Jimu News Reporter Yang Jinying
1On the morning of October 25, in Nancheng Street, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, the EF Adult English Training Center had a clean window and a clean floor. This is the result of the labor of the cleaning aunt Chen Fangying.
Cleaning aunt Chen Fangying
"Hello!" She greeted him skillfully in English, showed a bright smile, and showed her enthusiastic character generously. In front of her, she was wearing a neat work uniform, with her hair meticulously behind her head, fully revealing her face.
During the conversation, Chen Fang would pop up two English words from time to time, and her colleagues were not surprised. This is because, in addition to doing a good job in cleaning, Chen Fang, 56, also has a "hidden skill", that is, her outstanding English ability. Since 2012, she has been studying English for nearly ten years after work, and her English level has reached CET-6 or above in college.
Computer used for online learning
"How are you"
In 2012, Chen Fangying, who was 46 years old at the time, went south to Dongguan, Guangdong from his hometown of Tongcheng, Anhui to work. Zheng Liansheng's younger brother has been working hard in Dongguan for many years and introduced them to make a living here.
Before this, Chen Fangying had been working in many places, working as a factory worker, and also operating a mixer on the construction site, believing that he "has technical content." Unexpectedly, after coming to Dongguan, she found a job in the talent market for a week. She encountered obstacles everywhere, either requiring training fees or having age restrictions.
After going around in circles, the intermediary in the talent market introduced that Chen Fang should work at the EF Adult English Training Center and work as a cleaner.
Chen Fangying believes that cleaning salary is not as much as on the front-line construction site, but Zheng Liansheng advised her: "The children are out to work, why are you still so hard? Working indoors is not easier than outdoors?"
That's it. In June 2012, Chen Fangying joined the training center. After work, she quickly got started with cleaning, but was very uncomfortable with the atmosphere of speaking English at any time and anywhere. There were many foreign teachers in the center, and they would greet her when they entered the door in the morning: "How are you!" "Do you sleep well?" This enthusiasm made Chen Fangying very embarrassed at the beginning. With a junior high school education, she can't even recognize 26 letters, let alone understand the greetings of foreign teachers. She could only smile to respond, or simply avoid the foreign teacher.
But over time, the fear of English becomes interest. What do colleagues usually communicate in English? Chen Fangying also wants to understand and hopes to join the conversation. She had the idea of learning English.
At the end of 2012, Chen Fang should try to apply for a free account from the center leaders to learn English by himself on the online English learning platform. The leader agreed to her request, but asked her not to delay her work and try to use her rest time to study.
Chen Fangying is working
"squeezed" learning time
Chen Fangying's working hours are from 9 am to 9 pm, responsible for the sanitation and tidyness of the entire center. Cleaning up tables and chairs, disposing of garbage, scrubbing the floor... These tasks are not complicated, but they take time. When you encounter many students, you can keep people busy.
Therefore, Chen Fang has to "squeeze" his time to learn English by himself. At 8:30 am, Chen Fangying came to the center to learn how to use the computer keyboard; during lunch break, she seized the gap and asked her colleagues for advice with the problems she had accumulated during her self-study; at night, Chen Fangying would take the initiative to "work overtime" and stay and use the online learning platform to study, and often learn until 10:30 am before going home. Her husband Zheng Liansheng was worried about her safety and once complained: "I still struggle when I get old."
Chen Fangying felt that learning is lifelong and there is no limit on age. Although for her, who dropped out of middle school and reached middle age, it is indeed difficult to go down the road of learning.
Chen Fang should have completely zero foundation and can only start with the most basic phonetic symbols. What made her feel distressed was that her memory was different from the past. Sometimes, after asking her colleague for a phonetic pronunciation, she turned around and forgot. She could only ask questions repeatedly and remember them repeatedly.
A colleague saw her entangled appearance and taught her his "unique secret": simply memorizing phonetic symbols is very boring and easy to be confused, and you can learn phonetic symbols with words. Just like the pinyin in Chinese, by punctuating the phonetic symbols together, you can get a word, and by pronunciating the word, you can learn the phonetic symbols.
This made Chen Fangying suddenly realize, as if he had found a signpost to the exit in the messy maze. After clarifying her learning direction, she formulated a study plan for herself, and at least 80% of the plan must be completed on the same day.
Inspired by learning goals, Chen Fang should "be almost all in her mind." She carried a post-it notes with her, recorded the difficult words she encountered, and took them out from time to time to read. In the early days of her study, she saved a whole box of manuscript papers alone, and her handwritten notebooks could be filled with five or six bags. The walls of the house are also covered with words that are difficult to grasp, and you can see them as soon as you look up.
After half a year of self-study, Chen Fangying gradually got started, and the pronunciation and spelling of vocabulary can no longer stump her. She also summarized her own set of experiences in her study: "To remember a word, you must first remember the pronunciation and spelling." "You can judge the part of words by the suffix, these are regular."...
When talking about these English knowledge, Chen Fangying's eyes burst into a different kind of brilliance, which contained her love and confidence in English.
From the end of 2012 to 2022, Chen Fangying has gone through nearly ten years of self-study in English. Now, she has mastered more than 7,000 words and is able to listen, speak, read and write proficiently. Teacher Zeng from the
Training Center believes that Chen Fangying's current English strength is above the level of the CET-6 in college, and his oral communication is very smooth, and he can also watch American dramas or English news in daily life.
Unit teacher gave her a "small stomp"
Chen Fang thought that being able to learn English well is inseparable from the care and help of her colleagues. She described her English learning as "eat 100 Farmers ", and asked for some experience with this person and some skills with that person.
When Chen Fang was just starting to study, he liked to ask a Northeast girl in the center. She is a major in English and works at the center at the same time as Chen Fangying.
