For this month’s English Monthly, I prepared two pieces of work written by my students as examples to discuss some of the frequently made mistakes by the students.
The topic I asked them to write is “My College Life,” which I believed is easier for them to think of something to write about. However, it looked like it’s still hard for students to come up with some ideas to write about. To run the class more smoothly, I decided to brief a short and simple writing sample in Chinese so that students could either practice translation or solicit something interesting. The Chinese content is as follows. Those in red are the words most students do not know or make mistakes.

我的名字.現在我是大三學生.今年我修20個學分.噢，我忘了提我是機械系的
所以我修了很多工程相關課程.這些課程都很難.我知道我這學期將會很忙碌.
但是老實說我ㄧ直都不是個用功的學生.所以我有點擔心我的成績.
因為除了工程之外我還要考英文的SCEPT..這也是個挑戰.
天呀…….

Now, please take a look at the following two pieces of writing by my students. I had pointed out or edited some of their mistakes in red. Actually, both students李 and 湯 were doing quite well.

四機三甲 95141011 李冠毅
My College Life

(Original Version: 部份錯誤以紅色表示)
My name is BUBLE.
Now I am a junior.
I major twenty credit point in this semester.
Oh, I forgot to say I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering.
Therefore I am taking many engineering program.
This program are difficult.
I know I will be busy this semester.
But actuality, I haven’t study hard all the time.
So I am a little worry my performance.
Because except mechanical program, I have CSEPT test in English.
This is a challenge too.
Oh my god, this is a nightmare.

(Edited version)
My name is BUBLE. Now I am a junior. I take twenty credit hours this semester.
Oh, I forgot to say I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Therefore I am taking many engineering program. Those programs are very difficult. I know I will be very busy this semester. But frankly speaking, I haven’t studied hard all the time.
As a result I am a little bit worrying about my performance. Because in addition to the mechanical program, I have the CSEPT in English the program course. This is a challenge too. Oh my god, this is a nightmare.

四機三甲 95141011 湯尚穎
My College Life

(Edited:紅色部份為修改過的)
My name is湯尚穎. Now I am a Junior. I take twenty credit hours this semester.
Oh, I forgot to say I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering.Therefore I am taking many engineering programs. Those programs are very difficult. I know I will be very busy this semester. But frankly speaking (actually), I haven’t studied hard all the time. I haven’t been a hard-working student. So (As a result,) I am a little bit worrying about my performance. Because in addition to (except) the mechanical programs, I have the SCEPT (test) in the English course. This is a challenge too.
Oh my god, my teacher is too bad!

From the mistakes made by these two students, we can conclude that they have troubles not only in grammar but also with vocabulary. Of course, the usage of preposition has always been a headache to students. Frankly speaking, I do believe that students need to spend more time reading as many articles as possible. This is one of the effective ways to increase their vocabulary and to familiarize themselves with English sentence construction in correct grammar.