Hello! Hello! Hello and welcome to Learn English Live 18!
My name is Steve Ford and I am happy you have joined me here for our lesson.
Today I have an interesting question which I quite often get from my students every day
every day
This question is related to students who've studied English for some time
but feel they just can't speak properly
So here we have a question from a physicist from Slovakia
who wrote to me on my Facebook page and I said
that's a great question, could you record it and send it to me by e-mail?
Well, he did and here's Michal's question
Michal, your question caught my attention 'cause I know just how important it is to gain self-confidence speaking a language
So I am going to share some of my teaching experience and also my learning experience
with other languages to set you on the right track
What do you need your English for?
This is the first question that you should ask yourself when you feel you're not speaking as well as you'd like
Are you learning English for pleasure, travel, work, studies, romantic relationship, immigration?
Once you know where you're headed
it's a lot easier to know what kind of level you want to speak.
What I notice with my own students is that they tend to specialize in one kind of English
So if you're a physicist and you're explaining physics
I am sure that
You would be able to blow me away with your English!
So when my students who are business professionals talk about work and finance
their level of English is way up there and so is there level of self-confidence
The same goes for my students who are doctors and professors
you get them talking about Urology, Paleontology, Biology, Dermatology and they have a good command of English
But, if we change the topic and go on to small talk
suddenly they get tongue-tied
I imagine that's the same for you Michal
One part of my lessons that my students really enjoy is trying to find equivalent word forms for one specific word
Now, let's say you out there watching my lesson also keep note of new words, highlight the ones you like but
you have no native speakers to practice with
It happens! Luckily with the internet we have a lot of English learners helping each other out on skype
Some students are worried about learning bad speaking habits from other students
So what's your alternative if you simply want to improve with native speakers....
Well this same situation happened to me when I was learning Portuguese more than 20 years ago
I was living in Canada, doing self-study by reading and watching TV programs, listening to music and so on
I had a notebook of expressions and vocabulary
and I had to search around town and ended up finding this little old lady, sweet old lady who happened to speak Portuguese
So I would go to her house once a week
and we would talk about this and that over a cup of coffee
I also used to try and think in Portuguese constantly
I would create hypothetical situations where someone would pose a question to me and I would try to answer
I didn't care that I'd be walking down the street mumbling Portuguese(eu sou, você é) to myself
since I wanted to go back to Brazil and I knew I needed to practice any way I could
well here are some student pet peeves
and one I like to point out to my students ASAP
I feel myself
I was curious to see this happening with all of my students who particularly speak Slavic and romantic languages
I always say, be careful, in English "feel" is just feel: I feel fine
If you say I feel myself
it means
you are touching yourself..........so be careful!
Well Michal and everybody out there watching this lesson. I hope I was able to share some of my teaching experience
to help encourage you with your English learning
All of these mistakes are many times unconscious
but with a little self-correction you can become more aware and improve
I see many students improving day by day
We'll catch you later and see you online! Bye for now!