Northeast girl didn't work much when she first joined the job. She often took time out to "get a small job" for Chen Fang and explained her learning problems. Her oral pronunciation standard and clear learning ideas have helped Chen Fangying to get through many tricks.
As his English level improves, Chen Fangying also began to dare to communicate with foreign teachers. Not only can you accept the "How are you!" greetings from foreign teachers every morning, but you can also talk to foreign teachers in English. Chen Fang should like to listen to foreign teachers talking about the customs and customs of their country, as if he could travel abroad with their language.
Slowly, Chen Fangying became friends with the foreign teachers. Their family originally lived far away from the center, but later moved to the opposite side of the center and became neighbors with foreign teacher Steven. During the Spring Festival in 2020, Steven did not return to his hometown in Ireland, but stayed in China for the New Year and would make an appointment with Chen Fang to play table tennis together.
Chen Fang should like to make good relationships, and in the hearts of the staff of the training center, she has long been like her family. Teacher Zeng has been working in the center for more than 9 years, and Chen Fangying and Chen Fangying have witnessed each other's life trajectory over the years.
In Teacher Zeng’s impression, Chen Fangying is cheerful and enthusiastic, and can get along with her colleagues and students. Teacher Zeng once brought his youngest daughter to the center when he was too busy. Chen Fang should help take care of her, and the old and the young got along very well.
"Auntie is very talkative and dissatisfied with old age."Teacher Zeng commented, "I learned the story of my aunt learning English shortly after joining the company. Over the years, she has been studying continuously, and has hardly stopped, and it has not affected her work. She is very self-disciplined, and we all admire her. "
Encourage students to fear difficulties with personal experience
Training Center also likes Chen Fangying very much. They all know that this seemingly ordinary cleaning aunt is actually a "sweeping monk" with good English skills.
As an adult English training center, the students here come from all walks of life, including housewives, white-collar workers in the workplace; college students, and corporate executives. But as soon as they enter the center , their identities became "English learners".
Chen Fang should not be afraid to communicate with the students, because in addition to the identity of the cleaning aunt, she is also a "English learner" like them. Sometimes when she sees students encounter difficulties in learning, she will take the initiative to help.
Some students once asked Chen Fang Ying for help, thinking that English is so difficult, what should I do if I can't continue to learn? Chen Fang used her own learning experience to encourage the other party, "It's very difficult. Is it difficult for me to go along the way, but it doesn't matter. Isn't English just a 26-letter game? You can always learn and summarize your experience. "
After hearing this, some students gave Chen Fangying a thumbs up and exclaimed, "Auntie, you have your own set." This is a moment when Chen Fangying felt quite accomplished. The communication between
and the students also broadened Chen Fangying's horizons. Some students shared their study abroad experience with her, and some students talked about stories about traveling to Japan with her. Chen Fangying likes to listen to these stories. From their tellings, she was able to explore a colorful life.
What makes Chen Fangying happiest was a communication with the post-00s. At the end of the chat, she asked, "Is there a generation gap when you chat with people of my age? "What she didn't expect was that the teenagers waved their hands and said, "Hey, auntie, you are our post-00s! "
This made her realize that age cannot shackle the communication between the soul. When they have a common hobby like English, they have a common language, and age is no longer a natural barrier for communication.
This is also the reason why Chen Fangying insisted on not changing jobs and learning English for ten years. During this period, it was not that no one hired her with a high salary, but she was always reluctant to leave her. Such a good learning environment is something that money is difficult to quantify.
led his son to successfully "counterattack"
Nowadays, Chen Fangying is still learning every day, with the direction of advanced business English and cultural traditions of various countries. She believes, "No one can say in any field that I have learned well, but should regard learning as a lifelong goal. "
Chen Fangying's vision is to go abroad with his family to experience exotic customs in the future, and hope to use what he has learned to truly communicate abroad.
" Learning English changed my life. I felt that the first 40 years seemed to be in vain, and I didn’t feel sensible again until I started studying again. "Chen Fangying described the changes that have brought to her over the past ten years of self-study English.
Changes not only happen to Chen Fangying, but also to her family. Zheng Liansheng said that when Chen Fangying returns home, he will "show off" her English from time to time. Sometimes she will suddenly say "You are handsome (You are very handsome)”, seeing that Zheng Liansheng had enough confusing expression, he explained slowly, and then appreciated her husband's speechless expression.
Chen Fangying also motivated his son Zheng Yu (pseudonym) to learn English together.
When the family first came to Dongguan, Zheng Yu found a job as a waiter in a hotel, and received a salary of 2,000 yuan a month.
In 2013, Chen Fangying encouraged his son to come to the center to learn English. "My son didn't continue to study after finishing high school and went out to work.I thought at that time that if he could learn to the intermediate level, he would have the opportunity to join a foreign trade company in the future. He was still young and had many possibilities. ” She said. After studying for a year, Zheng Yu reached the level of intermediate English and then entered a machinery and equipment factory. After going to work, he did not stop studying, obtained a college diploma, and also obtained an intermediate electrician certificate.
From 2016, Zheng Yu decided to improve himself again, learned programming technology, and his salary was also improved. He was not satisfied with this, and he also passed the examination for management. Certificate in science.
Through continuous efforts, Zheng Yu has gradually become the technical director from the grassroots level, and his monthly salary is over 10,000 yuan. When talking about his son's achievements, Chen Fang couldn't help but show joy.
Zheng Liansheng was also happy for his son's progress, but his character was a little restrained, and he just said lightly: "He was also good at physics in high school, and maybe he had used his talent. He can't rely on us, he can only rely on himself, and he works hard on his own. ”
