My language adventure, part 3, University

University Studying at university was quite difficult. All of a sudden, I lived alone, in a different city, without my parents,and I had to look after myself. It was an interesting experience. There were some problems because of my attitude towards to my studies. But in two years, I realised what I wanted. I really wanted to get a master‘s degree, so I overcame my distaste for studying and focused on it properly. So I started studying as much as I used to at primary school and high school. I did not care about how difficult the exams were, or what everyone said about each exam. I started studying hard, and even though I did not enjoy it at all, I saw my future, and I saw myself with a good job because of having earned a good degree. I hate failure, and when I did not pass an exam, I always became depressed. Getting my master's degree was very stressful for me. In the university, I had to have one language, so I picked German, because It was most familiar to me—more so than English, of which I had really only a basic knowledge. I studied German for 1 year at the university, I passed my exam with the best result I could have gotten and that was the last time I was took any interest in it, because although I did well I still was not able really understand anything or to express myself properly. My good results were meaningless. I was more and more interested in English. I mean, when I wanted to find something…anything about mechanical engineering, I had to find an English article. Everything was in English. Next thing was that I always watched American television series and I really wanted to watch them in English and to understand them. Some of my friends were able to speak either German or English (or at least to understand) and I was always amazed that somebody could have been fluent in a different language. In my third year at university, I started thinking about my future. I knew that I would have to know a foreign language in order to get a good job, but I did not speak any other languages at that time. I was not interested in German-- I was into English, so I found native-speaking private English tutors. It was really difficult to understand them and after spending many hours with the tutors, I improved only a little bit . I did not know what I had been doing incorrectly,or how I should have learnt a language. Nobody had taught me that before. I was always used to memorising grammar rules and vocabulary, which has not helped me at all. But I did not give up and went on paying teachers, because I still had a hope. I must say that I am very very strong-minded person and for me it was a personal failure that I did not know any other language by the age of 26, and it was then that I decided to go to do a Ph. D. I knew that if you do a Ph. D you can go abroad and study there. It was a really great opportunity for me. I thought that it was my last chance to become fluent in English, and I really did not know what else to do. I could have gone abroad in my second year in my Ph. D ., so during the first year I chose an English program at my university in order to prepare myself for my second year in England. In the courses there were professors, docents and Ph. D. students from my faculty. The courses were divided according to levels and I was placed in the pre-intermediate level. I did not really enjoy the classes. I was stressed because I did not want to appear stupid in front of all clever people there. The methods were based on working with textbooks—the same principle as always before. At the end of the year, I did not pass the final test. If you pass the test, your English level is considered pre-intermediate and you can go on to the next level – the intermediate level. Since I did not pass the test, I was still considered an elementary student. Since most of the other people in the course passed the test, needless to say it was not good for my selfconfidence. Thinking about it, the language courses were not so good for me, because at primary school and high school, I only wanted to pass tests in order to continue advancing to the next level, but because of my test results (and the added stress of wanting to get into a good university) and my mediocre grades, I was now really stressed and did not enjoy it at all.