To apply what we have learnt in the classroom to become an effective listener and speaker as well as an eligible team player in the real communication is not as easy as I thought initially. However, through this meeting, I have made a lot of progress and have the confidence to go further.
Last Friday, my group mates and I had the very first meeting. Before the meeting, I thought that I was the only PRC in this group whose English speaking skills was not that strong. I really feel the pressure and upset during the preparation. However, it turned out that the meeting with my group mates went on dramatically but successfully. At the beginning, I could not catch some of my team mates’ points and I asked them to restate with a shy face. However, the encouragement and sincerity from their eyes made me feel much better. On the other hand, my group mates were all glad to slow down the speaking pace and paraphrase their points in a more understandable way to me. After I got what they wanted to talk about, my pressure began to go away. Every group mates showed the willingness to communicate with each other on their faces as well as the body gestures. With the help of this atmosphere, every group mates were completely engaged in the discussion and the meeting went on smoothly.
Last Friday, my group mates and I had the very first meeting. Before the meeting, I thought that I was the only PRC in this group whose English speaking skills was not that strong. I really feel the pressure and upset during the preparation. However, it turned out that the meeting with my group mates went on dramatically but successfully. At the beginning, I could not catch some of my team mates’ points and I asked them to restate with a shy face. However, the encouragement and sincerity from their eyes made me feel much better. On the other hand, my group mates were all glad to slow down the speaking pace and paraphrase their points in a more understandable way to me. After I got what they wanted to talk about, my pressure began to go away. Every group mates showed the willingness to communicate with each other on their faces as well as the body gestures. With the help of this atmosphere, every group mates were completely engaged in the discussion and the meeting went on smoothly.
When the meeting nearly reached the end, we began to talk about the target users of the project. I had my opinion on the interface design for different users. However, I could not find some proper words to describe my idea. Therefore, I used a lot of gestures and paraphrased them in many different ways. But it did not work and made the situation even worse. My group mates got more confused. Because of the cultural differences, the way I organizing a sentence and choosing words is quite different from the native English speakers. Kim then said that she could understand Chinese and asked me to say it in Chinese. Then, I just used Chinese to directly express my idea. Unfortunately, this solution did not work either. The reason is that I already have tried hard in English and I could not translate them back into Chinese very quickly. The sentences were kind of mixture of the two languages. I had no choice but to switch back to English and try to paraphrase them again and again. Suddenly, Sathish got my points surprisingly. I felt so happy. What a long and tough process! I almost really lost my confident in speaking out my idea. From this process, I got to know that, if I could not express something in English, I should not change to another language; I should persevere to try my best to paraphrase and reconstruct the sentences till they are understandable.
I think the barrier for me in speaking English is that I cannot combine the words which appear in my mind into proper sentences. Sometimes, after I spoke out a sentence, I knew that I have made a mistake and even myself could not understand the sentence. Due to lacking of enough practice of speaking English, I do not have the feeling of speaking the language freely and fluently. The group meeting really provides a platform for me to gain the practical English speaking skills. I think, as the time goes on, I will have more and more proficiency in my English speaking.
