A Tale of Two Cities Supporting Xinjiang

But this novelty didn't even last three days before troubles started popping up one after another.

First, the difficulty of the vocabulary suddenly jumped significantly.

The day before, he was still memorizing short words, but the next day, when Chang Peng opened the textbook and pointed to the long and complicated word "agriculture" and said that they would learn this today, Abudu's eyes widened.

He stared at the seven letters together for five minutes, but still couldn't tell which was "g" and which was "r".

Chang Peng taught him to break it down to memorize, "ag-ri-cul-ture". He could pronounce it smoothly when he followed along, but when he went home at night and tried to write it down from memory, he either missed a "t" in "agriculure" or added an "i" to "agriulture".

What bothered him even more was the morning reading session.

Every time he stood up to read words, Ali and Batu in the back row would cover their mouths and chuckle.

Once, he mispronounced "harvest" as "哈维斯特" (Hāwéisītè), and Ali immediately chimed in, "Abudu, are you giving the word a nickname? I think 'Hawass' would be better, like the name of a soft drink!"

The surrounding classmates joined in the laughter, and Abudu's face instantly burned like a branding iron, making it impossible for him to continue reading the following words.

After class, Ali deliberately came over and said, "Abudu, can you pronounce the word for agriculture again? Is it 'Agelikou'? I think your pronunciation is more authentic than the English teacher's!"

Abudu wanted to argue, but the words stuck in his throat. He hadn't even fully mastered the correct pronunciation of "agriculture," so how could he have the confidence to argue with someone?

I could only grab my textbook and hide outside the classroom, still able to hear Aili and the others laughing behind me.

After spending half a month finally getting through these long words, grammar became the next obstacle.

Chang Peng took the blackboard eraser and wrote "simple present tense" on the blackboard, and even marked the key points: "When the subject is third person singular, the verb must add 's', for example, 'He works', not 'He work'."

Abudu sat below nodding, thinking to himself that it wasn't difficult.

But he showed his weakness when he did the test - in the fill-in-the-blank question, "His father ______ (grow) cotton", he filled in "grow" without thinking, and as a result, Chang Peng circled it and marked it with a red cross.

Chang Peng called him into his office, held up the test paper, and patiently explained, "Look, the subject is 'His father,' which is third-person singular, so 'grow' needs an 's' added, becoming 'grows.' Got it?"

Abudu nodded and said, "I remember," but when he did the question a second time and came across "Her mother______(harvest)wheat," he still forgot to add the 's'.

Chang Peng wasn't angry and explained it again; the third time he did a similar question, he finally added the 's', but he wrote "watch" as "watches" and forgot to change "ch" to "ch" and add "es".

That afternoon, Chang Peng handed him the corrected exercise book, which was covered with a string of red crosses, all of which were mistakes in verb conjugation.

Abudu stared at the red crosses, tears welling up in his eyes. "Teacher, why am I so stupid... You've explained it three times and I still can't remember it. Am I really just not cut out for learning English?"

Chang Peng looked at his red eyes, reached out and patted his back. He didn't say anything to scold him, but simply turned to the first page of his workbook: "Look, at first you had to say 'apple' several times, but now you can remember 'agriculture', right? That's progress!"

Grammar is difficult, but we'll work on it slowly. We'll learn one rule a day, and we'll eventually master it.

But Abu didn't listen to any of it; his mind was filled with those red crosses and the teasing remarks from Ali and the others.

When he got home that evening, he threw his English textbook on the table. Looking at the words and grammar, he felt dizzy and his eyes were blurry. He even began to doubt whether Chang Peng's efforts in teaching him were in vain.

In the first quiz, Abudu's score improved from 30 to 45, and he was secretly pleased for a while. But in the next two quizzes, his score remained stuck at 45, without any improvement even on a single question.

The day the papers were handed out, laughter came from the back row again: "Hey, Abudu, you did well again! Nobody's going to take your 45-point crown!"

The surrounding classmates joined in the laughter. Abudu, clutching his test paper, couldn't take it anymore. During break, he went straight to Chang Peng and said, "Teacher, I'm not going to study anymore. I'm just not cut out for English. There's no point in taking extra classes; people will just laugh at me..."

"Abudu, people laugh at you because they don't see you memorizing vocabulary until 10 PM every night; you find it difficult because you're climbing uphill, and climbing a hill is never easy. Just hang in there a little longer, and we'll try a different way to learn, okay?"

"Useless teacher, I've tried, I just can't learn it..."

"Let's start with the simplest thing, no tests, no grammar memorization, just games." Chang Peng took out a piece of candy and stuffed it into his hand. "Today we'll play English riddles. You get a piece of candy for every one you guess correctly. If you win three in a row, I'll tell you a little English story about cotton fields in Xinjiang, how about that?"

Abudu held the milk candy, hesitated for a long time, and finally nodded.

"Listen carefully to the first riddle: It grows in the ground, blooms with yellow flowers, bears cotton bolls, and can be used to make light gauze. Guess the English word!" Chang Peng deliberately slowed down his speech.

Abudu was stunned for a moment, "It's cotton!"

Congratulations, you won!

Chang Peng handed him another piece of candy. "Here's one more: Sow in spring, harvest in autumn, feed millions of people, it's wheat's brother, what is it?"

This time, Abudu thought for even longer, chewing on a milk candy and whispering, "Is it rice?"

"That's right!"

Chang Peng clapped his hands and cheered, "The last one: It flies in the sky, has big wings, sleeps during the day, and is busy at night, catching mice to protect the crops. Guess the animal word!"

"Owl!" Abudu blurted out almost immediately.

"Spot on all!"

Chang Peng pulled an English picture book with cotton fields drawn on it out of his bag. "Come on, let's read this today. It tells the story of cotton farmers in Shihezi. You're probably familiar with it."

That afternoon, Abudu read half a picture book with Chang Peng without even noticing the bell ringing for the end of get out of class.

But after only two days, he gave up again. His classmates saw him reading English picture books during breaks and started teasing him again: "Abudu, how old are you to still be reading picture books? Can't you even recognize all the words?"

Abudu stuffed the picture book into his schoolbag and refused to take it out again. The next day, when he went to find Chang Peng, his tone was dejected: "Teacher, I think I'll just forget about it. They always laugh at me..."

"They laugh at you because they've never seen you read English stories or say more than ten words about crops."

Chang Peng pulled him to the blackboard in the classroom. "Look," he said, "it says here that Xinjiang cotton is the best in the world. If one day you can talk about Xinjiang cotton in English to people from other places, will they still laugh at you?"

Abudu stared at the blackboard for a long time in silence before finally raising his head and saying, "Teacher, I'll try again."