National English First Prize: Not satisfied despite receiving invitations from 4 foreign universities

At the beginning of the new spring, a female student at Phan school also shared with Nghe An Newspaper about her experience learning English and her plans for the future.

“Don't rest on your laurels”

PV: It has been a long time since Nghe An has won first prize in the National English Competition for Excellent Students. Please share your feelings when participating in this year's competition?

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa: When I received the results, I was really happy but not too surprised because after finishing the exam, checking and testing with my friends, I was quite confident in my results. This result is also my effort and "bet" because last school year I participated in the National Excellent Student Exam, won second prize and deciding to participate again in grade 12 was a big trade-off.

In fact, at Phan school for about 10 years now, no student has chosen to retake the exam a second time. Therefore, when deciding to take the exam, the thing that I, my friends and homeroom teachers are most concerned about is how to develop and improve our English ability. The reason for saying this is because normally when learning English at a certain level of "maturity", students tend to stagnate, both in vocabulary, pronunciation and listening and speaking ability. Therefore, the team teachers are under a lot of pressure to polish each student's sentence to the best. Meanwhile, this year's team has 3 students retaking the exam a second time...

Personally, when participating in this competition, I also had to face many difficulties. Because my weakness is listening ability, so I have to practice every day so as not to be worse than my teammates.

PV: I understand that compared to last year, this year's exam has changed a lot. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage for you?

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa: When entering the contest, I felt lucky because compared to last year, this year's exam was more creative and had many exercises with many different forms. Many exercises were related to "hot" topics of society, so when doing the test, candidates were required to grasp issues in daily life in addition to basic knowledge. With this exam, I think not only Nghe An students but also many students in other teams will be quite surprised.

However, I like this type of question like in the essay question about “cultural integration but not dissolution” and asking candidates to “express their thoughts on whether to learn many different languages ​​or just learn their mother tongue to avoid losing their national identity”. This is a very impressive question because I can answer from many different aspects. I myself, in my essay, also said: “Any student, any student learning any language, needs to be encouraged and motivated to learn many different languages. Because language is a mirror of culture and if you learn another language, you will understand more about a country. However, you also have to maintain your mother tongue and the cultural identity of your people so as not to dissolve...”.

This year, the listening test also had many innovations and required students to listen to the news fluently. After this test, I also changed a lot because before that, I practiced listening to the news every day and considered it a form of entertainment and from a person with a rather poor listening skill, I was able to catch many new sounds in words, including new words that I did not know and did quite well on the test.

PV: I know that in addition to English, you also speak Russian quite well and were a Russian major student when you were in middle school. And you were not the student with the best entrance in the English major class. How did a girl majoring in Russian have such an outstanding breakthrough?

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa: Yes, from the beginning I was not a good student and only passed the second choice class of Dang Thai Mai Secondary School when taking the entrance exam for grade 6, the Russian - English specialized class. When I joined the provincial excellent student team for grade 9, I only won third prize and when taking the entrance exam for Phan Boi Chau Specialized High School, my results were quite normal.

However, even though my starting point was not good, I always have a motto of never being subjective and resting on my laurels. Therefore, every time I set a goal and conquered it, I told myself that I needed to look up and not only in Nghe An but also in many other students across the country who were better than me and I had to keep trying. In addition to studying at school, during the summer, I often attended seminars or summer camps to meet many friends from other provinces to better understand how to learn English... Just to achieve the goal of "entering" the school's National team, I had to spend a lot of effort, especially in the previous school year when the "quota" for 11th grade students was only 50%.

Usually, I will meet my teacher directly to discuss my weaknesses and find ways to overcome them. I will often go online and to English forums to search for materials and study by myself. From the summer of 10th grade to 11th grade, I also did real National exams myself to know the difficulty of the questions and practice with books with the same difficulty level. I think that the National Excellent Student Competition is not like normal English competitions, because I not only have to do the exercises correctly but also have to develop other skills. Therefore, the competition is a playground for me to know my English level compared to other students.

“Learn English in the simplest way, as a part of your daily life”

PV: Not only the National First Prize winner, Phuong Hoa is also a very “lucky” student who has won scholarships in essay writing competitions and is also the head of the school’s English Club. Can you share your thoughts when participating in these interesting “playgrounds”?

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa: In grade 10, I won first prize in an essay writing contest and in the summer of grade 11, I received a full scholarship to a summer camp organized by Harvard University students in Ho Chi Minh City. Participating in these programs is an opportunity for me to meet older brothers and sisters and friends with the same passion and interests as me, to talk with them, to help me improve my English skills and to know what my future path is.

I also found that each time I searched for scholarships for the programs, I grew up a lot, even though I was not always successful. After each failure, I often thought very seriously about the reasons and that gave me a lot of experience later on.

More importantly, after each competition, I understand more about what kind of person I want to become. Like now, when I participate in interviews with schools, I often get asked what makes me special and I can answer immediately without having to think.

PV: It is known that Phuong Hoa has equipped herself with a rather thick luggage before entering the university lecture hall such as ELTS 8.0, SAT 1450 and she has received invitation letters from 4 universities such as Jacobs University Bremen in Germany, Drexel University, Hollins University and Allegheny College in the US. Are you satisfied with this result or are you still looking for other opportunities?

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa: From now until the end of the school year is still quite a long time and I am still waiting for more invitations from other universities to find a suitable school for me and my family's economic conditions. It could be a school with a higher scholarship than the schools that have announced admission.

I personally like to study communication courses and I want to choose a suitable school after consulting online courses. What I need to do now is to continue to complete my scholarship application and I think that besides the recommendation letter and GPA, the most difficult thing is the extracurricular activity profile and personal essay. I hope that with the experience during my time as the head of the English Club, participating in extracurricular activities and a carefully prepared essay for many months, I will have more lucky opportunities.

PV: The results that Phuong Hoa has achieved are truly admirable. I also think that many parents want Hoa to share her secret to learning English?

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa:Since I was little, my parents sent me to study at English centers and besides communication, I still had to learn grammar and other vocabulary. This orientation came from my parents because they both thought that if I only learned communication, I could not fully convey my thoughts and opinions and I had to combine both elements. Later, besides studying English at school, I did not study much more. This is a bit strange, but I mainly spent time studying more by myself through online English courses, studying in groups with friends to develop speaking skills...

I also often get a lot of questions like how many books do you need to finish to be good at English and how to pass Phan school. I think this depends on each person and hope everyone learns English as a part of their daily life.

PV: Thank you Phuong Hoa and I wish you more success in the upcoming journey!