Shengliver’s Note: The teen writer reminisces about his middle school English teacher.

Mr Liu was my middle school English teacher. He was not as active in his class as you are in yours, Shengliver. Mr Liu, born with a deadpan face, was dead serious and harsh. A middle-rank school manager, he was so forbidding that once he made an appearance in the classroom, we had no choice but to stop our job in hand and to start studying English. Sometimes we pretended to.

Therefore, I ended up with better English grades than maths ones. The reason was simple and clear: I spent more time on English. Every day the lunch break in our class was reserved for English homework. If you did not get it done, then you would find yourself in trouble in the afternoon. Mr Liu might abuse you. Of course, whether you would have to go and stand outside the classroom depended, to a large measure, on what impression Mr Liu had of you. As a result, you’d go out of your way to play meek and guilty when Mr Liu was giving you a dirty look.

Mr Liu’s spoken English was interesting. When he pronounced the sound “d”, he said “der”. Besides, he asked us on a daily basis, “Where is wrong?” As a result, I did not think he was good at the language. At times, I did not agree with his explanations because what he said was at odds with what I read in the grammar. When that happened, I would air my views and contradict him in the presence of the whole class. Our heated argument could last well up to the moment when the bell rang out the lesson.

However, Mr Liu had something in common with you, Shengliver. He had a bad memory. He would often forget your name even though he had asked you what your name was a minute before. He gave us much free time to learn by ourselves. That’s where I think he was wise.

Over the years, I have had teachers of English of all flavours, but my attitude to the language should not change.