The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

My schooling was like most other students in China. There were no special things that
happened in my schooling life. Whatever: I have a happy memory of my schooling when I
was in China. Because I like sports and football is my favourite, when I was a pupil, I played
football with my friend almost every day, and the same thing happened in my junior high
school. I enjoyed these very much. How time flies, these things seem they happened just like
yesterday.
I remember I met the English language for the first time when I was a grade three pupil. I did
not think it was too difficult for me. Just one thing which I thought horrible was to remember
too many words. Because I think I am a lazy boy, I never read books and remembered these
words. But this was not the main problem for me to learn English. In the beginning of
learning English, there was not too many things to do, our teacher gave us task to do every
day and we just need to follow this step. That was all we did in the beginning of learning
English. I began to feel English is a problem for me when I entered junior high school. We
had to face grammar when we needed to express a complete sentence. Because English
grammar is totally different from Chinese, if we consider writing a sentence or an article, we
have to use different thoughts compared with Chinese. I believe this problem still is a big
problem which Chinese students have to face now.
In 2006, when I got a college diploma my parents talked with me about my future, they hoped
I could continue to study and the best was to get a master degree overseas. Actually this is my
wish all the time, I think an English environment is my first choice if I consider studying
overseas. As we know, English is a global language and it is used any time, any place. It also
is important for us who need to improve knowledge of life. Especially for me, I am interested
in business, English is more important for me if I do international business trade or work in
an international company in the future. Luckily a friend of my parents lives in Liverpool in
the UK, and then I got this chance to study in the UK. Liverpool Hope University is the first
place where I study in the UK. This university is a very nice, quiet, and comfortable place. I
have been in Liverpool for three years. I have studied foundation and level C of
undergraduate studies in the last two years, now I am studying Level I of an undergraduate
programme and it will finish in June 2010.
My subject is combined courses which are business and psychology. I mentioned above that I
am interested in business trade, so I absolutely chose business course. The reason why I
chose psychology is simple: psychology is a subject which I want to know some knowledge
about. I felt that it is a totally different campus life in UK compared with China. In the last
three years, I have learned a lot of study methods which are good for me to improve my
study. Actually I really have understood what study is, how to study, when I should change
study methods via this campus life. I will improve more in the next couple of years of study.
Particularly I feel comfortable and enriched when I finish an assignment. Because I can
learn lots of knowledge every time I complete an assignment.
During these years, I still would be confused if I have a report or project. Because this means
I have to write many words and search a huge amount of information for these tasks. I am
scared that I would make some grammar mistakes in the report and could not express my
thinking entirely. Lucky there are some support departments in our university, such as the
writing centre. This is a very good way to improve your writing skill, also it is a very
important method for us Chinese students to improve our grammar. I also like to ask our
tutor if I have some questions about the report; they also help me in a friendly way. About the
life in Liverpool, I think it is a little bit difficult to talk with local people or some English
278