Learning to Speak a Foreign Language Is Not That Hard

Yesterday afternoon, in the hallway I came across Richard, an exchange student from Germany who is studying in Class 220. Although he is not a student in my class, we know each other due to a small talk we had last semester. Caring about how he had been doing, I stopped him and struck up a conversation.

At first, we talked in English. A few minutes later, remembering his purpose to come to Taiwan, I switched the language to Mandarin. Much to my surprise, he spoke very fluent Mandarin. Out of curiosity, I asked if he had learned any Mandarin before he came to Taiwan. His answer was "No."

It's really amazing that he can speak Mandarin so well in less than a year. I've always been wondering why many of our students, after 4 or 5 years of learning, are still afraid to speak English. Of course, lack of an English-speaking environment is one of the reasons. However, I've had quite a few students who speak English very fluently. Motivation, I believe, is what makes the difference.