Learning Formal and Informal Language

499 Words2 Pages
We all are quite familiar with language acquisition through the process of formal training where students spend years in classes learning the language. However still many students find it difficult especially when it comes to oral performance. Here my intention is not to point out that formal training is not helpful, instead the issue with formal training is that it lacks some of the ingredients in the training which results in students non -performance in public speaking and presentations. In my own case, I am coming from a country where English medium instructions are very much focused at schools in major cities. At schools all the core subjects were taught in English however not much emphasis was given to English language itself. I spent 16 years learning English language from Primary to high school. The formal training of English language at schools is very much focused on writing & reading and less focus on public speaking. After my schooling I entered into Law College where I had to do lots of public speaking. I used to quite panic when I had to do public speaking in front of professor and other students. I was quite nervous about my pronunciation skills and the way of delivery of speech. It was totally a new experience for me for which I was not completely ready yet. At schools it was only writing and reading of what was printed in textbooks. There was not much opportunity to interact with fellow students during break hours. I identified one of my prime weakness in public speaking at college was confidence level. Therefore I decided to work on improving the confidence level. In order to improve confidence level, it is quite necessary that we need to adopt some of the informal method of training. I started mingling with friends during break hours and improved my communication skills by talking to everybody. This greatly helped me in shaping up.
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