You may find these suggestions helpful:

· Try not to worry about making mistakes - they are a natural part of learning. In fact, the mistakes we make are a valuable indicator of the progress we are making in learning a language. Remember, too, that grammar, although important, is only a means of organizing our thoughts into either speech or writing.

· Try not to think in Chinese at times when you are operating in English. Doing so will actually encourage you to make errors because there are few similarities (or only misleading similarities) between English and Chinese. Mental translations also slow you down and this may well frustrate or irritate your listener(s) and reader(s).

· Don’t constantly stop to correct yourself. If you do, your listener(s) and reader(s) may get more frustrated than if you make a number of uncorrected errors. Listeners focus mostly on what you are saying, not on how you say it! Communicate your message first, but if you know you have made errors, make a mental note to do something about them later. Do this either by consulting an expert English speaker or by referring to reliable and up-to-date dictionaries and grammar reference books.

· Remember that the various parts of grammar are not necessarily of equal importance. Good grammar is not simply a question of learning all the rules by heart and then applying them. If it was, far fewer mistakes would be made by learners! It is quite common to know a rule but fail to apply it in practice or fail to observe the restrictions which apply to that rule. In other words, you may know a lot of terminology but not know how to actually use the grammar to help you express your ideas.

· It will be important for you to concentrate on the grammatical features of English which are known to cause problems for a learner from your particular language background.

These problem areas are by no means limited, for example, to forming correct verb tenses or choosing the right ending for a word. In fact these are the less important items of English grammar. Of course, you should pay attention to these features, but not at the expense of other and more important issues such as word order, relative clauses and logical connectors.

· Try to identify comments which describe your attitude and behaviour most closely. This should help you to think about what areas of grammar learning you need to improve.

· If you are not particularly worried about making grammatical errors, you are probably quite fluent (fast and confident) in the English you produce. However, you must remember that some of your listeners or readers may form a poor judgement of your abilities generally if you make a lot of errors in English, or if you speak a form of English which is obviously heavily influenced by Chinese. You need to be able to speak a type of English that is internationally accepted and understood. It could also be true that you need to take more responsibility for your own learning. This can be very difficult to do when you have been trained to rely on your teacher. However, for most of your life, you will not have a teacher to rely on and consult so it is very important to become a self-directed and independent learner.

· You will probably to able to find some advice relevant to you by reading the commentaries for the Overcautious Learner and the Relaxed Learner. As you carry out the exercises in this material, you should become more aware of the ways in which you learn. This will enable you to become a more focused and effective learner.