Butchart Gardens

 

After our four day camping trip in Tofino, we went drove back to Victoria. It was a beautiful drive back and we stopped at Cathedral Grove to see the large Douglas Fir trees. Then, a couple of days later, when we went to Butchart Garden, we could also see large Douglas Fir there as well. Butchart Garden is beautiful.  There are a wide variety flower areas like the Japanese Garden, Sunken Garden, Rose Garden and Italian Garden.

However, we also had a learning task at Butchart Garden, we needed to initiate conversations with strangers, interview them and either audio or video record the interviews. This was very challenging, but we had worked on conversational English in class, and we had also been gradually interacting more and more with Canadians and strangers, so our confidence level was increasing.

At the very beginning of this task, I was quite scared, because for the first time, I was forced to interact before this I was able to do so when and where I wanted. I also had to videotape myself interacting and this made me more anxious.

I asked someone to be interviewed by me, and even though they were very nice, I was afraid that I had made a lot of grammar mistakes and that they didn’t understand what I asked them. This made me very embarrassed 😳😳😳.

However, the more interviews I did, the more relaxed I became, and I found out that just like when I was interacting before, I started forgetting about my grammar and instead focused more on what others were saying and responding to their answers.

Until finally I forgot about worrying about my speech at all, and I started to feel like it was fun to try and start a conversation with someone and find out more about them.  I learned to say what I wanted to say without thinking about my errors, and I was delighted that almost everyone understood my questions and could answer them, and often, I could respond to their answers as well.  It made me understand that if I want to improve my English, I must speak and say what I want to say.😗😗 If I keep in silence, no one can help me even if they are patient, understanding, and kind, and want to help me.