Make the Jump.

Before I blogged about the birthday parties, I decided to blog about this thing that I just thought of. 

My English is poor, like really really poor. Until I don't have the courage to speak English to all my friends including my best friends and families. I can write an essay with a lot of grammar errors if you want me to write. But never ever ask me to speak English to someone that understand Mandarin. Once I know that you understand Mandarin, I will have the self control that not to speak English to you. I felt really embarrassing while I speak English. How I sat for those oral assessment? I just stand in front of teacher and classmates, read out the passage I found in the volume that only me myself can hear. It's really hard for me to open up my mouth and start speaking English to someone that understand Mandarin. I would avoid myself from talking to those who don't understand Mandarin too. 

After I came to college, I told myself that I have to change this habit, as it's not gonna benefits my future, but maybe affect my future. I'm taking the marketing course, I might have to present a lot in front of classmates or maybe colleagues in the future. So it's really inconvenient if I continue staying like this. 

I realized that there are some people out there, who have the same habit like me, but maybe slightly better than my case. I'm here to share with you some of my ways to improve the English skills and also, I wanna help you to build up the courage of stepping one step forward, that might change your life. 

5 Ways of Improving Yourself

1. Communicating

I started to chat with my friends in English after I enter the college. Why only after I enter the college? It's because of the problem that I have no guts to speak English to people that I know well or very well. So I prefer to start my first step with communicating with the strangers that never know that I had difficulty in speaking English. At least they won't have the reaction like, "Woah you speak English!" Although sometimes there are grammar errors, but who cares right? We don't really care about the grammar thingy while we communicate. After the few days of trying, I started to have the courage to try and talk to some of my close friends in English. Like just now, I just broke my own record of speaking English to Megan through phone call for 30 seconds! Well, 30 seconds isn't long, but it's already a big step for me. For those that know me for a long time, you know that I changed. 

2. Blogging / Keep Writing

I started to blog last year. Besides, due to the SPM, I asked Abel to help me in writing essays so I could score higher marks in English and maybe manage to get an A for it. After the long period of blogging and writing essays for Abel to mark, my English improved. Although there are still grammar mistakes, but I believe that these can be overcome if I keep writing. So please, for those of you that realized any mistakes in the blog, do let me know so I will correct it! 

3. Focus 

Be concentrate while teachers are teaching. We learnt all these grammar thingy and these English words from teachers. So it's good if we listen more and concentrate. It doesn't help much but at least it helps. What we learnt in the class(I mean grammar and vocabulary thingy) might not be useful in the daily life(I mean communication), but they might help a lot in studies and career. We need these knowledge while we write assessments, writing resume to apply for jobs and etc. 

4. Courage Building

Everything is nothing if you don't have the courage to take one step forward and make a try! Maybe share your problems with someone you trust, so they can give you some mental supports and suggestions while you need help in your journey. With their supports, you may gain more courage and confidence while you do something. 

5. Motivation

Give yourselves a target and plan your future. Try to imagine how your future gonna be and work hard to achieve it. Setting a target that you have to work really hard to challenge it and you can only achieve it after a long period. Once you achieve the target after the long period of fighting, you will feel confident. Why a target that can only achieve after long period? So you have the time to gain more experience while you are working hard for it. So you will feel that what you did are worth enough after you achieve it. Also, test yourself on your patience, see how long you can stand.

Well, just some sharing of my own opinions. I hope these may help some of you that facing the same problem with the old me. I'm now a new leaf haha. I already overcome the problem of speaking English to my close friends and families. However, I'm still not sure if I can communicate with those ABC friends in English since I already get used to the days of speaking Mabdarin to them, and I love seeing their reaction when they don't understand what I'm trying to say X) My English standard is just better than last time, but still not good, still have space for improvement. 

Make the jump. So you can be a new leaf 🍃

All the best to you x