shyness

I've decided to write my thoughts in English when I don't feel motivated to learn English for exams. I guess it would be better for me to spend time getting used to the form of the exam and learning time management or something but I guess at least, it would be helpful for me to be exposed to English.

Today I joined a class where study abroad students from over the world and Japanese students will do some group projects together.

And this class started just today, so today's class was kind of the introduction where we introduced and got to know each others.

What I was a bit suprized was there were more study abroad students in the class from European countries and US than I expected. The reason I was suprised is this class is for students who have kind of high level of Japanese skills, so I'd thought that there would be more Asian students than Eouropean students and students from some English speaking countries. This is because Asian languages are more similar to Japanese than English and some European languages, so students from Asian countries would be majority of the class cuz it would be relatively easy for them to aquire Japanese.

Anyway, I have something I've noticed from this class, which is my way of speaking English is so cold that someone would feel I do not like talking and intracting with others.

I noticed this from study abroad students speaking Japanese to me. Students that I've met today were suprisingly great at Japanese. They almost understood what I said and were able to express what they want to say in Japanese. But some students with high level of Japanese spoke to me quite coldly. They didn't try to eye contact and to smile and to keep a conversation going during the conversation. Interestingly, the more fluent at Japanese students are, the colder their Japanese sounds.

But I also do that when I speak English. It's probably because I just feel afraid of rejection and judgement, so it's understandable that they behave in that way.

But today, it took time for me to realise they are just nervous. This is because they spoke Japanese incredibly fluently, so I thought they were comfortable speaking Japanese.
I even thought that they didn't want to talk with me before realising they were just nervous like me when I talk with someone from English speaking countries when they were speaking Japanese with no smile and no eye contact.

I felt all the more this way because there were students who were also fluent at Japanese and spoke friendly to me.

From this experience, I thought no matter how their English incredible are, it doesn't mean it make someone want to be their friends. I guess especially people with their language skills reaching to a comparatively high level tend to think that high level language skill is all about in
making friends or getting close to others.

What I found today was it's more important to engage in conversation as much as possible and try to be frendly with eye-contact and smile! Because I felt I wanted to talke more with students who are more amiable and talked to me willingly even if their language skills are not that good.

It's easier said than done to do it if we have a solid idea like high level of language skill would solve any problems in intractions but at least, it would make my mind easy to intract with others in English by keeping that in my mind.