I have never been the best at English. Whether it’s speaking, writing, or reading. I guess it kind of makes sense because I grew up speaking a completely different language. Until around the age of six I only spoke and understood Polish. Polish books, Polish TV shows, daily calls to my Grandparents back in Poland. Not a lick of English. There is one specific moment that I remember very vividly when I was learning English in Kindergarten. In class we had been learning vocabulary and the only word that I had a problem with was “world”. The school day ended and the teacher was leading us down the stairs to go outside to the schoolyard so our parents could pick us up. As we were walking down the stairs there was that one word constantly going through my head… world. There was just something about it that I could not pronounce. My tongue would just stop working and I would just mumble. For the next couple of days I would be just whispering world to myself over and over again. Eventually I was finally able to say it. Once I learned how to say it, I didn’t know why I couldn’t before. I had a couple of instances like this all throughout elementary school. No idea why. 

Middle school was not any better. I could safely say that English was by far my least favorite class. This is when the essays and presentations started. The essays were what I hated the most. I did not know how to transfer my ideas onto a paper. I would know exactly what to say, but had no idea how to put it into words. So I would sit there for the whole period thinking on how I should start this essay. I would ask my teacher these questions every time, “how do I start?” or “what else do I write?” She would tell me to try my best and that was it. One day my whole class got called into the library to take a “diagnostic test”. I thought to myself, “oh it’s not a real test I’m just going to put random answers”. Worst idea ever. Turns out, that “diagnostic test” decides if you need to be put into another class for students that need extra help with English. I absolutely hated that class. All we did was read books and answer questions about them. Didn’t learn anything that would help improve my english. 

Now this is when everything flipped completely. High school came around, and I actually didn’t hate english. I think I started liking english because of the conversations and discussions we had in class. It didn’t feel like a class. It felt like I was hanging out with friends and talking about random things. Although I didn’t talk much during these discussions, I just sat there and listened. It’s because I wasn’t the best speaker. I would stutter looking for words. Even outside of the classroom when I would be with my friends and I wanted to tell them a story,  I couldn’t. I would miss all of the important details, and the story would be all over the place. Looking back at it, I know why I liked essays over speaking and presenting. However, I’m working on it. I’ve had a bunch of long conversations with my parents and friends about overcoming obstacles. I learned that I have to be brave. I have to get out of my comfort zone and stop being scared to talk to people. My mom always told me, “strach ma wielkie oczy.” Fear makes things look twice as bad as they are. 

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