“Speaking Out Your Views,” Ziyi Wang (2012) — Inquiry 1

Writer’s Reflection

“Speaking Out Your Views” is an impressive experience of my own. It aims at narrating a process of change from a tractable student, who just followed the teacher’s thinking without her own creative idea, to a questioning and blooming girl, who is never shy or nervous any more to speak out her own ideas when all the students’ and teacher’s eyes are on her. After organizing my structure, it was easy to set up a thesis. In this essay, I aimed at describing the change of my performance in class and introducing what I benefited from speaking out my views. So what I needed to mention in my thesis was what I had obtained after speaking out my views. However, expanding my content was most challenging. To narrate my previous performance, I can hardly give a wealth of information. I tried to narrate what I usually do in class when in China in detail, but it was too simple. So I thought about the situation when I was a new soul in Miami. My performance in that period was also the same as in China; I was too shy to speak out and I was afraid to say a wrong sentence as well. Then, I added my performance in American class. That made my content more meaningful. In addition, I described my psychological activity a lot to make my experience vivid. Then, my content became abundant.

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Admittedly, getting academic education in the United States is an amazing thing, and I have benefited from it a lot. Recalling what is my biggest advancement during studying abroad, speaking out my views in the class has been a big step that I have improved in my study. It does not only make me more thoughtful and creative, but also braver and confident. I will hold on to this helpful quality in the future, in my study and in my work as well.

While studying in China, I was a tractable student. I kept quiet in the class, focused on what teachers said, noted what teachers mentioned, and asked questions after class. This characteristic, it seems, most students should have. We always followed our teachers’ thinking and teaching during the whole class. I regarded his ideas as the perfect ideas that my inferior idea could never catch up to. So I stopped thinking and just transferred the teacher’s ideas to mine. I was used to this mode, from when I came to primary school until I began to study in the United States.

However, the experience of studying in America seems different from that in China. I still remember how active the first class was in America. Most of the native students spoke out their views freely. When I was thinking about the question, “Do you agree the government should pay for citizens’ health care”, some ideas like “I do not think so, because that will cost them a large amount of money”, “Yes, they should, because citizens have the right to benefit from them” were all around me. Of course, I had my opinion; however, I was too shy and nervous to speak out. My heart beat fast. I organized my ideas and practiced the sentences again and again to make sure it would be correct when I spoke out. Actually, there was not enough time to discuss more. How I regretted having missed this opportunity. I believed my opinion was outstanding enough, and I really wanted to speak out.

Nevertheless, my timid behavior motivated me. I was glad to absorb other students’ good ideas, and I also wanted to speak out my creative views. After that experience, I did my effort to try speaking out. When chatting with my friends, I became talkative instead of just listening. Sometimes, I even debated with others even though I agreed with them, aiming at giving myself more ideas and not just following what others thought about. Moreover, I prepared a lesson, imagining what questions the teacher would ask, and then I practiced speaking out my opinion, pretending I was in class with a teacher and all students. Unknowingly, there was no fear in my heart any more while I wanted to speak out what I thought.

After I overcame the fear, I was willing to share my views in class. And I always looked forward to the teacher asking us so that I can speak freely. I enjoyed this process and the more I spoke the more excited I was. Imagining that when you speak out in class, everyone focuses on you and follows what you are talking about. And it even does make sense, what a wonderful thing! What’s more, I did not care if others disagreed with me or how absurd my ideas were. I became braver and more confident to speak out my views when facing the questions because I believed each idea could be right, as long as I made it sound reasonable.

Now, I have been a student of Miami University in Oxford for half a year. Recalling what I have improved during the study here, there is no doubt that I am not shy or nervous to speak out any more if I have creative ideas in class. I believe this is a great start, not only for my better study at the present stage, but also it is a solid foundation for my future work.