hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
today I have one of my former students with me and we are going to talk about
how he improved his English so hi Stefano how are you hi Stefanie I'm
very well great good to hear that I think before we even begin this
interview we have to tell everybody that I've been pronouncing your name wrong I
I guess like ever since we met and you introduced yourself because you're from
Italy and how do you say your name in Italian I say my name
Stefano you say Stefano right? yes and to me to me in
English like that just sounded so strange I was like that doesn't sound
like an English name I needed to make it more comfortable for me so I was like
well my name is Stefanie yours is Stefano so I was like what if I call you
Stefan-o how does that sound and you're like sure call me Stefan-o and later we
learned that your name is pronounced in English Stefano like that right yes yes
anyways I just thought I would give that introduction because if someone watches
this video and sees me saying Stefano they're gonna be like whoa that's not
how you say it and we just have to explain that it's something between us
right yes yes cool okay so why don't you go ahead and just tell everybody how we
met yes we met one year ago I was on
Facebook and I get a message pop up the English coach page was making a live video
and I didn't have some something to do and I start to watch your video and I
found interesting the project that you proposed and I have subscribed at your
English full time Academy in one minute after I started to watch your video so and in this
way started my path to improving my English videos yes fantastic and that's
exactly what we're gonna talk about so when you joined
why did you join like you were struggling with your English
you wanted to improve what was your motivation for joining I wanted to improve
because I have started English in the high school and but I have
studied English in the traditional way studying grammar making exercise but in
five years I didn't had the opportunity to speak English after I work in the
I.T. I'm IT consultant freelance and I have
read a lot of technical documentation in English and so I I feel that the
probably I have continued my study of English without practicing it so one
year ago I started to make some one to one lesson on internet and I was just
for challenging my English skills and I feel that I wasn't which a level of
English that I like so I will to continue my improving and I have found
just as I said your project yeah so I think that's really
interesting what you said because you studied English for five years before
ever working with me and you didn't get to the level that you wanted I think a
lot of people are gonna relate to that because I hear stories like this every
single day people study English for decades not even 5 years some people
study English for decades and they still don't reach a level that they're happy
with and then on top of that you even did private lessons with a private
teacher and you still felt like oh this isn't really helping me so that's
incredibly interesting because those are all things that a lot of people think
are the answer basically right they think that if they learn English through
the traditional system that they will get fluent they think that if they do
private lessons that they will get fluent or confident I totally understand
that because as a language learner myself with Spanish I used to believe
those things too and then I learned that that doesn't always work at least not
for everybody so what kind of activities do you remember doing in our group that
maybe you felt scared to do but you did them anyways do you remember any
interesting activities I had you guys do probably the first activity that I was
scared for was the like make a live video in
English and I remember the first time I made this live video but after made it I
realized that it was a way to go out from my comfort zone and understand
better what was my English level and then understand also my improvement on
the way so it was very useful for me yeah and we did lots of activities like
that I had you guys do lots of live videos I had you guys do group
discussions with each other and I think it's really important for people who
learn to understand learning process and how to learn better so this is a
strategy that you can use first of all if you are in the position of here here
you are as a learner and here the teacher is it's really hard to build
confidence because there's always somebody that's like above you there's
always somebody else but if you are in the position of a leader and you are
sharing your knowledge with other people because I had you guys make these live
videos to share experiences to share your knowledge your areas of expertise
etc if you're in that position all of a sudden it's you have like a lot more
responsibility on your shoulders and you're more focused you take it more
seriously and it helps you improve even faster and build your confidence because
now you're like oh my gosh this is so scary and that is where we have our
biggest improvements when we go outside of our comfort zone and I watched you
and several other students do these activities and again have these amazing
transformations right before my eyes and the incredible thing is that there was
no English learning at all inside of this community you guys were all people
that understood the language like you said you use it every day for your job
and your field everything that you you study and do so I wasn't even teaching
