In this video, I'm going to share with you my six-point checklist for improving your overall
level of English communication skill. Hello, I'm Julian Northbrook from doingenglish.com. Recently,
one of my clients, someone who is already pretty good at English, but who likes the
level of polish that he needs to communicate effectively in his work situations, asked me,
"Julian, how can I raise my overall level of communicative skill in English?" I gave
him my six-point checklist, and now I am giving the same checklist to you.
The first thing is a little obvious, but it is important, quite simply,
improve your overall level of English. Now, I'm going to talk a little bit
more about this in a moment because English itself is not the only skill that you need,
but if you don't have the words and the phrases and expressions, the chunks, the bits of English
that you need to speak well in the situations that you speak English, well, you'd better sit down and
put some time into studying them. Take some time to grow your English, your repertoire of phrases,
expressions, bits of English, the chunks that you need to speak well, and then get out there into
the real world and actually use them. Implement what you've learned to then hard code those bits
of English into long-term memory so it becomes a skill that you can use anytime on demand.
The second of my six points is not applicable to everybody, but it was certainly applicable to my
client, certainly applicable to me, and it may well be applicable to you as well. If you have
mindset problems, attitude problems, problems with your confidence, you're going to need to
sort those out. If you are a shy unconfident person, even in your first language, well,
when you speak English as a second language, that is going to be amplified. Anything which we
do in English is going to be harder because it is our second language. And therefore,
we need more mental resources to be able to speak and use that language efficiently. So
if you're unconfident anyway, that's going to be much, much worse when you're speaking
English and it's going to show, and it's going to drag down your overall level of proficiency,
certainly when it comes to communicating well in the language. Take some time to work on your
confidence, sort out any mindset and attitude issues that you have. Again, this was certainly
a problem for me when I was younger. I have always struggled with social situations.
I have autism spectrum disorder and social situations for me are exhausting at the best of
times. I don't deal well in big groups of people. Chatter is painful to me and I often don't pick up
on social cues that other people take for granted. I often don't get things like sarcasm, humor,
and you get it, social situations were never easy for me. I had to learn how to do it, but when I
was younger, the fact that I couldn't do it well destroyed my confidence. So I had to learn both
of those things. And learn them I did. And now I don't have a problem with them. And by the way,
this is a slight digression, but I believe one of the reasons I am so good at working with people
just like you, people for whom English is a second language, is because I had to learn all these
things myself, even in English, my first language. But the point is, if you have confidence problems,
sort them out now and you will find communicating effectively in English, much, much easier.
Point number three. And this now relates back to the first point, work on your English, yes,
but also work on your skill as a speaker because they're not quite the same thing.
Whether it's conversation or any other kind of speaking situation, giving a presentation,
a speech, public speaking, you get the idea, speaking is actually two skills. First of all,
it's the skill of language. And you need to work on that as the skill of a second
language. And that's what we talked about in the first point, but it's also the skill of
actually doing that thing effectively. We know that these are separate skills because even
native speakers often suck at conversation or public speaking or any kind of speaking. Just
because a language is your first language doesn't mean you know how to open a conversation well,
doesn't mean you know how to grab somebody's attention, speak in a way that is engaging,
interesting, makes people go, "Wow, this person is really cool." Makes them want to listen.
It doesn't mean you are good at telling jokes. It doesn't mean you are able to tell stories
and share anecdotes and speak in a way that gets people really excited about what you're talking
about. You need to learn this in English and as we're going to talk about it in the final point,
it may not be done in the same way as it would be done in your first language. So
it's not necessarily a transferable skill. It might be, but it might not be. If you
want to know more about this particular point, I made a video a while back which is actually
a snippet from my Small Talk Superhero event that you can watch right here.
