How Full Immersion Made Me Lose Confidence In My Chinese

Stepping off the plane to Beijing is a moment I'll never forget. It was summer 2009, and I landed a study abroad opportunity in China to live and learn there for a year. My Chinese teacher had high political clout in Beijing Language and Culture University, so he made sure we settled in before setting off on our adventure.

My teacher, Dr. Wang, waited for everyone to get off the plane. I was one of the first people to land, so we had to wait for a few more people. I must've been running on adrenaline because he kept telling me, "An Qi, relax!"

After waiting on the rest of my classmates, we went to our new dormitories. And we spent the next two weeks seeing all of the major sites of Beijing and having classes in both English and Chinese!

And then the teacher went back to the States, and we signed up for classes.

Before we went to class, we had to test our language skills. My reading and writing were fine at the time, but I didn't have many opportunities to speak outside of the classroom. I didn't know the Chinese community at my college well. My hometown is your ignorant white person stereotype, right down to thinking English is the official language of the United States. So I ended up one level lower than most of my classmates.

And then the first day of the class hit. The teacher seemed nice. He had a permanent smile on his face. He was shorter than me with a pair of glasses. He talked slowly, introducing himself and talking about what we'd learn in class. That was the last day I understood him for the rest of the month.

Nothing like total immersion to destroy whatever confidence you had left in the language

I felt like the dumbest person in the room every morning. Every morning, I took notes but didn't understand what the hell I wrote. Sometimes, the teacher asked me a question, and I'd repeat it back slowly to process. Then, some of the other Americans in the class would get frustrated and translate for me.

It wasn't any better out of class either. It's not that I didn't understand. Instead, I needed extra time to process what people said to me. Some of the locals didn't give me enough time to think before translating to me.

I'm the reason the rest of the class found out our Chinese teacher could speak Chinese. Sometimes, I'd revert to English, and he's laugh and reply in English.

I didn't want to be that ex-pat who orders the English menu, but I kept getting weird food. Two years of Chinese, and people reacted as I'd never spoken a word of Chinese in my life. I often wondered how many people thought I lied about my skills.

A month later, everything clicked.

One day, I got up and went to class, and everything clicked. I understood the teacher, my classmates, and the notes I took. I looked over old notes and realized I knew it!

I decided I needed to show the teacher and the rest of the class I wasn't another American dumbass. So I participated in every class and waited until the perfect time to show I did learn something this year!

The opportunity finally showed up in the form of a homework assignment. Our teacher gave us words a new set of vocabulary words. All he said was to make sentences out of these words. He didn't say they couldn't be slightly inappropriate. And anyone who's studied another language knows that humor is the best way to show you understand a language.

The day the teacher handed us back our homework, he looked at me, laughed, and said, "An Qi, you have some interesting sentences."

"Can we see your paper?" the two girls behind me asked. Grinning, I handed them my paper. I never heard two girls shriek with laughter so quickly.

And that's how I changed my reputation in Chinese class so fast. From then on, when we had assignments, people looked at my papers for make sure the reading and writing was right.

That time as a student makes me a more compassionate English teacher

Over time, I went back to China to teach English, and I now work for VIPKids back in the U.S. I get the occasional kid that looks like they're struggling. I stay patient with them, and they eventually work out the language for themselves.

That awkward fish out of water moment was the kick in the ass I needed to get better with my Chinese. When I went back to China I became the American everyone looked to so they made sure they understood a sitaution. A little hard work and a weird sense of humor can go a long way in another country.