It's officially happening: I've booked flights to Berlin. So yes, that also means that I managed to keep at least one of the goals I set last week. As for the other one, I actually didn't do that badly either. I was meant to be doing half an hour of "German related activities" each day. I did say reading my (English) book about Berlin counted, so with that – and all the DuoLingo I've been playing – I've pulled it off.
I didn't, however, manage to get my homework done any earlier than the day of class. If I think about it, though, I've always been like this, even when I was at school. I have memories of always doing some piece of homework in the morning, either on the school bus or before the teacher came to take the register. Retrospectively, I should've seen the habit of working right up to deadline as a precursor to a career in journalism.
This week we shifted gears in class. There was a lot more time given to free speech. By which I mean, instead of going round the class asking each one of us a question, our teacher attempted to engage us in more of a group discussion. Something that kind of resembled a normal conversation.
And I really struggled.
I noticed that one of my fellow classmates was very good at sticking to German the whole time. If he didn't know the right word or way of saying something, he found a way to circumvent it. In German.
I couldn't, though. I kept saying, in English, "How do I say...?"
The whole thing was very frustrating. Especially because as someone who's never short of something to say, I was rendered taciturn.
But, when I think back to my schooldays, I often wouldn't speak up in class unless I was 100% sure of what I wanted to say. And not just in language classes. I'd rather keep quiet in maths than make a guess at the potentially wrong answer.
So this week, I make a plea for any suggestions about how to overcome my confidence issues. Please, don't be shy.
Anna Codrea-Rado edits a series about language learning. She is blogging about her experience learning German.