Number four, expand and deepen your repertoire of topics to talk about. Whether you are talking
about your specific skill, your profession in, say, a presentation, a public speaking situation,
an industry conference, or you are just chatting with people in day-to-day conversation,
good speakers have interesting things to say. And effective communicators have a wide range
of knowledge and topics and content to draw upon in order to make their points effectively. If you
go into a conversation and you've got nothing to say, you've got no content in here, well,
it doesn't matter how good your grammar and your vocabulary is, you're still going to be
boring because you've got nothing to talk about. If you're giving a speech, well,
you're going to need topics, things, stories, anecdotes to use in order to make your points.
And if you are talking about your area of profession, but you don't actually know much
about that topic, which I know is unlikely because if it's your area of profession,
you should be pretty good at it, but you're not going to be able to speak well about it, are you?
Number five, and this is a big important one, one that many people get horribly,
horribly wrong. Learn to use English in a manner that is appropriate to the people you are talking
to. Many people say, "Okay, I've gone past the intermediate level. I am now advanced in English,
therefore, I need to start using advanced English." They'll start to learn all these big,
complicated sounding words, jargon, verbal [inaudible 00:07:15] that mean absolutely
nothing to most people. And then they wonder why people don't understand them. Well, it's because
instead of using the plain, simple, fundamental core vocabulary and expression of the language,
they're trying to sound clever by using this complex shit that really actually isn't
appropriate to the audience they are speaking to. Rather, you should always be thinking about the
person you're talking to. Forget about yourself, think about them. What is going to be the most
appropriate way to communicate the message that I want to communicate to this particular person?
Now big, difficult, complicated words do sometimes have a place in our speaking. For example,
if I'm talking to you about fluency and chunks and how to, well, use chunks to speak fluently,
I'm going to use words just like that, chunk, fluency. If I am talking to, say,
an academic in my field, I'm much more likely to use terms like lexical bundle,
formulaic sequence, native-like processing, native-like selection,
which just means naturalness really for you guys. The point is, you need to learn to tailor your
speaking to the audience so that the way you speak is the most effective way to communicate
for them. And this is a very high-level advanced skill. Being able to put complex ideas into simple
words is not a basic beginner skill in English, it is an advanced skill. I've actually made a video
about just this. So if you want more detail on this particular point, go watch that video here.
Number six, and this is another huge one. Get culture, or rather I should say,
get the culture of the people you are speaking to. Most people think
of culture in a very simplistic way. It gets reduced to a particular country's holidays and
festivals and traditions. And that, to be honest, is only scratching the very,
very surface. Culture is very deep and it's extremely complex, but essentially,
culture is to do with how people behave and think. And we all understand and interact with the world
based on our own way of thinking. When I speak, I speak through my own cultural filter. When you
understand what I say, you understand it based on your own way of thinking, your own culture.
And this is why I can say things meaning one thing, and you understand something completely
different, misunderstandings occur sometimes with very, very negative results. You need
to understand the culture of the people you are talking to. You need to understand how they think,
how they behave so that you can understand how to interpret the meaning of what they are saying,
and so that you can, as we said in number five, appropriately tailor the things that you
are saying to them and their way of thinking. Culture is huge and it is incredibly complex,
but it is well worth taking the time to understand the culture of the people you are talking to.
So there we go, that in a nutshell is my six-point checklist for communicating
better in English. Of course, those aren't the only things that you can do or can focus on to
improve your communicative skill in English, but I believe those are the top six. And if
you just work down that checklist and do eat to the things that I've just said, you will improve
your English communication skills beyond what you ever thought possible. To help you do this,
if you like, head over to doingenglish.com, stick your email address in the box that I provide,
and you can get my free daily emails, which are designed to help you speak better English. Every
day, I send an email, sometimes two, packed with tips, ideas, anecdotes, stories, all
kinds of good stuff to help you speak, as I said, better English. The address is doingenglish.com.
Sign up and I'll see you on the other side. If you've found this video useful,
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give it a thumbs up anyway. Subscribe if you're new to the channel. And this,
ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is me, Julian Northbrook, your beloved, and of course,
humble host signing out from this video. I'll see you in the next one, guys. Bye-bye.