When I entered the junior high school, my dad bought me a Little King cassette player. I was disappointed, as I'd hoped for a Little King game player. My dad asked me to speak English aloud every morning for at least half an hour, following the cassette player. With the pure English recorded in the cassette, I kept practicing my spoken English for three years every morning! My dad once said “Every morning, I can’t wake up until I hear you speak English.” I wasstimualted and scared, because I thought my dad could actually hear everything when he was asleep. From then on, I stopped sneaking into his room and stealing money. But, anyway, I laid a good foundation for my English. I am grateful to my Dad.

When I entered the senior high school, it took me half an hour’s bicycle ride to get to school from my home。 Coupled with the earlier class start time, I had to move my morning English speaking practice at home to the morning speaking class at school. But there was no Little King cassette player, only a guy sitting by me whose spoken English was just not that satisfactory. Predictably, my spoken English was going downhill so far that even the guy sitting by me started to be contemptuous of me. However, he was the representative of English course in our class, which means he almost always got the highest score, and he loved doing all sorts of English questions. I was stimulated and provoked. So, I also started to do all kinds of English questions and finally got 130 in the college entrance examination(the full mark was 150), though it was just the average score of my class.

When I entered the college, most of my classmates coming from coastal cities thought the English of students from inland provinces was as lame as lamb. And there was one of them who always belittled my English. He once said：”You, local turtle!!!” (This is more insulting to me than any ethnic slur could be) I was stimulatedand goaded. So I started to get up early in the morning to practice English and listen to pure English records whenever I was free. Only when I got the highest score in IELTS did he start to look at me from a different angle. But I have to thank him for the competitive urgency he gave my learning and subsequently he became one of my best friends.

Now, I have graduated from the college and I want to be an English teacher. But without the Teaching Certificate, no public school in China dares to hire me. I was stimulated and motivated. That’s why I am here.

小学三年级，我第一次接触英语。一位漂亮的女老师在讲台上教大家如何自我介绍。说实在的，她远比英语更吸引我，她那时是我所见过最漂亮的老师。我很受刺激。下课后，我只记得自我介绍的第一句话应该是“Hello, I am is Deng Hanjie.”现在才意识到自己当年是把“My name is Deng Hanjie.”和“I am Deng Hanjie.”弄混了。

小学升初中时，爸爸给我买一个小霸王复读机。这令我很失望，因为我心里期盼的是小霸王“学习机”。爸爸规定我每天早上要读半小时英文，伴随着教材的磁带一起读。跟着纯正英语一直读了三年，几乎没有间断。那时爸爸说，他每天早上要是不听到我英语就起不来。听到那句话时。我很害怕。因为爸爸原来在睡觉的时候也能听到东西。从那以后，我再也不敢偷偷溜进他房间偷钱了。不管怎样，我获得了一个良好的发音基础。我要感谢我的爸爸。

到了高中，因为家离学校有段距离，需要骑半小时自行车，再加上上课时间很早，我只能把在家早读英语与在校的早读课结合起来。因为没有磁带中的标准录音，我只能听到同桌同学的蹩脚发音，毋庸置疑我的英语水平下降了，下降到连那位同桌都深深地鄙视我。其实同桌很厉害，他是英语课代表，非常喜爱做英文题。我很受刺激，于是整个高中都非常认真做题，最后高考英语得了130分，我很感谢他。不过可惜的是，130分只不过是班级平均分。

到了大学，沿海省份来的同学认为内地同学的英语肯定很差(我来自江西)，所以他们向来不认可我。其中一位经常用瞧不起我的语气鄙视我的英文。他说：你个土鳖。我很受刺激，于是我非常努力的学英文，早上很早起读英文，每天没事就听英文。直到雅思考的比所有沿海来的同学都要高时，他才对我刮目相看。他现在还是我很要好的朋友。

现在，我大学毕业了，想当英语老师，但没有教师资格证，且不是师范生。所有的公立学校都不要我，我很受刺激，于是来到了这里。