Writing well is daunting even to those who are native English speakers, so it is gratifying when we see students apply the methods they’ve learned at Englist to convey their thoughts, opinions, and arguments coherently in an English essay. In doing so, they also find a sense of achievement and develop a level of confidence that will help them not only in school, but also as they confront other challenges outside the classroom.

The following essay was written by Alex Sun, a Taiwanese 5th grader who uses English as his second language. Please note, Alex works tremendously hard and is a committed student who deserves full credit for his work ethic. However, coupled with those personal attributes, below is an example of what is possible after a year of working with Englist.

*Alex’s essay has been lightly edited for clarity.

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At the beginning of summer, I went to a mysterious and unknown place called “Englist”. It is run by a pair of interesting brothers, Tr. Adam (Big brother) and Tr. Aaron (Small brother). We learned about all different types of articles and various types of writing skills. Since I started this program, my writing has changed a lot.

When I started, we began to learn a type of writing called “Persuasive Writing”, meaning an essay that persuades people. It didn’t really seem hard to me on the first essay, but when I got back my paper, it was actually all red due to the corrections. In the essay, there were tons of mistakes, including boring hooks, an abundance of grammar and spelling errors, and I didn’t even write my own opinions. In the following weeks, I practiced a lot of essays and the most difficult part to me was the commentary (opinion). Because I didn’t know a lot about my world, I always got stuck on it; once I even worked on an essay for a whole day.

After months and months of practice I did a lot of homework and tests, and that made me better. I could write a whole essay within two hours, I could think of good sentences that are connected, and sometimes I can get a good score on the tests. This is all because I practiced a lot and I didn’t give up on it. Even though it was super hard and I often think so hard that my head hurts, I still keep on going and that makes me stronger.

After all the problems and difficulties in the path of learning how to write, I also learned how to become determined. Whenever I encountered difficulties, I would remind myself to not give up. Even though I haven’t overcome all of my problems, I have still learned a lot.