hi there I'm drew badger the world's number one english
fluency guide it is a pleasure
to welcome you to another
advanced listening practice
lesson today in this lesson I
wanted to ask you what is your
problem and the reason i wanted
to talk about this is because I
get lots of questions actually
from other teachers so people
that want to do what I do
especially become English
fluency guys and they're excited
about the idea and how much
different it is an actual
teaching so they want to learn
exactly what they should be
teaching in classes so even just
yesterday I had an email from
someone and they were saying hey
you like I'm about to teach a
group of people
how should I teach them what
should I teach them and the
first thing really kind of the
most important thing I want to
explain to them as well as to
you if you're you know just
someone that's learning language
you're not trying to teach it to
anyone is to think about what's
the actual problem that needs to
be solved
be solved
be solved typically a whatever the
language class is it doesn't
really matter the level foremost
I guess it could be in a
classroom or people sitting down
at a cafe to study or in any
other situation where you're
trying to teach people typically
you have someone that just says
I want to learn and then you
have a teacher that saying well
okay let Mike are you a beginner
or intermediate or advanced or
whatever that level and then
they try to design some kind of
curriculum to fit that students
needs and really what's
happening is that without
getting any real information
from the student the teacher is
just deciding well you should
know this or you should have
this kind of information and we
should be teaching you in a
specific way without actually
doing the most important job of
asking the student what's your
actual problem and this is a
it's the complete opposite way
of doing something the way I do
things as an English fluency
guide and when I'm thinking
about trying to help people
really what I'm asking them is
what's your actual problem with
fluency now people think often
that the real path to fluency is
you just continue to learn more
you continue to drill more
grammar you continue to learn
more vocabulary words maybe
you're watching lots of videos
like this but you don't seem to
get more fluent in the typical
reason why or I'd probably say
the number one reason why in
most cases is that you're not
focusing on the right English
fluency habits now when people
understand this idea of that
there's fluency which is a
collection of habits vs fluency
which is a bunch of knowledge
like you've acquired you've
learned a whole bunch of words
and a whole bunch of grammar and
other things individually it's
different than actually putting
them together to produce correct
speech that i can't speak it's
like too early in the morning
over here but smooth speech
fluent speech and this means
that you can actually speak
without having to think about it
without having to translate in
your head before you speak and
it's just a lot of other things
that come with fluency so it's a
collection of habits rather than
a collection of knowledge
because really the knowledge is
great for when you want to pass
a test but fluency actually
requires you to be able to speak
in the moment so you listen to
something and you can quickly
respond it could be with a joke
or with just a regular response
but you have to be able to do
that quickly and seamlessly and
that's what's going to help you
become a confident speaker so
when people are asking me hey
what should I be teaching as a
why don't know it depends on
what the student is asking for
so a lot of times students don't
even know what their problem is
so if you are trying to be an
English fluency guide or even
you're just thinking about
yourself as a learner you have
to think what's my actual
problem and then you focus on
that thing and then you solve
the problem and then you can
learn to develop each of your 7
english fluency habits in that
way so let's say as an example
if I struggle with i'm able to
understand English speakers
quite well so I don't have a
problem with that so i probably
don't need to spend much time
with listening and if I know a
lot of words I probably don't
need to spend much time trying
to use I don't know a dictionary
or text books or other things
where where
where learning just more information I
have a huge list of words and
vocabulary or expressions so I
don't need to buy any more
phrasebooks or other things like
that i don't need to buy any
more courses that teach me you
know a hundred or two hundred
phrases because i don't really
need to know that information i
need to think about what's my
actual problem and if my actual
problem is that ok I know things
i can understand people my
grammar understanding is ok but
i can't really use it
confidently then maybe grammar
would be the thing to focus on
so it's not about learning what
information when people say like
what should I be learning what's
the most important thing I
should be learning the it's not
about learning information it's
about how do you develop all of
the habits required to become a
confident speaker and so this is
again the same for you as a
personal learner or if you're a
teacher if you're trying to help
other people learn so the first
time if i were to meet a group
of people right now at a cafe or
just an individual student
that's coming to me and saying
can you please help me learn i
would say okay tell me what your
problems are what are the the
actual most difficult things
about fluency for you is it just
shyness or maybe you don't know
that many words and we actually
have to help you develop a
vocabulary of things so there
are lots of different reasons
why you might not speak fluently
but most of those reasons are
not that you don't know enough
words so I want to make sure
that's clear
that's clear most people like if you're
