I remembered my first day to came to elementary school in New York (我在这里随便讲了一个美国的学校，可实际上你可以说新东方阿，什么都行，国外的更好). My first eye catching moment was that many students were not Chinese. They were communicating with each other mainly in English and sometimes in other languages. I was very scared to stay there and make myself through. However, one of the Chinese students there invited me to sit beside him and we had a great opportunity to talk with each other. He told me that most students here were from second semester or the third semester, and that is also the reason why they speak English so well. Speaking skill is one of the most important English skill that requires practice, knowledge and confidence.

Practice is such an important thing to do because a good oral skill is developed through talking with English speaking people. In addition, it is even better to hang out with these English speaking friends, and it gives us chance to talk to people in English more frequently. Even though at the beginning, my English was not as great as them, by listening to their talking, I can learn some phrases that are most frequently used and use them as my own. I felt quite amazing after hearing his word. I started to talk with classmates all around me. Day after day, I became more and more familiar with school terminologies, such as assignments, chapters, notes. I felt proud of myself.

Knowledge is another important thing. After a few months, I was able to express myself clearly for any school assignments, but I felt the need to get more into the English culture. Beside the school work, to learn the way of English speaking like western people do is still a lot of work. I asked my teacher how to develop my speaking skill for general topics other than just school works. She said to me that I need to memorize phrases from the book on a regular basis. The purpose is to get rid of my Chinese way of thinking and transfer my knowledge into English logic. Then I started to give myself assignments, which is to memorize 1 phrase per day, practice them, and speak to my classmates. After a few months, I have memorized over a hundred phrases from conversations written on the book. My classmates sometimes were very surprised to hear my speaking in such a perfect western style. I was very glad to be complimented.

By the end of the term, each student is required to present a lecture in front of the class, and that is where I realized the third important element of English speaking, confidence. It takes courage to stand in front of many good English speaking people and speak English to them. Even though my oral skill has improved a lot after the whole semester, I still feel the pressure of speaking them out loudly to all the students. My teacher told me that most English students here were so nervous at beginning, and they messed up with their presentation because of this effect. However, I need to be confident with myself. I must keep telling myself that I am the best in the class and I speak well influenced English. Forgetting about all the competitor sitting there and listening, I am so confident to stand up and give my lecture. I did quite well. It is not that difficult as I thought, and I take the lecture more and more like a free speech. After my presentation has finished, I hear the applause, I felt so grateful to improve my English speaking skill to this far and all the encouragement from this English speaking environment.

According to my experience, speaking skill takes time to develop into more sophisticated level. As you practice more and more, until you are able to communicate with English speakers around you, you will feel completely free from fear to speak.