Path to a Small Town Girl’s Dream

I am from a small town with underdeveloped educational resources. The children there start to learn English at the age of ten. In the beginning, I had no talent in language learning. When the teacher wrote the 26 letters of the alphabet on the blackboard, I just treated it like other subjects and hoped it would help me get high
marks.

Other than for finishing the homework, however, I did not open my English textbook after class. “You are only good at multiple-choice English exercises,” my English teacher said to me when I graduated from primary school.

The turning point came in junior high school when I signed up to join the Model United Nations at the age of 13. At that time, Model U.N. was just emerging as a student activity. For a group of teenagers, it was fun for us to hold a meeting totally by ourselves, wearing formal attire.

Faced with a large number of English materials and professional words, I could not forget the night when I translated 46 countries’ names into Chinese through the most old-fashioned way of thumbing through a paper dictionary and recited all of them desperately. As the meeting day approached, l asked for help from a senior student who was a participant as well. With the help of online resources and various translation applications through her recommendation, I successfully prepared for the meeting.

“Honorable chairs and distinguished delegates, here is the voice from delegation…” Such a fantastic voice from myself echoed in the conference room with my wellprepared speech. English was no longer a means for merely attaining higher scores. 

“Congratulations! You have learned how to put English into real practice,” my mom said as she gave me a big kiss on my cheek, having just witnessed the huge progress I had made.

I built up my own confidence in English learning, and gradually fell in love with public speaking after such an experience. As time went by, I had more opportunity to access English outside of school by browsing the Internet. I found various opinions on the same cultural event from different news sources, which helped me be more wellinformed and understand multiple perspectives.

I eventually outperformed my peers in English learning. One day my high school teacher said to me, “I recommend you to participate in the 21st Century English Speech Contest. Seize this opportunity. I believe you will succeed!”
In the preliminary competition, I easily defeated many competitors with my wellprepared speech and was selected to enter the provincial finals. I was very excited.

The format for the finals required standing in front of a large audience and making an impromptu speech. In preparation for the final competition, the teacher asked me to rehearse in front of the whole class. That day, I stood speechless for three minutes.

“What is she doing there? How did she get selected?” Hearing my classmates’ whispers, I stood there numb, flushed with embarrassment.

“I can’t do this. I’m afraid I have to quit,” I cried to the teacher.

“Now is the time to forge ahead with all the efforts that you can manage. Believe in yourself,” the teacher patted me on my shoulder.

Starting from scratch, I found an online friend who was studying Chinese in the U.S. through an app called “Hello Talk” and we hit it off immediately. In the month leading up to my final exam, we communicated with each other every day.

My partner often presented me with a heatedly debated social issue, posed a question about its central theme, and then asked me to give an impromptu speech after three minutes of preparation. Through the video call, my language partner guided me not only on English pronunciation, but also on my gestures and delivery. After countless practice, I could finally prepare an impromptu English speech within three minutes.

Relying on various online English studying related resources, I was admitted to my dream university in the capital to pursue my future dreams. Thanks to such online resources, the discrepancy of regional background was no more startlingly apparent. This is my story of chasing my dream via English. Now, as I have come to a bigger
stage, my story about English is far from over.