Hello! Hello! Hello Everybody and welcome to Learn English Live!
My name is Steve Ford and I have a great question from Zachary from Somalia
so let’s take a listen
Hello Zachary and hello Somalia
I have shown you the corrections Zachary of your speaking in this video
and congratulations on recording your voice for the whole world to hear
That takes a lot of courage and you can give yourself a pat on the back for that one
I really understand what you’re talking about in regard to the ups and downs you are feeling
Surprise! Surprise! This happens to everyone who is learning another language
So I am going to first explain some of the reasons why this happens based on my own teaching and learning experience
Imagine with me a mountain
and we want to climb the mountain together to reach the peak: to be fluent in English
The first part seems easy, you’re going up quickly
learning verb tenses and vocabulary, pronunciation
This is easy! English is an easy Language!
NOT! Are you really stuck, or have you reached a plateau?
Sometimes we reach plateaus when 1. we need to internalize what we’ve learned up to now
2. We start to NOTICE mistakes we didn’t realize before
So some plateaus will take you a while to walk across or maybe not
the important thing to remember is that it's just a plateau and that after some time
you will start moving higher and higher up the mountain if you persist
If you start talking about things you work with or study in English
your level might be quite advanced
However, when you are in a situation, for example, in a bar or café you get tongue-tied
Did you understand the second dialogue?
OK good, but maybe some of you couldn’t exactly understand the first one
and this is what I’m talking about: as you go up the mountain
you will expand your vocabulary to be able to talk in English in different contexts
WOW! English has just become a whole new language
Prepositions are every English learners nightmare, I know it!
and what I notice is that learners, as Zachary was saying, feel “very disappointed” when they have a relapse
they fall back into old habits of using the same wrong preposition
You use that same bad preposition over and over again
you talk with native speakers of English, they don’t correct you and you think it’s OK
Then you find out it’s WRONG. So here are ones I hear all of the time
When I started teaching English over 20 years ago, I used to hate grammar
I used to say we don’t need it!
and 20 years later, here I am and here's what I’ve learned
if you can understand some grammar, in moderation, it will help you understand
the mistakes you’re making when you’re speaking
Balance, moderation, the middle path up that mountain.
So you need to realize how the steps to improvement work
I am used to studying, it is something I am accustomed to doing NOW, I used to, something I did with frequency in the past
I used to studying English every day
I used to studying English every day, oh, stupid me!
I used to. No! No! No! I AM used to studying English every day!
If you are having difficulty remembering pronunciation of words in English you can:
this is my method
or try to find words with similar sounds you already know
Well everybody, I hope you enjoyed my lesson
if there is one thing I want you to take away from my lesson today it is balance
See you in our next lesson! Bye for now!