you grammar or vocabulary or anything I was just saying okay create like create
this video do this do this live discussion and you guys had to pull from
your knowledge and speak with each other so I think that is really really awesome
and I want to ask you now what did you find most difficult about improving your
English probably the first time the pronunciation I feel
that also now I'm not I don't have a good pronunciation but the first time
I was struggling with this and sometimes with the vocabulary I miss
some words sometimes to express myself these was the two area that I had the
most difficult at the start and but probably is I am a little bit more
confident in speaking English I could say that during at the activity I have
made inside the community speaking English was not the first focus but was
using English to communicate to each other and then we speak about our skill
and our college and this's helped me to don't worry about my English don't
worry about my mistakes and magically my English comes better day by day right
that's how it feels it feels like magic exactly and this is why when students
ask me like oh correct my mistakes or do this I usually don't because if you're
focused on your mistakes you're not focused on communication and it's okay
to make mistakes in communication and as we communicate more we tend to
self-correct you know you hear something and you go oh I realize I've been saying
this wrong and then you make that correction so it's really interesting to
me because what before you joined the community you said you understood
English but you never really spoke it and now you speak English with other
people you go to conferences in English you have business discussions in English
and when people watch this video they're gonna hear you have an accent you mess
up with your grammar your English isn't perfect but like it doesn't matter right
yes yes I agree with you I never realized that also that sometimes I'm
speaking Italian with other people that don't speak Italian as primary language
and also I don't focus about the mistake in Italian so I suppose that
also an English speaker don't don't worry about my mistake but he'll
focus to understand me and if I make some mistakes probably you will ask
me to repeat the my my expression yeah exactly everyone is so focused on
understanding each other that they're not sitting there thinking oh my gosh
what bad grammar what bad pronunciation they're just like wait what did you say
yes exactly so okay you met some really awesome people in this community too and
I mean I did we all did and you actually came away with real friendships and
you've met some of these people in real life so I want to talk about that for a
second especially because everybody in the community was a non-native English
speaker and I hear people all the time saying oh my gosh I need to practice
with native speakers in order to improve my English and I offer a course now that
shows people how to do that and they have lots of success with it and they
love it but in the beginning I started by creating this community where you
guys could practice with each other because I really wanted to prove to
everybody and to myself and you guys that you can improve your language
skills even if you are practicing with non-native English speakers so what was
that experience like to chat with people and do Skype calls and other things with
other English learners I think that it doesn't matter because is for me is the
opportunity to practice my English and communicate with my English and improve
my English if I speak with a native a native speaker it doesn't matter for me I
need to speak English and I need to communicate with the person that is in
front of me so I it doesn't matter if it is English or from another countries yeah
absolutely I agree with you and this is what people think they think that if
they practice with the non-native English speaker that somehow that other
person's language skills are gonna rub off on them and make their speaking
ability worse or make their comprehension or listening ability worse
or vocabulary worse right I totally understand that because that's how I
used to think I don't know about you but that's how I used to think and then in
Argentina I met this girl who is from France and she spoke French and Spanish
and I spoke English and Spanish so the only language we could
communicate in was Spanish and we were both messing up and you know because
this was back a lot long time ago before I had the fluency that I am now but it
was so nice to practice with somebody else who also made mistakes and we
didn't care we would just communicate and tell stories it was great
anyhow do you still keep in touch with the people that you met in our community
yes I keep in touch with Renee Fabrizio Erika with you yeah I had the
opportunity to meet someone of you like Fabrizio Fabrizio is now in in Italy and I
had the opportunity to meet to meet him and I realized that on the Internet we
make relationship that are true relationship also if we get in touch
through our webcam or a microphone but at the end we had the opportunity to
know other people so yeah I think that was probably like one of the highlights
of the entire program is that I was able to bring people together from all over
the world you guys formed relationships and ended
up meeting in real life so the people watching this video aren't going to know
this so I'll just tell them but you and I met in real life we met in Italy with
my husband because my husband and I were travelling there and you took us to this
