One benefit of cleaning your old house, digging in your old clutters is that you will always find something that reminds you of your good old sweet memories. Today, while I was checking my old piles of New Year’s cards, postcards, and letters from ages ago, I found one of the first English letters I wrote in my life.
Reading through my first non-school work in English reminded me of the memories of the very first trip abroad I took to New Zealand.
Reading through it reminded me of my very old self as a beginning English language learner. I remember vividly how scary it was for me back then to interact with native New Zealanders for the first time at the age of 13. It was so difficult that my brain hurt every day when I got back to the host family. It was them, my New Zealand host family who was always there and taught me life lessons and a great deal of English communication skills during my three-week course in a small hidden city of Hokitika, New Zealand.
If I were to analyze my own letter, I would say that it was written with basic simple sentence structures with literally no added fancy verbs, adjectives, adverbial clauses or even basic conjunctions. Let alone multiple errors found in this rather brief straightforward two-page letter to my former host sister. Of course, because it was written by a 13-year-old beginner.
Reading it again today, I felt so proud of myself and I am glad I wrote it. It taught me have far I have come from the very beginning of my English learning journey. Comparing that letter to my current written work, I can now formulate various more types of sentence structures and utilize different kinds of syntax and multiple linguistic devices as I wish. Yet, I know that I am still far from being a perfect English language user. Fortunately, that is not my ultimate goal in the first place anyway.
Nevertheless, that old self of mine did let me down. The fact that my teenage self did not mail the finished letter which she had devoted her sweat and time to craft it and that I found it and was able to read it today hurts be so badly. It truly reminds me of my own insecurities about my English when I was much younger. This also speaks to what I see day-to-day in my students, friends and many Thai learners of English.
I would like to say that I too was there. I was so afraid of making mistakes whenever I spoke or wrote in English regardless of length or situations. Like millions of English language learners, I once had countless insecurities about my proficiency and abilities to communicate. I understand perfectly how these feel.
Therefore, I would like you, who are reading this entry to do something that will break you through your insecurities you are facing now because I know that YOU CAN DO IT! I am telling you that you will definitely feel unsafe, awkward, weird, or uncomfortable at first. But if you persist and do it constantly, you will get better each day. But first thing first, DO IT!
Last but not least, every journey always needs the first step. And you too can take that first step.
1/18/2018 11.31 pm
Edited 1/19/2018 11.03 pm
