English

As an adult, I want to show my respect to other people. But I feel incompetent sometimes while speaking in English. It’s like I became a kid again. And I was afraid to make other people uncomfortable because of my poor English. So I sometimes couldn’t say anything back since I moved to Canada.

I have been living in Canada for about 4 years so far. I started to feel a little confident speaking English and working in English with normal situations. Then the Covid-19 pandemic started.

The Covid restrictions often changed and we had to deal with it. I have been still struggling to explain all the changes about Covid restrictions to my customers in a polite way. As I said at the beginning, I want to show respect to people. And I would like to listen and do what they want as much as I can. But we can’t do all the things especially under this circumstance. The times that we have to refuse have increased a lot.

Meanwhile, I learned about communication skills such as diplomatic language in the LINC classes. Diplomatic language is: Avoid using negative adjectives and use qualifiers and hedges, invite agreement by asking a question. I have tried to speak diplomatically since then. I don’t know the reactions of that actually, but I feel different. I feel a little grown up. As an ESL learner, we sometimes can’t afford to think about politeness. I’d like to learn more communication skills. One day, I hope I can talk thoughtfully in English without thinking like speaking the first language.