English

‘Whew’. That was a sigh of relief. Just like I said in the previous post, for some reasons, English language has always been a problem (no, a challenge) for me. I guess what has been helping me scale through is the fact that I have always known it has my weak point. Come on! I did GCE, I think that means General Certification Examination, in Senior Secondary School 2 (SS2) and guess what, I passed all the subjects except for English Language and I was absent for Further maths. All through my secondary days, the best grade I had was a C5 which was in my WAEC and that was after lot of prayers and fasting. That was after taking special extracurricular classes (also called - lesson) with the HoD of the English language department, Mr. Oke (that man made sure I passed). I even fell ill on the exam day and he personally took me to the sickbay and brought me back to the exam hall and told me “Toyosi, you must pass this exam, you don’t have a choice”.

All my life I have been trying as much as possible to avoid writing a professional English Language examination and that is one of the reasons I chose to study in Canada. In Canada, you can prove your English Language proficiency by getting a letter stating that you studied your first degree in English Language from your University. So, I thought that was an easy way out for me. Little did I know I still needed to take IELTS (International English Language Testing System) if I wanted to continue to stay in Ontario. Taking the exam wasn't even the scary part because I have gotten to a point in my life where I see exams as just a norm, it was the cut-off mark that scared me. I needed to get at least a 7.0 out of 9.0, “How am I supposed to do that?” Anyways, I wish to remain here for a while and so it was time to face one of my greatest fears.

The application for the exam costs about $300, I can’t even afford to fail it. I scheduled the exam to be written one month from the date I applied, so that I could at least have some weeks to prepare for the exam. I ‘hired’ one ‘Fake’ English teacher that never even taught me for 5 minutes, I think the best she did was ask me how I was preparing for the exam. Got a couple of books from the library to help practice for the exam but I didn't really use them. To cut the long story short, four weeks breezed by and a few days before the exam I couldn't even read anything. The exam was scheduled for 8:30am and I couldn't afford to get lost in Toronto again. So, I downloaded and printed a Google map directions of the exam venue from the Union train station as I could not use the GPS on my phone (It consumes a lot of internet data and battery life). I took a silly risk that morning, and that was choosing to go to Toronto that morning and not a night before, even though I was pressured by my Ghanaian brother to go a Night before.

During and after the exam, there was no form of anxiety, so on the average, the exam went pretty well except for the speaking section of the test where I was given a topic I wasn't too comfortable with. I was told to talk about exploration of the world. I did the rest of the sections i.e. Reading, Writing and Listening to the best of my ability and I was able to at least attempt all the questions.  The result was to be released two weeks after taking the exam and I didn't even anticipate the result, not even for once. Two weeks also flew by and it finally dawned on me when someone called to ask me if I had checked my result. At this point, my heart started racing and for some unknown reasons, I was really ‘really’ scared. I entered my details and hit the ‘Get Result’ swiftly while closing my eyes. I thought for a minute, “if I fail, it will be bad ooo”. Lo and behold, it was a 7.5 average. “Thank you Jesus”. I passed my first and last (hopefully) professional English Language exam (Hmmmm….come to think of it, I didn't even celebrate. I think I should). For the Reading section, which was my lowest, I had 6.0, for the writing and speaking 7.5 and for the listening section I had 8.5 (I dunno how it happened). I guess the listening section just proves why I have a lot of ‘girl friends’ :D , my listening skill is just superb. I am going to have to answer to a query if I don’t clarify that last statement. Just for clarifications, there is a difference between ‘girlfriend’ and ‘girl friend’ (notice the space between the ‘girl’ and the ‘friend’ of the second). Yea, that’s the friend zone. So, I still have just one 'girlfriend' and others are ‘girl friends’. Anyways, I know i’ll still have a query to answer to despite this clarification. I guess Mr. Oke can really be proud of me now.

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Enjoy!!