不少香港人，聽到讀國際學校的學生講英文講到lak lak聲，就以為他們的英文寫作能力同樣強，其實不一定。
我學生群中，超過一半就讀國際學校，他們英文口語跟外國人沒兩樣，但他們家長之所以給我錢，是因他們看到孩子得到專業指導後，寫作有明顯進步。當然，國際學校的學生在寫作上遇到的問題跟其他類型的學生不一樣，他們 grammar 很少錯，vocab知識也豐富，but they tend to write the way they speak, 而好文章卻需要有組織有角度。再者，如果 native English speakers 自然會寫作，那麼英美兩地的出版商就不會推出那麼多 How to write well 的書籍。
下面兩段文字的區別，正是 write the way one speaks 和有組織有角度的 writing approach 的區別：
Student
There is nothing as disgusting as poop in this world. Like when you have diarrhoea and water mixed with poop comes out of your bottom. Some people may think “going” is just a natural act, so we should be cool about it. Every time I finish my business, though, if I do look at what came out, I just wanna puke.
My rewrite
I have a job that puts me off chocolate fudge forever.
When the Beijing Municipal Government hired me to be a cleaner for the toilet next to Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, my mother immediately seized upon the chance to pour scorn on me.
“This is the consequence of not studying hard!” she sneered.
Indeed, it is hard to find a toilet in China that is busier than the one I am tasked with keeping sparkling clean. The queue outside the mausoleum is always way longer than even the one outside Disney’s Space Mountain, so lots of people have to answer the call of nature while they wait – meaning lots of scraping, scrubbing and sweeping for me to do.
Since I’ve taken on that job, the color of the poops I’ve seen has ranged from neon yellow to ink black. Sometimes, when the poop owner ate chilli oil hot pot the previous day, his or her poop would come out in thick red puddles. If the poop owner happens to have eaten Chairman Mao’s favorite dish – braised pork belly – the grease in the dish will give the poop the texture of chocolate fudge.
I had no idea how quickly I had gotten used to the smell of poop until I began noticing people moving away from me when I was on the bus. As they made their retreat, they would shoot me a look of contempt mixed with disgust.
“You’re so smelly that you’ll never get a girlfriend!” was how my mother put it.
Michelle Ng
英國牛津大學畢業，前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家，現在身在楓葉國，心繫中國大陸和香港。
聯絡方式： michelleng.coach@proton.me
個人網站： https://michellengwritings.com
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