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Lack oral fluency
'In China, we do well in exams but our listening and conversational skills may not be that good.'
MS XIE MALI, a Chengdu native who works in Mini Toons here
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Getting used to the local accent
She has a business degree and studied English back in China, but Ms Xie Mali was unprepared for the culture shock she experienced when she arrived here three months ago.
The 26-year-old Chengdu native, who works for Mini Toons, a gift chain, said: 'It was hard to understand the English here. It's mixed with a bit of Malay and the sentence structure is different from what I was taught.'
But her grounding in English helped, and she quickly got used to the local accent.
'My listening skills definitely improved. In China, we do well in exams but our listening and conversational skills may not be that good.'
Mini Toons has 25 China service staff working at its 23 outlets in Singapore. Ms Xie mans the Mini Bits outlet at Changi Airport Terminal 2.
The company provides in-house training for staff and enrols them for external courses to improve their English language proficiency.
Ms Xie makes it a point to use English when serving customers.
'Although there are a lot of Chinese here, we should still use English. You are showing respect to the people here and it also helps you raise your service standards.'
She said her customers have had no trouble understanding her. She often gets mistaken for a Japanese or Korean, she added.
'There'll always be one or two people who will ask me if I'm Japanese or Korean. Maybe the way East Asians speak English is quite similar.'
She still gets a little upset when people criticise China nationals for the way they speak English, but she said: 'If you want to learn, first admit that you are weak, then you can improve.'
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Edited 8/29/2009 11:59 pm by kojakbt22</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>