Yeah, let’s be honest here. I can’t speak English fluently every day.
Yeah, I admit it shamelessly because after all I’m not a native speaker and I still consider myself an English language learner. Well, a life-long English language learner I would say.
Last month was a bad one for me as an English speaker.
I could not speak fluently.
My speed was terrible.
My vocabulary was way worse than normal.
And I could never stop correcting myself as I spoke.
IT WAS UNBELIEVABLY BAD. PERIOD.
At one point, I thought to myself, maybe this was the end of my teaching career. How can I claim myself as an English teacher when I can’t even speak fluently. That was the end I thought.
But then I realized for all the time I have been a learner for the past two decades, there has been ups and downs in my learning journey, the thing I always call “good days and bad days.” Well, but how come I had so many baaaad days in a row without any good ones in between, I questioned.
Then at that moment, I stopped to ask myself and to consider the situation carefully and critically based on all second language acquisition and second language learning theories and approaches of I have learned for the past two years. And then the light bulb brightened in my though, it all perhaps was because of stress.
Stress is never a good friend to anyone.
Stress affects you silently.
And stress will never leave you if you never let go of it.
For a while, I let go of my English. I let it be what it wanted it be. I (tried so hard) stopped thinking about all rules and pronunciation. I basically stopped monitoring myself. In a nutshell, I tried to let go of it.
For the past few days, I realized I have been myself again. I can speak my thoughts without having to pause or correct myself unnaturally. I have become my true self again, who can speak fluently as I wish. YES!!!
My good days have finally arrived after all bad ones left along with their good friend, stress.
This is an untold story by me, an English teacher, who always have good days and bad days.
7/21/2016 1.49 am.
