This humble Taoist priest wants to take the college entrance exam.

Chapter 30 Where You Don't Understand, Point It Out

After a math teacher scouted ahead, now all the teachers in the office know that Chen Shi'an is terrible at everything except Chinese.

"Teacher Zhang, you don't need to be too discouraged. Principal Lin has praised Shi'an's intelligence and quick wit many times. Although he is young, his speech, actions, character, and manners far surpass those of his peers. Although he has never been to school, he is not unteachable. It's all up to people. He might still get good results in the college entrance examination in two years..." Teacher Liang repeated what Principal Lin had told him yesterday.

"Old Liang, you're really talking without any sense of the situation!" the teachers exclaimed indignantly.

"Cough cough..."

Lin, who had appeared in the office at some point, coughed twice and said with an embarrassed look, "I think Teacher Liang is right."

All the teachers: "..."

……

Two consecutive math classes were followed by two consecutive English classes.

Our English teacher is named Ye Mingmei. She is thirty-five years old this year, but looks like she is in her early twenties. She loves to wear a pair of white, bare-shouldered leather shoes, and she wears them all year round. She speaks sweetly and loves to laugh, with a small dimple when she smiles. Although she is already a mother of two, all the students in the class like her very much. After all, Teacher Ye is gentle and kind to everyone. She is more like the mother of the whole class than just a mother of two.

Unfortunately, Ms. Ye couldn't laugh during this class. She had also seen the English test paper that Chen Shi'an had done during the assessment—it was even worse than Ms. Zhang's math test paper; there weren't even any circles, it was completely blank.

"Why didn't Shi'an do the multiple-choice questions?"

"Teacher Ye, I don't understand."

"Just guess any answer."

"I'm afraid that if I guess correctly by accident, it will cause a misjudgment for myself and the teacher."

"..."

Over the years, including his student days and his teaching career, this is the most outrageous answer Teacher Ye has ever heard.

It's because they're afraid of accidentally guessing correctly?!

Well... although judging by grades is too far-fetched, at least the boy's honesty and his sincerity impressed her.

It was class time, and Teacher Ye wanted to have a good talk with Chen Shi'an. Since it wasn't convenient to do so in the classroom, she called him out to the corridor.

"Shi'an, come out with me for a moment."

"it is good."

Chen Shi'an got up and followed Teacher Ye out in front of the whole class.

The class immediately began to whisper among themselves.

"Oh no, An-ge never went to school. He's definitely going to get scolded by Teacher Ye because he did so badly on the test!"

"Damn it, you gave me a good time!"

"...You're hopeless!"

Many students in the class have been scolded by Teacher Ye, but being scolded is not painful at all, because Teacher Ye speaks softly when she scolds people. Although it is called scolding, it is basically within the scope of gentle teaching. What is revealed is not blame, but deep concern. Every time Teacher Ye finishes scolding people, there is always a feeling of being moved to tears and wanting to rush into her arms with deep regret.

At this moment, Chen Shi'an had already followed Teacher Ye to the outside of the corridor.

It was during class time, and the area outside the teaching building was quiet, with only the voices of teachers lecturing in the classrooms echoing through the empty corridors.

As noon approached, sunlight streamed in from the balcony and fell on the feet of the teacher and student standing face to face.

Teacher Ye held one arm with the other, leaning slightly against the balcony, and spoke in a soft, gentle voice, just as rumored.

It's not about scolding Chen Shi'an. No matter what, he's a student in her class now, and Teacher Ye has to find out the situation from him.

"I heard from your teacher Liang that Shi'an is a proper Taoist priest who has been practicing asceticism on the mountain?"

“Yes, I have been practicing Taoism with my master since I can remember…” Teacher Ye asked in great detail, including his family, his current studies, what kind of goals he wanted to achieve, etc. Chen Shi’an answered all the questions and had a very good impression of Teacher Ye.

Unfortunately, Ms. Ye taught English, and he had almost no concept of English, so he couldn't gain much understanding of her through the subject she taught.

