My 3Cs to survive as an international student
The first five years of my PhD life have been amazing and at the same time, rough. Living in the beautiful greenery city where I’m always surrounded by trees, I find the place is pleasant for me to remove stress from the lab. Part of the pressure of life though has never left. As an international student, I constantly look for ways to improve my English. In particular, as an Asian born grown-up, the barrier of language is not simple to get rid of because the Asian language structure is fundamentally different than that used in western countries.
I find that constant practice with consciousness has a great impact on my speaking confidence. And, here are my 3Cs to survive. Conversation, Culture, and Coach.
Conversation
Actively engage in conversation is the key to picking up skills for effective communication. The more one talks, the more speaking skills one acquires. As a PhD student, yet, I spend most of my time thinking and reading about research materials rather engage with people. Surprisingly, I find myself talking to no one after a day of work. If any, the cashier at the coffee shop might be the only human being I’ve interacted with. Over the years, my life can be slowly deteriorated at both personal and professional front.
To change the situation, I started to look for ways where I could expose myself to more conversational scenario. At that point, I came across podcast media that fit into my daily life.
Years in, I have a regular go-to list of podcast shows – science, technology, and chats between friends or moms. I’m particularly obsessed with shows hosted by those who are of a similar age and life status. Being exposed to a variety of topics through podcast shows has been a large benefit to my speaking capacity. Listening to a podcast is not a quick fix for listening and speaking skills but in the long run, it grows me with words and context to confidently speak up.
Culture
One of the most challenging parts living in a foreign place at first was the awkward feeling in social events. Bearing no common background, I found myself have a hard time tuning in. Despite most of the people I encountered were kind and polite to me, I knew that the lack of common culture would only drain my energy when showing up. To gain cultural exposure was something I decided to improve.
The journey to connect to groups such as the local book club, international student union, and local moms’ group has been fun. And in the end, I stick with participating in science writing and outreach.
Given the years of training in science and engineering, it’s just natural I find a common motivation in the community. In the group, I learn how to approach in-person interaction while putting science and communication in perspective. While I have the opportunity to serve, leadership positions teach me community value and vision. These outside of lab work feel like distractions but in reality, this cultural exposure is a two-way nurturing. Gradually, the experiences gain my familiarity and confidence to comfortably show up.
Coach
The last but not the least factor for boosting my English is to work with a language therapist.
As I acquired more conversational and professional fluency, surprisingly I found that I still had to repeat myself. What I didn’t realize then, and perhaps for my entire learning experience, was my incorrect pronunciation. In particular, I had several hurdles to properly pronounce vowels, which stemmed from a deeper reason.
As some of the English pronunciation doesn’t exist in Chinese, it’s naturally simply to replace it with a sound that I’m familiar with, which changes the meaning.
In my 4th year of PhD, I signed up paying a 1:1 program to help fix my spoken language, and I couldn’t be happier with this investment. My therapist worked at Speech and Hearing Sciences and she had tons of materials and methods to walk me through the subtle difference in English sounds. The bespoke program unleashed my capability. I started to pay close attention to all the conversations happening around me – in a podcast, or the discussions on science outreach.
Invest in yourself is always the most powerful way to build a better life.
Like any habit you want to build, improving language skills is constantly evolving and requiring patience. This post is to share my not-done-yet journey of improvement, with the three main changes I have tried and worked. I hope this will inspire you to find your ways of building speaking confidence as an English second language learner.