watching this video right now
and you can understand what I'm
saying and you know a bunch of
words but you just can't quite
connect things fluently when you
speak there's a there's like an
actual reason why that's
happening and it has to do with
your personal level for your
your English fluency habits so
maybe you have some of them well
developed and maybe you don't
have others developed at all
so if you're again knowing a lot
of words but you have very
little confidence than the
confidence is the thing
specifically that you need to
work on you need to understand
about being shy typically like
even just to focus on
eliminating shyness right now in
this video you have to think
about number one what what are
the beliefs that you have about
how you speak and who you are so
in my
in my
in my I guess in my own personal life
like I was actually really shy
when I was a kid so I was quite
shy and i would try to pretend
like I wasn't shy and you know I
was kind of the the thing that
people typically do that way you
would try to pretend like you're
not shot but I was actually
quite shy and as I got older
it's kind of difficult to think
about it when you're when you're
pretty young but as I got older
I thought about it and thought
well what do I have really to be
shy about i mean i could make a
mistake or say something wrong
or whatever and this is even
just me and speaking English
someone could get mad at me
because I do something or you
know whatever the reason happens
to be but when you're thinking
about these things you try to
think about what's the actual
conclusion of that so someone
gets mad at me okay like it
am I going to die no I mean is
something really bad going to
happen probably not
and so if you can think about
what's actually the worst that
could happen and you realize
it's probably not that big of a
deal then
deal then
deal then oh ok well let me just try to
actually see if I can develop my
confidence that way so a lot of
that thing a specifically
confidence has to do with the
beliefs that you have about
yourself and how you speak like
many people think oh if I try to
speak with the native speaker
they won't want to speak with me
and again it's true or not true
for you so if you believe it
happens to be true then it will
be true so in my case I i
believe like people are more
than more than not is more than
likely to want to speak with me
like if I'm just talking about
Japanese speakers in my area now
somebody or even you know maybe
quite a few people like I say
hello hello to people and they
don't really do anything
maybe they don't say hello back
and that's okay i'm not going to
worry about that but most of the
people do and so my belief is
the more important thing it's
not even really what people
actually do it's more my belief
and that kind of thing so as an
English fluency guide if you
want to be that kind of help for
people it's not about teaching
them more information like a
teacher be hey guys we're going
to teach you 10,000 phrases
there who cares about 10,000
phrases if you can't speak so
there's no point in adding more
42 this pile of information if
this pile over here is the week
one you need to focus on so you
really have to think about
what's your problem or what
as a teacher as an English
fluency guide with the problem
of your learner's would be so
what I'd like you to do today is
just think about that and think
about where you really struggle
because if it could be maybe you
can't understand native speakers
but you can understand me then
you really have to take certain
steps in order to improve your
listening and we help people do
that in English anyone . com or
you know I could be any one of
many other things really could
be improving grammar it could be
sounding more natural improving
your pronunciation and all of
these things they come together
but only if you focus on the
weakest one first because that's
going to give you the most rapid
improvement the fastest
improvement so that you can feel
much more motivated and excited
to continue learning because
fluency even when it does happen
quickly it still takes you know
it's not something that happens
overnight so think about these
things as you're trying to get
fluid and continually ask
yourself what my problem or
what's the problem that my
learner's might be having and
then focus on that and you
always continue to solve that
thing because as you improve one
habit than another habit becomes
the weakest one relative to the
other ones so you're always
trying to improve and move up
like this and try to become a
native speaker maybe not
necessarily native but at least
a fluent speaker and to actually
develop the habits that everyone
else's that is a native speaker
has because it certainly is
possible to do it but the only
way to do it is again to focus
on your problem in the same way
an entrepreneur would focus on
the problem in a market so I
don't go to people and tell them
what to do i go to people as
like a business person or an
entrepreneur and I say oh tell
me what your problem is so as a
teacher you're trying to tell
people what to do but first you
have to figure out what the
actual problem is before you can
guide them before you can show
them the right path to get
fluent or to solve their problem
in general
in general anyway I hope you have enjoyed
this lesson hope you enjoyed
this video spend a lot of fun
making it even though I get up
early i get excited i have a
different studio room today so
I'm
I'm
I'm back to my kind of traditional
cloth background it's like
writing out my face in a weird
way but hopefully the
information itself is important
and that's what you should be
focusing on anyway i look
forward to seeing you in the
next video if you have enjoyed
this do click that like button
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forward to seeing you in the
next video bye bye
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