The journey of overcoming my speech difficulty
Self-awareness our shortcoming may not always be there without anyone pointing it out.
I had speech difficulty since young but I had never realised it until later part of life during teenage years.
Since teachers and friends did not point out that they were unable to understand what I said, there was little awareness of it being a problem with the poor articulation.
Awareness
During my secondary days, I started to be teased by my classmates regularly.
There were these regular kids that would mock and imitate the way I spoke in English.
They would have a good time laughing over it.
This sounded really like a bully case indeed.
This can really hurt the self-esteem of one who had just passed the children stage where there would be no more children’s day.
During those early days, speech therapy was not a common thing to my parents who were the typical Asian Chinese.
The main language of conversation at home was Mandarin resulting lack of practice with the spoken language of English.
Interest
When I was a kid, I loved singing. I wasn’t aware that I was not even singing clearly as well.
Around the age of 16 years old, I accepted Christ and become a Christian.
Due to my strong interest of singing, I wanted to join the choir.
Eventually, I did manage to be accepted. I had a strong desire to overcome this difficulty.
With some determination, I started my journey to overcome this problem.
Overcome
I would make it a point daily to exercise my mouth and move my tongue like stretching, making funny sound etc.
It was more like a warm up since there was no one to help me with my problem.
I did what I felt was logical.
I bought a microphone that can be tuned to one of the channel of a regular radio to project my speech through it so that I can hear myself.
I took special note of how a newscaster reports the news and imitated the fluency as well as articulation with my mouth stretched as wide as possible.
The whole progress was a long journey that I did daily after school during evening time.
Eventually, it took about half a year for me to accomplish my mission of overcoming my speech difficulty especially in spoken English.
Later on, I found out as an adult that I actually had shorter tongue than others.
That could be the main reason why I had speech difficulty.
Without knowing that it was a physical problem, I actually managed to overcome it by the grace of God.
Destiny
There was always a purpose of what happened in your life.
God’s plan may not always be revealed until later part of your life.
In my adulthood, I started working but had quite a number of setbacks.
Eventually when I was at the crossroad of changing job, I decided to apply to become a teacher as I felt it was a meaningful job.
Can you imagine if I did not overcome my speech difficulty, I would never be accepted to become a educator.
There was even a recording oral test and written test.
I have taught more than 18 years now and I am still going strong.
The best part of teaching is how we can change the destiny of each child.
It is really a meaningful job indeed.
Conclusion
Regardless of the circumstances that you may face in life, determination can be the positive factor that changes everything in your life as long as you choose not to give up.
With each step you take to move forward, you have just move a step closer to accomplish your goals in life.
Staying where you are would not take you anywhere except to have complaints and blaming on every other things.
I may not necessary have perfect English as I do catch myself making careless grammatical errors when I read my own articles again.
This does not stop me from writing but writing more would gradually make my writing even better.
Disclaimer: This is my personal reflection and I am not in any position to instruct anyone what they should do. I am not responsible for any action taken as a result of this post. My post can only be a reference for your further research and growth. By reading this post, you acknowledge and accept that. All images and pictures were taken from google images that are free from copyright under labelled for reuse.
Thank you for entering the writing contest again, with an interesting story. Have a pleasant day.
Regards, @averageoutsider
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. The reality is that there are things in our lives that challenge us and not everything is straightforward and simple for everyone. I am moved by your story of perseverance and determination to push through your speech difficulties and be the best you possible. Not only have you succeeded but you are working in a job where your speech is essential. There is so much that can be learned by your positivity and grit.
@bronconfan99 Thank you so much for always being so encouraging. The journey of correcting my speech problem was really not easy especially without encouraging people around then. Hopefully this story will bring inspiration to the readers who need this trigger to overcome certain problem in their lives.
I believed that every human in this world has a purpose of life.. God gave us to make the decision for ourself.
Wonderful motivation tonis all @fun2learn
Si amigo que mal, a mi me pasaba lo mismo y con ayuda de mis padres pude salir de eso gracias a dios ahora puedo habla normal como se debe, y si se como se siente tenias amigos que se burlaban de mi y comenzaban a repetir todo lo que decía, pero en ningún momento me afecto y ahora los que se burlaban de mi son muy buenos amigos míos, Saludos! @fun2learn
Gracias por leer mi artículo. ¡Definitivamente tienes buenos padres que te apoyan para ayudarte! Debe recordar su amabilidad!
Si amigo
My wife had the same difficulty and actually had surgery to fix the tongue. Now she tongues well.
Thank you for sharing this information!
Nice to see you and I Upvoted you :) !
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“Most people would rather eat inside a windowless room in which they have just defecated than eat inside one in which someone else has just farted, even if the room does not have a toilet.” ====> Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thank you!
Probably if they had told you that you had that problem with your tongue much earlier, you would have given up without trying to overcome it. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. I had an almost deaf professor in college, he spoke very strangely because of his condition but that didn't stop him from studying, becoming an engineer, working in a company and also being a teacher.
That could be true. If it is a physical problem, it is quite likely for human tendency to believe that it is quite impossible to have changes to it.
Wonderful motivation tonis all @fun2learn, My younger brother had the same difficulty and actually underwent surgery to fix the language. Which could speak well, and today I am happy to see my brother to speak well, what I have always said that in this life we must always thank God for all the good things he does for every person in this world. Greetings
Thanks for sharing about your brother.
Hello @ fun2learn, in the role of teachers there is always the responsibility to influence the lives of students, this is why it is important to convey the best values, Perseverance is fundamental in life and helps us overcome the obstacles that we face. can present, it is important to embed this concept in our students and children. Thank you for sharing your effort and dedication to overcome your problem, I assure you that it will be of great help to others who take it as an example! Regards!!
@lasocia Thank you for passing by to read and comment on my article!