High motivation is a key of success?!

Hi there. My name is Shiina from Japan Platform. In this blog, let me write you about my experiences with and around English.


If somebody asked me about a key of success in studying English, I answered "strong motivation" from my experiences. I know you may think like - "of course, everybody says keeping high motivation for studying English is a key!" Well, yeah, but not exactly. To explain why, let me share my experiences with you.


It was the time I was a young, stupid, and energetic university student. It was late 1990's, and studying "International Relations" was a kind of cool thing for many Japanese students including me at that time. I was dreaming of working abroad, especially working for United Nations and other International Organizations as many other people were dreaming of. I started to study in a University where many foreign students were studying, and I thought my dream was promising.


However, my dream was about to be broken when I realized my English speaking ability with many occasions of disappointment and embarrassment. I just could not catch up with the speed of English conversations among foreign students - you know, they are like machineguns - blablablablabla!!! I was stunned with lots of holes in my heart by them.


One of my problems with English conversations was "translation processes" in my head. Before speaking in English, I thought about things in Japanese and translated them into English. After hearing English, I needed to translate from English into Japanese in my head as well. From Japanese to English, English to Japanese... It was time-consuming, and I could never follow English conversations among native English speakers. As a consequence, I felt I was stupid and I became very shy to speak in English. My dream to work abroad seemed like a rainbow in the sky. I can see it, but cannot touch it.


How did I overcome my shyness of speaking English? Well, as I said, by having strong motivation.
High motivation for studying English? Umm, not exactly.


In the University campus, I met a beautiful lady from Chile. 　I mean, she was BEAUTIFUL. That was it.


I could not speak in Spanish, so I tried to communicate with her with my poor English. I DID know I was a terrible speaker in English, bit I did not care. How did I care? She was standing here, smiling at me softly, and I could not pass by without saying hi to her. I was just eager to communicate with her by all means. If she could understand neither English nor Japanese, I could study Spanish or even sign language to talk to her. 　She spoke in English fluently, but she was not a native English speaker. I guess it helped me to reduce my shyness as well.


She was not only beautiful, but also kind and patient - she listened to my poor English patiently, and replied to me in English slowly and clearly. We had similar subjects to study and took some classes together. We became friends. I red many English readings to discuss with her and prepared for next class - or, well, just enjoyed spending times with her. By communicating with her, I started to think in English and became to be able to speak in English gradually.


In the end, I became to know that she had an American fiancé, and we were just good friends.
It was a long time ago and I lost contacts with her, but I still remember her and appreciate her friendship. When I look back, I feel that she gave me a power to break through the difficulties to communicate in English. Because of her, I kept high motivation for communicating with her in English. I have a different motivation to study English now, but basically, my high motivation to do something is a backbone of going to Kaplan. In other words, studying English was just a tool for doing what I want to do.


Now, over to you, do you have high motivation for doing anything in English? If you had, you had a key already. So, what are we waiting for?　 English is only a tool for doing it, but could be a crucial one.

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