Part of today's homework was to watch the video on Agnieszka Murdoch's YouTube channel 5-Minute Language. This one was about overcoming the fear of speaking a foreign language.
I got over my initial fear back in February of this year when I attended my first Duolingo event. I ghosted the breakout room leaving myself muted with the video off. That was until I was outed by the other two participants. I turned on my video, 'fessed my fears and they immediately convinced me to just try. They were so friendly and helpful. I ended the event on a good note. That was almost 100 events ago!
I still found Agnieszka's 3 tips helpful:
- Use what you know to say what you want. Meaning if you don't know the word you want to say, then use words you know to describe it. Or with grammar, if you only know the present tense of the verb, use it along with accompanying words to help describe the tense, like next week or yesterday. This is brilliant! Because I can't conjugate verbs.....yet 😕😊
- Native speakers aren't there to judge or correct you (unless you ask them to). The majority just want to help. This is so true, even more so if they are trying to learn English!
- Speak before you think! This feels like the opposite of look before you leap. It essentially is though, right? Don't let fear stop you from trying. Saying anything is better than saying nothing at all.
Which then reminded me of a song from one of my favorite guilty pleasure moves. So I include it purely for my own pleasure 😉😛
Hasta luego!
Great insights….
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear how you overcame your fear of speaking Spanish….I attended a lot of Spanish Meetups, and basically sat there and smiled a lot, for the longest time, before attempting to join the conversation!
When asked by a customs officer if I spoke Spanish…I said
Yo creo que yo puedo, pero una veces, no puedo!
Luckily, he thought that was funny!!
Haha, you WERE lucky. Customs officers usually don't have senses of humor. That took guts to practice your Spanish with him!
ReplyDelete