Love at first sight

When I first moved to Hanoi to study, I followed a cousin of mine to an English center to take a class with a foreign teacher. She went to take the placement test and I just tagged along for fun.

In the classroom, there was a group of about 10 people. I remember the teacher was European, tall, handsome, blond hair. He went around asking everyone simple questions, and then it was my turn.

I was so nervous at that point, I just stood there smiling because I couldn't understand what he was saying. It wasn't until we got home that my cousin told me the question was: Why do you like English? ^^

Back home, my cousin showed me a lot of ways to learn English. I also went online to search and found the dictation method. I started with the Spotlight English and VOA Special English websites. One had British-American English, the other American English. I bought a notebook and started listening and writing dictation. At first I was really enthusiastic — one Spotlight listening piece was 15 minutes long, and I'd fill several sides of A4 paper writing it out. I kept it up continuously for about 3 weeks, then my hand got tired and I got discouraged, so I quit.

But I also discovered that I suddenly could understand Spotlight episodes better, and words I used to get wrong I was getting wrong less often. In particular, I made fewer mistakes with the /s/ sound at the end of nouns or verbs. (Because my notebook was covered in red pen corrections of the /s/ sound.)

Back then I thought, I just needed to pass my English course to graduate, that was enough. Then after graduating I'd go back to my hometown to work, so what would I need English for — so I didn't try hard to study.

Now, in the age of AI, AI tools help remove every language barrier. At first I was thrilled, because it meant I could avoid learning any language at all and still watch every video, read every article in every major language in the world. Just use ChatGPT and a few extensions and you're done ^^

Until I started messing around with Midjourney. This is image-generating software that turns whatever you imagine into a picture. The command (prompt) used to generate the image has to be in English. And that's where I found it difficult.

To describe an image, you need to know how to use adjectives, a lot of adjectives. And I just didn't have enough vocabulary to describe the things floating around in my head.

That's when I realized: in the age of AI, you have to study English even more, so you can skillfully control AI tools through prompts. Prompt engineering is the skill of this new era.

I came to know WELE through Ms. Thuy Hoang. I happened to be scrolling through her Facebook and saw a WELE workshop in collaboration with Cấy Nền Ngoại Ngữ, which Ms. Thuy was hosting. I joined just for fun (because I like listening to her talk, I didn't really care much about what WELE was).

I didn't attend the workshop from start to finish either. I joined right at the part where Mr. Hieu was talking about WELE's dream. He hoped that, in the future, WELE could help local tourism workers confidently tell their emotional stories about the land they've lived on for generations, so that every story TOUCHES the heart of every international visitor.

I found his dream so beautiful, and I started getting curious about WELE.

That night, I went to the WELE site to try it out. I had to say WOW because of all the interesting things I found in WELE right from the very first use. I love WELE at first sight.

The way WELE designs its courses is exactly like the way I taught myself over 10 years ago: Listen - Dictation. But WELE takes it to another level with software, and automatic grading, which makes it incredibly easy for me. Once you finish and submit, you know the result immediately. All I have to do is write down in a notebook the words I got wrong, or phrases I like.

I got really excited, and decided to try out the series of exercises in the most basic roadmap that Mr. Hieu shared in the workshop group.

I decided to spend the next 365 days practicing the old method again. I set up a Facebook page, and every day I'll post the results of that day's practice.

This time, with WELE, I won't give up again.

Thank you Ms. Thuy, thank you Mr. Hieu, for the beautiful and genuine things you've given to this life ⚘️⚘️

Link post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/welelearn/posts/3435402319927141