Dear Visa Officer:

I am truly sorry for my poor performance during the interview for my visa application. It must have been a very disappointing performance and I feel that it is necessary for me to make some necessary explanations for my performance.

First of all, the most important reason is that I was very, very nervous at the time of the interview. I was not well prepared. To be honest, Chinese students, especially middle school students, generally do not have many chances to practice my oral English. Their written English might be very good, but they are usually very poor in spoken English. Even though I have tried to practice oral English with my classmates and English teachers, I have never had the chance to speak to a native speaker of English. And my English listening is not very good either. Those reasons added to my nervousness, so that they seriously affected my performance. I must try to catch what you were saying to me on one hand and try to organize what I had to say. And this was rather difficult for me as a graduate of senior middle school. Therefore, I want you to know that it was my nervousness that caused my poor performance.

Second, in my nervousness, I could not organize my thoughts well and put them into proper English. Without this nervousness, I could have expressed myself fully and correctly. For instance, when asked about the date of my birthday, I answered that it is one nine eight four five two three. I was seriously influenced by my Chinese way of expressing the date of one's birthday. I should have said May twenty-third, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I think that one very important explanation must be made concerning the time I completed my senior middle school. It is true that my senior middle school certificate indicates that I completed in 2002. But when I answered that I completed in 2001, during the Spring Festival, I was actually telling the truth instead of giving some false information. In China, for the senior middle school graduates, they complete their proper program before the Spring Festival. After the Spring Festival, there is one more semester and that semester is devoted to reviewing their lessons and preparing for the National College and University Entrance Examination. In my case, I completed my senior middle school program by the end of 2001 (around the time of Spring Festival) and spent the final semester in 2002 on preparing for entrance examination. This is the general situation of all senior middle school students of China.

After completing my senior middle school program, I spent some time learning basic skills of computer application. Of course, since I have planned to go to Canada to study English, I spent a lot of time on improving my English. I kept reading English books and magazines to increase my vocabulary. Of course, I did those mainly through self-study and the self-study itself is not very systematic. But I have tried hard to learn English.

Concerning my program in Canada, I can say that the university I have applied for is Sprott-Shaw Community College located in Vancouver. In this college, I will first attend some intensive English language training courses. During this language training program, I will try to improve my English in speaking, writing, listening and reading. I will try to practice my English with my English teachers and with my classmates who come from other countries. I will try to use English as much as possible. I believe that in Canada where English is a native language, I will be able to make rapid progress. In one or two years, I will be able to speak fluent English and will have little difficulty communicating with people there.

When I have developed enough language abilities, I will apply for a program from a Canadian university. I will choose to major in business and management and other related courses like finance and marketing. This is because my family owns a large enterprise and I am expected to participate in the management of this enterprise in the future. My father has been managing this enterprise very well. But as he did not receive much education himself when he was young, he knows how important it is to receive a proper education. Therefore, to be able to learn English well and to learn the important knowledge of business and management will be very important for me. I will use my knowledge that I learn in Canada to help my father manage the enterprise. Therefore, it is clear that I have a very definite purpose in applying for a program in Canada. If I can receive education from a Canadian university, I will have very advanced knowledge of business management and in the future I can apply this knowledge.

Dear Visa officer, those are the things that I wanted to tell you during my last interview. I am sure that without that nervousness, I could have told you those things in a very well-organized way. I hope that it is not too late to make that up. When you have read this letter, I hope you can once again seriously consider my application.

Thank you very much.

Yours sincerely,

Deng Peng