Avoid These 3 Mistakes to Become Fluent

If someone speaks a little bit of German and gets complimented or Japanese,

they're very proud of themselves that they were able to say anything at all

in those languages that they've learned.

Whereas with English, that's not good enough.

With English, there's a feeling that I have to be almost like a native speaker.

Hi, Jennifer.

Hi, Steve.

Thanks so much for having me.

Thank you.

No, I'm looking forward to talking to you.

You do very important work.

You teach English and in particular with English, you often hear about

people who are afraid to speak or think they don't speak very well.

And yet these are people who have spent years and years.

And so I ask myself, there's more resources available for learning

English than any other language.

So why is it that these people still feel not satisfied with their

level in English, in your opinion?

That's a great question.

And a lot of it, I think, comes down to their expectation.

They have this expectation that they're going to be able to communicate

the same way as a native speaker.

My students always compare...

The way they speak in English to the way I speak in English they are upset

because our their accent isn't the exact same as mine or their vocabulary isn't

Advanced as mine and obviously it's just not a fair comparison And also I

find that the students learning English a lot of them that I have they've been

learning English their entire lives but throughout their lives learning English,

they've been in these environments where they're constantly assessed.

They're constantly assessed with language exams.

They're constantly told they're making mistakes and they've developed this, this

fear of using their English or they expect perfection because of how often they're

assessed and then they don't realize when they get into the professional

world, the working world, or even social environment that the language is not so

rigid and there's a lot more flexibility with the language in the real world.

I think you raised a few very good points there.

First of all, it seems that people have higher expectations of

themselves when it comes to English than they do for other languages.

So if someone speaks a little bit of German and gets complimented or Japanese,

uh, they're very proud of themselves that they were able to say anything at all

in those languages that they've learned.

Whereas with English, that's not good enough.

With English, there's a feeling that I have to be.

Almost like a native speaker and of course, that's simply not possible.

That's so true and also I find that my students, they also compare how they

speak in English to how they speak in their own native language, which also is

not a fair comparison obviously and this creates a lot of anxiety in them because

they think about how they would answer a question in their native language and then

when they go to answer that question in English, They struggle a little bit more.

The words don't flow as easily.

And they see this as a huge problem and they see this as, Well, I'm not fluent.

I'll never progress.

My English is terrible.

But, of course, they can't compare it to a native speaker.

And they can't compare it to how they speak in their own language.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, when you consider how much we have read and how much we have listened

to our native language, so the brain has so much experience with the language.

So that's, again, why I emphasize input.

You can't get to that level of input experience with the language,

but the more you invest in getting exposure to the language.

The, the more weapons you will have when you go to speak, have you had success

stories where people have come to you and, and obviously were struggling and were you

able to find ways to help them improve?

Yes, thankfully I have had success with many students.

So first I had to think about all the mistakes that students were

making and what was really preventing them from reaching their goal.

Again, their goal is just communicating in English.

I realized that there were really two things we needed to do.

We had to fix their mindset because they had to get over that.

fear of making mistakes, that fear of being judged, how critical they are

of themselves when they're speaking.

So addressing those and just helping them relax and have fun speaking and just see

it in a different way really helped them to progress with their speaking skills.

And for the more technical language skills, vocabulary, grammar

expressions, it was by helping them.

Get content, get input that they really enjoyed.

So for my students, I help them learn with TV shows, YouTube videos, movies,

newspaper articles, short stories.

And they enjoy learning with this content.

And it's natural content.

It teaches you how to use the language in the real world.

There again, I think two important points that you made.

The greater the variety of input, the more comfortable you're

going to be in the language.

But, uh, you know, more than anything else, relax and enjoy the process.

So I will leave a link to your YouTube channel in the description box.

Tell us again where people can find you.

Well, if you're learning English as a second language, then you can find

me on YouTube at jforestenglish.

Well, I encourage people to go look for you and to enjoy the process.

Thank you very much, Jennifer.

I enjoyed this discussion very much.

Thank you so much, Steve.

It's been a pleasure.