welcome to Real English With Real Teachers
we teach English every single day to people all over the world with
different nationalities and after doing it for three or so years we've realized
that a lot of people actually start to get stuck particularly in the
intermediate area or the b1 b2 level of language so in this video we're going to
give you three fantastic ways that you can implement into your life to go
beyond the level that you are at now and so you can get out of that plateau that
you have reached with your English so we can say goodbye to the intermediate
levels and push towards the advanced levels of English
technique number one
is largely focusing on your drive your motivation or your get-up-and-go and a
lot of language learners start out with a ton of motivation drive and get-up-and-go
don't we because when you know nothing to knowing a little bit it's
quite a big contrast you can say oh my god I know all of these phrases now and
before I didn't know any of it I'm amazing I'm learning so much I'm a
sponge of information and it continues like this doesn't it unfortunately not it doesn't
we all know that the longer that we practice a skill or a hobby and
we have gone past that initial beginners phase it can be really difficult for us
to spot or to notice our improvements over time and we have noticed with many
of our students that are at an intermediate level some of them feel
like they stay stuck on that level for such a long time and they can never
really see themselves progressing past that b1 or b2
level well we were actually looking for a case study to example this first
technique that we want to give you but it was actually staring us right in the
face because Harry was actually doing it so as many of you will know I am
learning Spanish and you may have seen me in a video of Lucy attempting to sing
a Mexican song to her to serenade her
but clearly that didn't work because she's got a boyfriend now anyway many of
the people with whom I practice my Spanish have told me recently that I
have advanced my level and it appears that now I am more or less at a c1 level
and this noticeable progression that I have made I attribute it to this
technique that I have been employing in my Spanish studies so I thought to
myself how can I mix one of my passions in life with my language learning and
one of those passions is psychology so I started looking on YouTube for Spanish
psychologists who practice cognitive behavioral therapy and I found Rafael Santandreu
and me encanta I love this guy I love everything that he does and now
I've completely immersed myself in his teachings and in doing this I've learned
so much more Spanish and now when I talk about psychology and I have the types of
philosophical conversations that I enjoy having with people about life but in
Spanish I feel confident talking about this subject because I have read all of
his books I even tried to translate one of his books into English it was a
really good technique for me and by reading those books and completely
throwing myself into Spanish in that way helped me so much
so a great technique to supercharge that intrinsic motivation is
to connect yourself to a true interest of yours the areas in life that make you
tick that make you forget about going to bed on time at 10:45 or even make you
forget about the important necessities in life of err like showering
so we asked you to get in touch with your passions your callings
your purposes your interests and like Harry follow or get avidly involved in
someone who personifies your interest and we want you to get really creative
with the ways in which you interact with these interests in English and if you
have some creative ideas tell us write to us put them in the
comments the possibilities are endless I tell you they are endless
you could take a course at uni or online about that topic that you're interested in
you could host a meet-up in your local area in which you interact in English with other
people about a subject or an activity that you love like hiking or reading or
fashion anything that interests you you could make your own online content that
you're actually really proud of and showcase it to your friends and family
write reviews and blogs about places and restaurants that you visit become a travel blogger
you could even get super creative by thinking outside of the box
like how about writing your own short story producing a miniature series of videos on YouTube
or you could even do something as daring as writing your own
TED talk in English and then applying to Ted and asking to do this talk I mean
people actually do this and me and Charlie are actually considering doing
our own TED talk sometime soon and I would love to do
that in Spanish it would be scary but it would be an incredible project whatever
it is remember that if you are not getting the results you want then it
might be time to change your approach
okay now we are ready for technique number two now many people that get
stuck in the intermediate realm or level of English are stuck there because they
lack the fully involved experience of learning English our advice is to give
yourself that fully immersive experience as much as possible and if it's actually
difficult to go to an english-speaking country then use technology to surround
yourself in English now it is totally possible to do this from the comfort of
your own home because the Internet is full it is insane the amount of free
resources that you can find online on different websites and social media
platforms that will help you with your English all you need is access to the
Internet which means you can do this if you don't have a favorite list of
