If you're focused on your ego, if you're focused on you, then
you're not getting the best out of the experience in terms of learning potential.
Have you ever met that one English speaker
that presents themselves with such an attitude of absolute certainty?
These learners seem to know
exactly what to say with the most eloquent words at any time.
They never translate in their heads, and they have no problems thinking in English.
They have an intense conviction in their English abilities
that seem to demolish every single language obstacle in their way.
It's almost like if there were some sort of language competition,
they would always win.
Maybe you've thought, Gosh, that's a confident person.
I want to be just like that.
Maybe you've even fantasized about the day when that would be you.
Well, in today's lesson,
I talk with psychology
and English coach Charlie from Real English with Real Teachers
and the British English Podcast about how letting go of ego
is what learners who are actually able to advance do.
Charlie, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for having me on your show, Ethan.
All right, and before we jump into Charlie's incredible insights,
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So Charlie, how is it that having an inflated ego made blind someone
from reality and from seeing their areas for improvement?
Yesterday, I had a class in one of the students
which was trying to use a phrase that I had defined slightly differently
to how she had perceived it.
And every time I kind of corrected her, she she wasn't willing
to take it on board.
And it may remind me of with learning Spanish.
If I if I take a phrase and I try to use it myself
and I've invested time in it.
I've attached ego to it.
I've attached self-importance because I, I think I know it.
And when a teacher rejects it, it's again
about whether you're attached to that or not.
And some people are really attached to that and they can't let go.
I sometimes can't let go, and it really slows the whole learning process down.
Everyone is revolving around kind of pleasure seeking and
and affirming that ego.
And that really woke me up to the idea of every action
I do is almost ego driven, and I can kind of detach from that
and choose to be a bit more neutral.
Well, truly confident people know that improvement comes slowly over time,
and that pretending to be something
that they are not only delays, their improvement.
Gaining confidence is such an important part of speaking a foreign language.
However, Charlie makes a great point of how overconfidence
sometimes is a double edged sword that can really prevent you
from improving your English or making progress in any substantial way
because your ego is so inflated by a false sense of confidence.
They don't really care what people think about them.
That definitely makes it easier when you learn a language,
because I mean, I'm more of the same as you.
But I think people I've met that are like that.
They're just able to throw themselves into the situation
and make mistakes and have fun with it and play around and laugh at themselves.
And I feel like for me, that's definitely been a
a growth process, something I've had to discover in my own language.
Learning and everything is,
you know, it's OK, it's OK to make mistakes, and it's it's OK
if people laugh like, figure out why they're laughing and laugh at it too.
And all these different things that
in a sense, it's just not taking yourself so seriously, right?
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Yeah, I was just thinking also the flipside of that is,
you know, talking so much and not really
realizing your mistakes and people
sometimes go, go that extra distance of
of not even appreciating their mistakes and that and therefore
never really progressed with it.
So I feel like, yeah, there's definitely a balance between being self-aware,
like we might be a bit shy, but
we also probably learn from our mistakes, but we're slower progressing.
But then the other side would be, you know, blurting every mistake out,
but not being mindful of what your mistakes are in the moment.
- Yeah, I've had some students like that. - Yeah, that's great.
If you have that because it's...
It's a confidence just to go out there and make all the mistakes and stuff.
But you also need to have that more sober part.
If that is you, you need to have that more sober part that can come and have
maybe the deliberate practice to figure out, OK,
what are these mistakes and actually be solving them?
So it's not just something that gets fossilized or sticks with you
for your your entire language learning journey.
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If, like many, you hold yourself back
because of the fear of making mistakes, know that we teachers love them.
I'll let Charlie explain why.
Yeah, I'm really, really trying to push them to
see mistake as like a faster way, as you as you just
said, to understand the phrase, because when I'm teaching the phrase,
I have no idea how a non-native is going to interpret a phrase
and think, Oh, I can use it in this way.
And that very often mapped onto a phrase
that they've kind of thought is similar in their language, perhaps.
And obviously, I'm going to... I'm
not going to have that understanding until it comes up. - (Ethan) Right.
So that mistake really helps me as a teacher,
see how a learner is perceiving it and how they think that they could use it.
When you get a new piece of information,
we tend to categorize into something that we understand.
Like we label it, we give it a box.
We like to put things in boxes, don't we?
And whereas in a new language, the culture has affected the language a lot
and very often, we can't quite associate
the grammar, the syntax, whatever it is in the language.
It doesn't compute with our brains and we've got to stay out of our native
brain, essentially.
So to not be putting
language into different boxes that we already think that we know
is a really nice way of kind of trying to stay outside of the native brain I would say.
Yeah, that's kind of interesting when you
if you learn multiple languages too, you kind of see that each language
it gives you a little bit different way of thinking
and putting things together and whatnot.
So it's really is
like putting puzzle pieces together in some sense
with each language that you learn.
And then like when you actually speak that language,
I think it affects your personality, obviously.
But it also just affects maybe
how you view things a little bit compared to when you speak your native language
or when you speak another language. Being authentic and true to yourself
removes the distraction of thinking you need to be like someone else,
and it allows you to see more
clearly the direction in which you actually want to achieve. How about you?
Do you ever suffer from being too confident?
How have you dealt with that? Comment it down below and discuss it with other RealLifers.
A big mistake that learners often make in a attempt to sound more confident
or fluent is using fancy words when they speak.
You do not want to do this, please.
Let's watch a sneak peak of Andrea's lesson
on choosing the most appropriate words for each situation.
Being fluent in English has a lot to do with the vocabulary you know.
But part of fluency, even proficiency and competency in the language
is also being able to make good word choices.
Just as you wouldn't wear a suit to the beach.
You might not want to use academic vocabulary when you're talking to a friend.