As the title of this article says, have you ever said that to yourself? For myself, last year every weekend I all went to the English corner of the city where I stayed in, I enjoyed myself when staying there and talked with different people.
Being there I had built up enough confidence so that whenever and wherever I met some foreigner on the street or on the campus, if the situation is allowed I would always came to and talked with them. At that time, I could never imagine that some day I would say the sentence like that with hesitation: this evening shall I go to the English Corner?
When saying this that mean I have not the same confidence as before any more. I am hesitate and wondering if I could be there and communicate with other English learners smoothly and successfully. Now I realize little by little that how sticking is important for an oral English learner.
In China we lack the natural environment of speaking English. In spite of that many people would say that we could talk with ourselves and not need to find partner at all. I have tried this way for several times and it doesn’t work at all, at least for myself.
Looking into the mirror, I saw myself murmuring and trying to speak out, I asked myself a question and offer an answer or solution myself. I tried to organize my words and polish it before I began to show off. But every time it didn’t turn out to be ideal.
NOt being ideal, I mean here, is that when you talking with the image in the mirror, it seems to be an examination not communication. In real life we come across many different people who have the totally different ways of thinking comparing to ourselves. That means what you practice before the mirror would not be working very well in real situations.
As for myself, I do advocate to go to some places where you can have access to meeting with the people who have the same desire as you to learn the language. There your talk maybe would be less perfect as that when your facing the mirror. But I am sure it should be more dynamic and lifelike.
Also, during the chatting, you may know some kind of things that you perhaps didn’t know before, such as some latest news that you ignored, some usages of words and etc. For example, one time of last year when I met with a girl at the English corner, It seems that she more preferred the formal expressions ways than informal ones.
During the process, when we mentioned the current educational system, she said for the governors and the authority of school it’s a dilemma to some extent. Here she used the word “dilemma” that for me it was just one word mostly used in some reports or some serious reviews.
Frank speaking, in this situation before I would prefer to saying it’s hard to handle to describe such difficulties and contiditions. So if I never talk with that girl, till today maybe I would also treat the word “dilemma” as some word I omitted when chatting. Thanks to her, now I could use it when communicating with my professor, which should be more suitable than some too informal ways of expression..
The reason I tell my experience here is to explicate the importance of talking fact to face. But on the other hand, it doesn’t mean that that way talking with yourself in front of the mirror doesn’t make any sense. In fact in everyday time when I wake up and comb my hair before the mirror or dress, I always say some encouraging words or anything I would like to myself.
The point I want to highlight here is just, as we all know, every human being all has some common personality at the bottom of their heart, for example, laziness. Facing to other people it sometimes would be a incentive for you to improving yourself. But when just communicating with yourself alone maybe sometimes we couldn’t conquer or overcome the evil, laziness, which might result in the reluctance to speak or just choose what you have learned rather than something you are not familiar with.
So at the end of this article, I would like to ask you, my friends, all enthusiastic oral English learners and myself as well: This evening are we ready to go to the English Corner? Are we ready to break away from the hesitation and afraid of speaking and go in for the progress of our spoken English? IF SO, please do tell me, let’s encourage each other and do it together.
