My Experience in U.S./CESL

Very often, ignorance causes a lot of problems to people. My recent experience in the United States learns me more about that. So, I think it is interesting to share it with others.
As a foreign student, I did not know many things beforehand about American Education System. This lack of knowledge could jeopardize my success at my intensive English program at Center for English as a Second Language (CESL). At the very beginning, I did not figure out that I was supposed to pay close attention to everything, especially in my Core class, taught by Ms. Gretchen Smith. I put in mind that all the tests would be taken with opened documents. As a matter of fact, I never study. Consequently my scores were very low for each test I have taken. Then I felt uncomfortable because in my country, people have known me as a good student. Nevertheless, I did not let myself carried away by a poor self-concept. On the contrary, I tried to figure out what was the main cause of my failure. I realized it was due to a misunderstanding from my part. Thus I took the initiative to fix that problem. Interestingly, things are improving right now. My scores become better and my performance changes for good. However, I have to work on some important skills in order to be more efficient. Those skills especially include: speaking, listening and speed reading. Improving the above skills will be my greatest satisfaction for this term.
Finally, my experience in U.S. has taught me how easy it is to fail because of misunderstanding. It has also taught me to tolerate people when they act wrongly because of their lack of knowledge.