Chapter 5: All for the Sake of Ambition

Chapter 5: It’s All for the Sake of Prospects

Although they were now in the advanced class, there was still a disparity in academic performance among the students. Some were undoubtedly excellent, while others were merely average.

Those with higher grades generally sat toward the front, while those who lagged behind were quite self-aware and took seats in the back.

In his previous life, Li Jingkun had sat in the second row from the back of the second column during his third year of middle school, with Yang Zelin as his desk mate. That arrangement remained unchanged in this lifetime. He felt perfectly fine with that; there was no need to push to the front.

Advanced classes were different from regular ones. Regular classes were lively, while advanced ones were stifling. In regular classes, many students would leave once the bell rang, but in the advanced class, most remained glued to their seats, continuing to study.

Li Jingkun had once preferred the regular class, feeling that youth shouldn't be so suffocating, but now, he appreciated both atmospheres.

There is a time to study diligently and a time to be boisterous and have fun.

However, his current goal was to be admitted to the city’s top high school—the best school within their municipality—so for this final year, he had to keep his head down.

Of course, this didn't mean he would stop playing basketball, reading extracurricular books, or listening to music. Not at all; one still needed to unwind. It simply meant that his primary focus remained on his studies.

Thus, after the first set of exams in the third year, his ranking within the grade was confirmed: seventeenth.

It wasn't first place, nor did he break into the top three, but it was enough to make everyone take notice.

Firstly, it was a significant improvement. Secondly, the top thirty or forty students were almost all from the previous year’s advanced class, while he looked like a beast that had charged in halfway through, suddenly surging to the front.

Most students were actually quite unfamiliar with him—which was only natural, as even though classes had been reshuffled for the third year, the majority of the students in the advanced class were the same ones from the second year (about sixty people per class).

But that didn't matter; Li Jingkun would make them get to know him soon enough.

The first such moment arrived shortly thereafter.

It happened when the English teacher called on him to answer a question.

It wasn't because the teacher favored him or anything of the sort. If there were any special treatment, it would be reserved for Zhou Zhiqin, followed by one or two other girls who were consistently strong in English.

However, most of the time, if one or two students in a row couldn't understand or answer a question, she would call on Zhou Zhiqin to save the day.

This time, calling on Li Jingkun had no special reason; it was simply his turn, given how long the term had been going. Plus, his grades were good, so the English teacher naturally wanted to get to know him better.

"Li Jingkun, please answer this question. Which option do you choose?" the English teacher asked.

"I choose B."

"Why?"

"Because it is the correct answer."

That was the extent of the exchange between the teacher and Li Jingkun. If he had answered like that in any other subject, the teacher might have been angry or reprimanded him. But since this was English class and they were conversing entirely in English, the teacher couldn't help but laugh. Most of the other students laughed as well—the dialogue wasn't difficult, so they had all understood it.

"I mean, why is it the correct answer?" the teacher continued.

Li Jingkun paused. He hadn't intended to be humorous; it was just that explaining the grammar would be tedious and troublesome.

He didn't particularly care for studying grammar, which was why he had only focused on spoken English in his previous life. Daily conversation didn't require many words, nor did it require memorizing grammatical rules.

It was the same as foreigners learning Chinese. They likely had to study subjects, predicates, and objects. Yet, a Chinese person who hadn't been to school much and hadn't studied grammar could still speak the language fluently. The principle was the same.

However, since the teacher persisted, he had to provide an explanation: "Many students might choose C because, in general, when a noun is followed by a past participle or a prepositional phrase as an attributive, it usually implies a specific reference and requires a definite article. But in this sentence, 'man' is used in a general sense—'a person who...'—so it doesn't need an article. As for the first blank in option B..."

Li Jingkun spoke a long string of English. Everyone was stunned. While a few understood what he was saying, there was still a gap between understanding and being able to speak it aloud.

The English teacher was also a bit taken aback. The first few lines of dialogue hadn't been anything special—at least seven or eight out of ten students in the class could have managed that—but very few could speak with such fluidity.

Moreover, her original intent had only been for Li Jingkun to state the reason for choosing B—a simple one-sentence affair. She hadn't expected him to analyze option C, the one most likely to trip people up.

"That is all," Li Jingkun added when he saw the teacher didn't react.

"Yes, excellent. You are absolutely correct," the teacher finally responded, offering a compliment.

Li Jingkun expected the next sentence to be "Please sit down," but instead, the teacher continued in English: "Your spoken English is excellent. Although you have a bit of an accent, you are very fluent. Have you studied spoken English before?"

Li Jingkun replied, "I am still learning."

"No, you are already very good, and your reaction speed is quite fast. Could you tell us how you usually practice your spoken English?"

"Aside from memorizing vocabulary, I listen to English songs, watch English movies, and, most importantly, I listen and speak as much as I can. It’s really just those methods—you just have to practice and put it into action."

Yes, Li Jingkun wasn't lying. These were indeed the methods he had used, though he didn't mention that he had practiced sporadically over many years.

If Zhou Zhiqin had done the same, he would surely have learned faster than him.

Li Jingkun was simply cheating, having had an extra decade of time compared to everyone else.

Besides, he could now recall various materials or movie lines from his mind to polish his speech.

"You are doing wonderfully..."

And so, the two began to chat in class, leaving the others feeling a bit bewildered.

Truth be told, their conversation wasn't difficult to understand—it was perhaps even easier than many listening comprehension tests. But as the saying went, there was a vast difference between understanding and being able to speak.

How many students were experts at English exams, scoring near-perfect marks from middle school through university, yet were unable to speak the language?

This was the core problem with English education: why were there so many masters of English who couldn't speak a word of it?

It was simply because English education had turned into "exam-oriented education." Students learned how to ace tests, not how to speak the language.

Zhou Zhiqin, for instance, had a good vocabulary and could manage a few sentences with the teacher, but perhaps because he lacked an immersive environment and had no opportunity for continuous practice, his spoken English remained weak.

Li Jingkun remembered his previous life working in Guangzhou, where many girls running stalls at the market only had a middle school education and hadn't studied much English in school. Yet, to sell an extra piece of electronic equipment, they forced themselves to learn, and that was how many of them had mastered the language.