I was interested in English when I was 11 years old because English is not Japanese style. When I was a junior high school student, I learned the alphabet at first. It is the foundation of English but it was boring. Few days later I learned words and grammar. Then I was interested in reading the textbook. And I thought I wanted to learn grammar more. I could do well in the English test and I had perfect confidence in my English ability in those days. However, when a native teacher came to my school, I was disappointed with my English skills. I talked with foreigner for the first time at that time. I really enjoyed studying English with native in the class but I had negative experiences later. When the native teacher went back to her country, I gave her a Japanese doll. I wanted to say a lot of things but I could not. I tried to tell her something, but I could not make myself understood through English. Therefore, I said only “thank you”. It was regrettable that I couldn’t communicate with her a lot! That’s why I thought I wanted to learn English more and I wanted to speak it fluently. I wanted to talk with natives someday.

When I was a high school student, I studied English harder than before. I often listened to foreign music and learned a lot of important phrases by heart. My English skill was getting better day by day. When I was a second year in HS, I had some opportunities to talk with a native teacher. First of all, I could not speak to him because I was afraid of speaking. So I missed a golden opportunity. Few days later I had chance to talk with him again. So I decided not to miss a chance to communicate with him. I was very uneasy and nervous but I tried to talk with him. In those days my English grammar was terrible but I talked with the top of my lungs. Then he might be able to understand what I wanted to say and our conversations went on for few minutes. I was very happy and I was much more fascinated with English than before. So I decided to study English at the university.

I expected I speak English fluently before I came to the university. When I was a freshman, I had little confidence in my English skills but there were many people who could speak English fluently. I lost my confidence and I was uneasy whether I could keep up in the lessons or not. And in some of my classes, I had to use only English. We must not use Japanese!! I was very confused because this is for the first time to have the class like this class style. At first I could not communicate with anybody in English because I felt somewhat out of place when I talked with Japanese in English. But later, I got accustomed to do it. By the way, I learned speaking but also reading, listening, writing and other things in university. I was also interested in intercultural communication. I think only speaking English is not enough when we communicate with foreigners. We need to know other culture and customs.

So I thought I wanted to go abroad and to know other countries. I believe if I want to know another country well, it is probably best to actually visit the country and live there a while. So I decided to study abroad for one month. I left Japan for the first time in my life. I was really excited when I went to Australia. Actually there were a lot of troubles. I was embarrassed at first, but as time passed by, I really got to enjoy staying there and speaking English. To go to a foreign country is especially helpful. When you come into contact with another culture, you can learn about the people who live there and their way of life. Sometimes you can even make very good friends. Of course you can have confidence. But now I still want to improve speaking ability. I often think about grammar before I speak English.

So I cannot say what I want to right away and I don’t have a lot of vocabularies. So I want to master new ones.

My plans the next two years will be to become a person who speaks English fluently like a native and I want to be a flight attendant after graduation. I also want to go to a lot of countries and communicate with the people all over the world. I want to master one more language if I have a time.

I advise students to learn from your mistakes. This also applies to learning English. If you don’t speak because you are afraid of making mistakes, your English will probably never improve.