podcasts then you're missing out if you've never listened to a British radio
station then get on it we've got so many fantastic radio stations that are
broadcasting really interesting modern and also traditional music all over the
radio we have Radio one which broadcasts
modern pop music we have radio 2 which plays classical folk and world music
with BBC 1xtra which is all about modern day urban music from the UK find the
radio station that discusses topics that interest you or the radio station that
shares your musical preference and listen to it every day if you don't know
who David Attenborough is then you need to actually probably stop this video
right now and go and enjoy his amazing wildlife
footage that he narrates in a brilliantly quintessentially British way
it's fantastic if you still have your phone set to your native language we
need to change that immediately I have my phone in Spanish and I even have to
talk to Siri in Spanish so if you've got an iPhone
make sure you pop your iPhone on English
hola Siri oye Siri... bitch
so this is a really good way to improve your pronunciation as well because Siri will
only respond to you if you pronounce things correctly oye Siri... f****** hell
our point here is to manipulate your surroundings to be predominantly English
the next step to truly immerse yourself in English is to get on a plane and
catch a flight to the UK or any other native english-speaking country and once
you arrive in that english-speaking country don't expect the language to
come to you I've spoken to many of my students who have been to England and
they actually said that they speak more English when they're in their own
country taking lessons now I think that is absurd so what we have to do is we
have to put ourselves in situations in which we can actually talk to native
speakers and other learners of English because it's not just going to happen
without us doing something
get yourself on an immersion course because these
courses really make you actively interact with the target language in
ways that you wouldn't do elsewhere and it really helps your confidence and your
fluency grow in a short amount of time of course we have our very own English
immersion courses which we are incredibly proud of not only because
we started our own business but because we think we've created a truly immersive
experience which is different to any other immersion course because you'll
actually be living with two native English teachers me and Charlie for a week
so if that is of interest to you do click on this link and find out more about
those courses but if it's a bit too far for you to travel then check out one of
the other immersion courses which is available to you more locally
technique number three this takes us back to an episode we released earlier this year
and this technique is rather unheard of really it's called language coaching we're
going to dive back into part two of the interview with this coach that I
interviewed called Christina Lorimer so let's get stuck in shall we
this is the second part of the interview you can check out part one where we
covered what a language coach is at the end of this video or by clicking the top
right info card now moving on to part two Christina is going to cover the
outline of how to do a coaching session
you know you start with motivation it always
starts with motivation so today at this moment you know on a scale of 1 to 10
how motivated are you feeling about you know working on your English right now
and then you know you start with that number that number is pretty important
especially in terms of a short session because that's the way you're gonna end
so you're gonna bookend the sessions with on a scale of 1 to 10 how motivated
are you feeling about improving your English today okay interesting
yeah so there's mechanical goals and mastery goals mastery goals would be
what are the objectives and what are the priorities so this is when you you know
really do some different techniques to ask students you know what is the
English for and you know not why do you want to learn English why is very vague
and then you always want to close out with an action plan what what I like to
add into that myself because I think it's so important is talk about your
support network as well so let's say I'm working with a Brazilian learner who is
a Brazilian that you can identify in your life who has learned English and
can they be your mentor when are you gonna tell your family that you're
focusing on learning English right now who in your immediate network can also
practice English with you so we sort of finish up with an action plan and a
support network and close it with the 1 to 10 question about motivation again
there we have it technique number three is to get a
language coach so you can get in contact with Christina through her website at
www.christinalorimer.com I should also add that she specializes in working with
native Portuguese to English language learners
all right a quick recap of
technique number one is to combine an interest of yours with the English language
technique number two is to use technology to your advantage and
surround yourself predominantly with English or even better go on an English
immersion course again ours is available up top and technique number three is to
get yourself a language coach to keep you on track and motivated to keep
pushing through that intermediate stage onto the advanced levels go ahead and
tell us how helpful these three tips have been for you and share any ideas
you have for your beloved language learning buddies around the world if you
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catch you next time on Real English With Real Teachers