Speaking Struggles: Tackling Confidence and Motivation in Your Language Alter Ego
Your personality is one of the key-points when it comes to communication: you express your opinions, thoughts, ideas, use specific structures of sentences and various stylistic devices in order to convey the message clearly. Because of it, the speech of each person is rather unique and inimitable.
Your identity shows off when you talk to someone in a foreign language. However, our personal impression of the image that we portray to others and perception of people who see us and listen to our speeches may be quite opposite.
Our language alter ego can be regarded as a mixture of perspectives. On the one hand, we analyse our own behaviour and language that we use, trying to match high expectations that we have for ourselves to reality. On the other hand, people around us usually do not have any kind of prejudice or assumptions about our knowledge and do not really want to judge anybody.
A hypothesis that people see you in a negative way has a devastating impact on your confidence and motivation to learn and to speak a foreign language. Here are some strategies that will change your way of thinking about your ‘foreign’ language personality:
Judgment is an exception, not a rule. Have you ever felt disguised when somebody mispronounced a word or used a wrong grammar construction while speaking? We all tend to make mistakes, even in our mother tongue, so nobody expects you to be flawless all the time. After all, most people are willing to negotiate meaning and understand your message as precisely to the original thought as possible. Judgment is a sign of problems with confidence or even envy: not everyone is able to learn a foreign language and it takes courage to use it in front of others.
Find balance between your expectations and reality. Learning a new language is always difficult to a certain extent. It takes a lot of time and investment to master the language and be able to speak it on a decent level. It is a great idea to set a specific goal that can motivate your development (e.g. to reach C1 level in English, to be able to make perfect presentations in a foreign language, to conduct successful negotiations in English, etc.), however your personal achievements have nothing to do with the impression you make with your ability to communicate.
In most cases people will be highly impressed with the fact that you can explain various concepts while being a non-native speaker. There is no need to be hard on yourself and reject opportunities to speak your target language or to use it for business purposes just because your current level and knowledge do not match your expectations.
3 - Cognitive dissonance is normal. When you learn a foreign language, your identity may change considerably as you are expected to learn how to speak, read and write from scratch. Moreover, you need to train your cultural intelligence and apply it for communication.
Sometimes it might be difficult to switch between your image of a successful person, an expert with experience in the specific field, a specialist who can explain any professional concept and complete various complicated tasks to someone who struggles with simple sentences and pronunciation. Let these two sides of you coexist, try to reconcile them, otherwise you may experience lack of motivation and feel notably uncomfortable when trying to speak foreign language, especially in the work field.
Use this difference as your source of motivation. The more effort you put into studying the language, its culture and connecting your soft skills with your new language personality, the smaller the gap between you in your native language and you in the target one will become.
4 - Forget the shame, focus on your growth. Mistakes are inevitable. Miscommunication will arise from time to time, making you question everything that you know about the language you study. You will probably never be ‘perfect’ enough in the language you study. That is why the best way you can support yourself while passing this uneasy way of learning and speaking a new language is to always find something positive in every attempt you make. Negotiations, presentations, conversations – everything contributes to your language improvement and after each of them you will become better than before.
Conclusion
Remember that your language alter ego is a part of your personality and, as well as your identity in general, it is strongly influenced by your own thoughts, both positive and negative. Do not limit your opportunities to use English for business communication or international interaction just because of fears to make mistakes or look unpresentable.
