How did I learn my English (part one)

I was sometimes asked by native English speakers with the question, "how did you learn your English?" The question, which I shamelessly took as a complement, however, was not straightforward to answer.

When I was around 4 years old, I learned two English words from my grandmother, who was then teaching English at a local University. Those two words are "apple" and "banana". I still remember during a talent show in the kinder garden, every kid including myself was asked to sing a song or perform a dance, with neither of these skills in hand, I said I will speak English and then presented those two words. I was too nervous to notice if any of the audiences was impressed.

I  hadn't gone further beyond "apple" and "banana" until fifth grade in primary school. At that time I found English totally not enjoyable and useless, and it pained me to remember those vocabulary. After all, English wasn't just a language exclusively for fruits, but for me, two words were OK, ten words were more than enough, a hundred of words, simply unimaginable.

Then I went to junior middle school, which was one of most elite schools in the city, and found the class director was to teach us English. He was a middle sized young man(then) with side whiskers, which was unusual to see that time. I thought he must be a kind gentleman. I was wrong. He turned out to be the most unexpected teach in my life time, and if there shall be any teacher I would associate with Hitler, he must be. In 3 years, I was forced to learn English and pass the exams not different from a spartan learned to kill. We were required to learn every text article by heart, and every single word of them. We were asked to precisely recite them without a pause, to write them from memory in a given time. Any mistake will lead to a public humiliation, and 100 times hand copy of the text in subject. I got punished once because of a single typo, and spent half night copying a text of a couple of hundreds words.