fantastic restaurant I still remember the pasta it was amazing and we went
with your wife and Fabrizio one the other students that you said you
met in Italy was also there and so we my husband and I picked him up where he was
staying we all drove together to your house and
we all met up and it was so awesome and I remember what I have said to you you
are making a great project and I like the way you understand how to speak
English and and I was a result of your project it was a part of this magic
of this magic of my English improving so yeah well honestly like that's all I
want to see like I want to see people go from being where they are struggling
with English struggling with confidence to owning it and to just
basically saying you know what I understand English therefore I can speak
English I can communicate and then just get better along the way right just
you're gonna keep improving everyone's gonna keep improving and we can use this
language as a tool to get new opportunities in life create new
relationships and I love what you said about forming relationships online right
and that can be that can form real relationships yes yes they are real they are and
you know while we're on this topic I should just mention that Erika and Rene
who were also from the community they met up in New York when Rene went over
there to a conference and to travel and they surprised me they posted a picture
in our group and they're just like hey we're hanging out and I'm just like this
is incredible because I think a lot of people don't realize how powerful the
internet is like it connects you to real people like real people are using the
internet a lot of people I think are skeptical about being online using the
internet because we're always afraid like afraid of strangers afraid of bad
things happening but what we don't realize is that there are really great
people on the internet too that we can connect with form relationships with and
then visit in real life just like we all visited each other I should say one
thing this today during my lunch with my son I have said that is evening
now in Italy is evening and I will have an interview with you and my son told me but
Stefanie are coming here to make the interview with you no, I don't think it's trough webcam
but for him probably he didn't understand yes because wait how old is he I I met your kids too
how old is your son six years oh yeah so when you said you're doing an
interview with me and he knows me because he met me then he was probably
like wait is she coming over?
yes yes yeah that's so awesome and you know what okay I have to tell you this
it really like touched my heart something that you said when I was over
there remember we put one of my YouTube videos on your TV and I took a picture
with it and I was like in the video and next to your TV because you said SteFanie
I watch all your videos on this TV and my whole family knows you it's like
you're part of the family and like that just oh my gosh like it meant so much to
me to just real I guess to realize that what I'm doing is having an impact it's
changing lives because that's all I wanted to do when I got started so just
to wrap it up I have one more question for you if you could give one piece of
advice to other English learners what would you tell them don't worry about
the English this is the first thing that I realized start to speak English try to
speak English try to get to reach the opportunity to speak English as you have
said the Internet give the opportunity to build relationship and english is
the language to communicate with people from all around the world so it was easy
another thing tried to find the opportunity to practice practice English
during the day I have switch from Italian to English my mobile phone and I
use whatsapp or a messenger to make voice clip make also if I don't have someone
that are listening me in real time making a voice clip give me the
opportunity to practice my English and not worry about grammar grammar is
important I don't want to say that is not important but is a part of the
learning of a language that probably is not the first part needed to use our
language also with Italian but everyone we start to speak our language without
knowing grammar so we don't need to study
English we need to practice English and then everyone will reach a level that is
good for him so exactly and that's exactly what we mentioned in the
beginning of this call before I started recording that you're pretty much at a
level right now where you're comfortable you're like yeah I know I could improve
I could have perfect grammar and improve my pronunciation but you've learned what
you need to know for where you're at in life right now your English serves you
and at the end of the day that's what's important this language is a tool you
don't have to speak it perfectly you don't have to have perfect grammar you
don't have to have perfect pronunciation you need to be at the level that is
appropriate and convenient for you and once you get to that level just maintain
it right you just maintain it and use your English and let it serve you yes
yes awesome well thank you so much Stefano for doing this interview with me
and I look forward to staying in touch and of course knowing more about what
you're up to and you know how things are going well Stefanie thank you and "good luck for the future"
oh man I love Italian I know that you like Italian as you like Spanish so this is a message for you and for all
your students yes "thank you, thank you" all right thank you take care bye bye
bye bye