自媒体却是一个我自己完全不熟悉的领域，有时候很用心的去拍内容，也不一定有流量，非常磨练人的意志。我也找了很多专业的机构付费去学习，还好我比较幸运的是在我刚开始的那个时候刚好有一个阶段的红利期，所以抓住这个红利期做了起来。

在完全没有任何经验的前提下，第 1 年成功做了起来，**净盈利有将近 20W（19.7W）**。后面每一年都持续保持增长，陆续做到了**百万**。在这里最主要需要感谢的都是大家信任，我会持续的努力，为大家提供更好的内容 ～

After scoring an IELTS 8 and becoming a club president in an international organization, I slowly began to build my own company.

Perhaps unlike most people, my childhood dream was never to find a perfect job, but to build my own company — and so I shaped myself toward that path all along.

I have to admit I was fortunate. I had stuck with English since I was small and kept doing well, and through small acts of sharing I had built a circle of people who trusted me. For example, our final university English course was relatively difficult academic English, and I would share my course notes and key material with the people around me. (*I scored in the top two for that course, and my notes even matched the original exam questions almost exactly.*)

So at first it was people around me with English-learning needs who came to study with me, on a paid basis. Slowly, students introduced more students, and once I started a self-media channel and began to share more publicly, a wider circle of trust grew. Over the years I have worked with more than **1,000** students. (I am in Shenzhen, and the courses have always been online — students come from many cities, so I haven't done offline classes yet.)

Easy to say, but there were many difficulties along the way. What helped me was that the trials of earlier years had given me a tough will.

The first year of self-media was the hardest. I had English-related expertise, but self-media was completely unfamiliar territory. Sometimes I would put real care into a piece of content and still get no views — it tested the will. I also paid to learn from a number of professional organizations. Fortunately, when I started there happened to be a window of platform tailwind, and I caught it.

With no prior experience, in the first year I made it work — **net profit close to 200,000 yuan (197,000)**. Every subsequent year has grown, and the channel later reached the **million-yuan** mark. What I want to thank most here is everyone's trust. I will keep working to bring you better content.

在带了差不多一年多学生的时候，我看很多机构比较有经验的雅思老师都会去考一个剑桥的 TKT 证书，这个证书主要是针对雅思老师这个人群，既需要考察老师的英语能力，又会涉及到一些教育相关的方法以及理论。

出于进一步提升自己以及更高效的辅导学生的目的，我就报名参加了这个考试，这个考试其实难度还是比较高的，有很多雅思拿高分的老师都会说这个会比考雅思高分还要难一些。

比较幸运的是，经过我较长时间的专心备考，顺利地通过了考试。

这个考试过程中学到的教育相关的知识，也让我能够更进一步地完善自身的教学体系，为学习课程的小伙伴提供更加扎实的课程知识。更加有耐心地使用恰当的方法给予学员反馈。

值得让人欣慰的是，挺多学员在学习过程中都很努力用心，成功拿到了自己想要的分数，比如 7.5 分的，7 分的，6.5 的，5.5 的等等各个分数段都有。

同时我也更加注意帮助学生在备考过程中遇到困难的时候学会更好的调整他们的心态。因为雅思的备考过程总的来说还是比较艰难，有不少小伙伴都会感受到比较大的压力，甚至出现一些身体上的症状，比如长溃疡或者老是感冒等。

每一次在完结了新系列的课程之后，我都会对上一次的课程进行复盘，不断优化。

希望可以一直提升下去。加油哇！

After about a year of teaching, I noticed that many experienced IELTS teachers at established institutions held the Cambridge TKT certification. TKT is aimed at English-language teachers; it tests both English ability and methodology and theory in education.

To raise myself further and teach my students more effectively, I signed up. The exam is in fact fairly difficult; many teachers who hold high IELTS scores say TKT is harder than getting a high band on IELTS.

I was fortunate — after a long stretch of focused preparation, I passed.

What I learned about education through that exam allowed me to refine my teaching system further and give students more substantial course content, and to give feedback patiently using methods more appropriate to each learner.

What is heartening is that many students worked seriously and got the scores they wanted — band 7.5, 7, 6.5, 5.5, and many in between.

I also paid closer attention to helping students adjust their state of mind when the prep grew hard. IELTS preparation is, on the whole, an arduous process; a fair number of students feel real pressure, and some develop physical symptoms — mouth ulcers, frequent colds.

After every new course series wraps, I review the previous one and keep refining.

I hope to keep getting better. Onward!

由于比较好的英语沟通能力和自己的创业经历，在经历几轮面试之后，从全球 **3000 多个**优秀的候选人中获得了美国社会创新学院 Watson 的全奖 offer（主要培养的是 Entrepreneurship），一起参加课程的小伙伴们都是世界上各个领域比较顶尖的小伙伴，比如清华，北大，哥大，剑桥等世界名校毕业的社会精英。

平时给我们上课的也基本上都是硅谷的一些大佬，在这个过程中收获很大，既收获了很多优秀的同行者，获得了很多的支持与帮助，也更进一步了解了世界前沿的商业模式等等。

其中我感触最大的就是**一定要有遵循自己内心的勇气**。一路以来，我一直都是按照自己的内心去真正的生活，包括一路上英语的学习，包括创立自己的公司，我从来没有想到有一天会因为自己的勇气获得这样好的机会。

我只是一个小地方来的人，高中之前我甚至都没看过什么外国电影，我曾经对自己最大的设想就是能够在我家乡的省会城市成都比较好的生活，但是英语把我带向了一个更大更广阔的世界。我从来没有想到因为学习英语会在现实生活中认识这么多世界级优秀的人才，也从来没有想到遵循自己的内心与勇气会获得如此多的机会。

我很感激这一切，要继续加油呀。

Because of decent English communication and an entrepreneurial track record, after several rounds of interviews I received a full-scholarship offer from the American social-innovation institute Watson — selected from more than **3,000** strong global candidates. The program focuses on entrepreneurship. My fellow participants were top people from across the world's fields — graduates of Tsinghua, Peking University, Columbia, Cambridge, and other world-class schools.

Most of our instructors were leaders from Silicon Valley. I gained a great deal — strong fellow travelers, real support and help, and a closer view of the world's frontier business models.

What struck me most was this: **you must have the courage to follow your own heart**. All along I had been living from the inside out — in learning English, in building my own company — and I had never imagined that this courage itself would, one day, open doors as good as this one.

I am only someone from a small place. Before high school I had hardly seen a foreign film. The biggest hope I once held for myself was to live a decent life in the provincial capital nearest home. But English took me into a much larger and wider world. I had never imagined that learning English would let me meet so many world-class minds in real life, nor that following my own heart with courage would open so many doors.

I am grateful for all of it. Onward.