It has been a rough journey for me learning the English Language. Growing up in a Eurasian family, my family conversed in both English and Chinese. Thus I always felt that I had a good command of both languages. However, that was only my own perception.
Whenever I spoke in English, my friends were always laughing at me. I had no such problems whenever I spoke in Chinese. However, when it comes to the English language, it became a disaster. As a young boy, I had no clue why people were laughing at me and I often felt distraught and detest speaking in English. My teacher approached me one day and gave me a letter to recommend me to go for speech therapy as she was worried that the way I spoke would affect my oral examination.
It got me thinking what I had done wrong. When I went for speech therapy, the therapist assessed that I spoke very lazily and the placement of my tongue caused my pronunciation to be unclear. I spent many months undergoing therapy, constantly reading books and reciting tongue-twisters to help me speak better and clearly.
Since my therapy sessions, I have paid more attention to the way I spoke. It has greatly benefited me and helped me both in my command of the English language as well as speaking confidently. Even now, I often spend time reading newspapers or tongue twisters to ensure I speak properly and never be teased by others for my English again. I made it a point to never laugh at anyone who spoke broken English because of my bad experiences. There is so much more to the English language and till this day, I am learning different ways to learn and speak properly in English.
Revised as of 15/9/16
This is a very open, poignant post, Frankie. Thank you for sharing your difficulties with us. You describe the experience of your pronunciation problems very clearly and concisely, focusing not just on the practical aspect of the communication but how other people's reactions impacted you emotionally.
ReplyDeleteI can easily relate to this as when I was in primary school I too had to attend speech therapy sessions. Honestly, I can't recall what my problems were, but I do know that I felt some stigma. All's well that ends well, of course!
As I read your heart-felt post, a few language related issues presented themselves:
1) "However, when it comes to the English language, it becomes a disaster." >>> Why do you use present tense in this sentence, since you are describing events in the past?
2) It got me thinking what have I done wrong? >>>
It got me thinking about what I had done wrong. (This is not a question.)
3) to never ever laughed >>> wrong verb form
Let's work on these.
I look forward to reading more of your writing.
Thank You Brad for your constructive feedback. I will definitely take it into my stride to improve my writing further. Really love your sharing on your past experiences with speech therapy as well. Really appreciate the time you spend to read my post and your honest feedback. See you in class!
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