If Chen Shi'an's math skills were only at the level of an elementary school graduate, then his English skills were roughly equivalent to only knowing Arabic numerals—he could recognize and recite the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

When Teacher Ye heard Chen Shi'an say that he had no parents and was taken in by his master and raised on the mountain, her expression naturally revealed concern. As a mother of two herself, she put herself in his shoes—it wasn't that he didn't want to go to school; he was clearly a poor kid! He didn't have the blessing of compulsory education that everyone else had; he was so unfortunate!

Chen Shi'an dared not speak.

"Um……"

Regardless of the past, the current priority is to help him improve his grades. Teacher Ye pondered this question.

Unlike Teacher Zhang and the others, she was not desperate. As an English teacher, she knew English all too well. In the end, it was just a foreign language. There was no essential difference between learning English from scratch and learning French, Russian, Japanese, or other languages ​​from scratch. Unlike math, physics, and chemistry, it did not require a series of interconnected foundations. Even people who had never been exposed to English before could greatly improve their level in less than a year by reading, listening, memorizing, speaking, and practicing more.

"Shi'an, wait for me a moment."

"it is good."

Chen Shi'an didn't know what Teacher Ye was going to do, but he saw her walk quickly back to her office.

Before long, she returned with a 'pen'.

"Shi'an, take this."

"Teacher Ye, what is this?"

Chen Shi'an took the 'pen' from her hand and examined it carefully. Calling it a pen is not accurate; it's actually an electronic product. It has a pen-like shape, but it's much wider and thicker. The top is U-shaped with a sensor, the body is an LCD screen, and there are buttons and switches on both sides.

The young Taoist priest from the mountains didn't know what this thing was, but the students from the city could recognize it at a glance—it's exactly what you need to know!

"This is a reading pen. If you encounter a word or sentence you don't know, just scan it like this, and it will quickly help you look up the word, translate it, and teach you how to read it..."

Teacher Ye brought over a test paper and demonstrated it to Chen Shi'an. The foreign words that he couldn't understand at all were translated and displayed on the screen after being scanned by the reading pen. There was also a clear and standard pronunciation to demonstrate how to read the foreign words.

Chen Shi'an was quite surprised. Although he also went online and knew that technology was developing rapidly, he was indeed less knowledgeable about many things on the application than modern young people.

He used to think that the hardest part of learning English wasn't memorizing, but that he didn't know the meaning or how to pronounce the words and sentences. It was troublesome to look them up or ask others. Now, if he had this tool, learning English would be a piece of cake for him.

"So, you should be able to use it now, right?"

"I can use it. This reading pen is really great and I feel it helps a lot."

"Okay, then Shi'an, you can take it for now. I know your foundation is weak, but I also have teaching duties and need to take care of my child at home in the evenings, so I may not be able to spare much time to teach you. So you'll have to rely on your own efforts to study on your own. If you have any questions, such as about grammar or pronunciation, you can come to my office anytime."

She paused for a moment, then continued, “Learning English isn’t actually that hard, it just takes a lot of hard work. Hmm… if you find it difficult at first, we can start by memorizing ten words a day, and then gradually increase the amount. The vocabulary required for high school English is only about three thousand words. There are still about two years until the college entrance exam. If you memorize ten words a day, you’ll have mastered them by next year. Vocabulary is the foundation of everything. With a good vocabulary, you won’t be too bad at all.”

“Oh, I see… Don’t worry, Teacher Ye, I know. But Teacher Ye, this reading pen must be expensive, right? You should take it back and buy one yourself later.” Chen Shi’an said, handing the reading pen back to Teacher Ye.

Teacher Ye smiled and pushed the pen back.

"It's alright, it's not expensive. I already feel ashamed that I don't have time to teach you personally. Just consider it a small help from me."

"Thank you, Teacher Ye."

"Keep it up! Your teacher has faith in you, and you should have faith in yourself too!"

"it is good."

Chen Shi'an was very confident. With such a magical device as the reading pen, he estimated that he would be able to sweep through all the words in just a few days...

(End of this chapter)