Hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from englishfulltime.com
in this video we are going to talk about how to practice your English with native
English speakers okay so the first thing I want to say though is that I truly
believe you don't have to only practice with native English speakers to improve
your English you can practice with any English speaker so whether they're a
non-native English speaker or a native English speaker just speaking English in
general even with someone who is at your you know your level of English even that
will help you improve but what I realized happens is a lot of you guys
want to practice with native speakers so badly but you don't know any native
speakers and you're not surrounded by native speakers so it's almost like you
give up you just say well I have no one to practice with and so you don't
practice at all so before we even talk about practicing with native speakers
you have to understand that just practicing in general even if it's with
your friends or your family or people that you know go to your school or work
with you even just practicing in general will help okay
even if you're not practicing with a native speaker now that I got that out
of the way now I can tell you how to practice your English with native
speakers and it's not as hard as you think it is and that's the good news so
here's the deal native speakers are all over the world
native English speakers are all over the world and we're all over the internet
and we all use the same platforms on the Internet you guys myself other native
English speakers I mean we use YouTube Facebook reddit snapchat Instagram all
of the platforms that you guys already use the thing is you're probably using
those platforms in your language and you're probably following people that
speak your language so you're surrounding yourself essentially with
native speakers of your own language in order to meet native speakers the
easiest way to do that is to first do it online okay and in order to do that you
have to start following people and interacting with people that are native
English speakers and you have to reduce the amount of time you spend chatting
with speakers of your own language or interacting
with pages and profiles that are all in your language so let me give you an
example of how to do this okay let's say you love learning about diet health and
nutrition that's you know an example because that's what I love learning
about but let's say you use Instagram okay instead of following a bunch of
profiles on Instagram about you know exercise diet health nutrition in your
own language look for people you can follow in English okay so look for
people that you can follow in English and you can search for people by using
hashtags now this is a strategy that is specific to Instagram I don't know how
well this works on other platforms okay but on Instagram you can look up
hashtags so for example you can start with the hashtag exercise then once you
go to that hashtag you know there will probably be millions and millions and
millions of posts within the hashtag try and narrow it down Instagram will
automatically show you other hashtags related to that hashtag so then go
explore those hashtags until you can find a hashtag that has maybe between
50,000 and you know hundred thousand or a million posts because then you know
that those communities are more tight-knit now on Instagram people use
hashtags to form communities okay so you can go really deep into the different
hashtags that people use and then go explore the profiles when you find a
profile that's public that you like follow it and then start interacting
with the person that runs the profile okay you can once a day or every other
day make a nice comment on one of their photos and say hey you know this was a
you know great photo I like it because of X Y & Z or whatever don't start
commenting on all of their things at once because then they're going to freak
out and think you're weird okay they're going to be like oh my gosh this person
is a stalker but no if you can just find profiles of people that have between
like five hundred and five thousand followers those are people that are
trying to grow their following they're trying to share what they love with
other people so they're really going to appreciate you supporting them and then
you can take the opportunity when you feel ready to maybe introduce yourself
via direct message and say hey I really want to just introduce
myself and say that I appreciate what you're doing it's been so inspiring to
me every day and if you do that okay with like 10 to 20 people over the
course of a couple months eventually you're going to be involved in networks
with native English speakers you're going to have friends that are native
English speakers you're going to have people to chat with you're going to be
able to talk about the things you love and enjoy and the point is that you know
that was just one strategy you can use with Instagram but think about all the
other platforms that we have and we always form communities on these
platforms so in facebook there's groups about anything you can imagine that are
full of native English speakers there are groups and communities on reddit as
well okay so this is what I want to encourage you guys to do if you want to
meet native English speakers and if you want to practice your English with them
don't just say hey will you practice you know English with me or do you want to
do an exchange I'll teach you Spanish you teach me English just get beyond
that just go where people are already interacting in English and then use your
English to interact you're going to be nervous in the beginning you're going to
be afraid of messing up but guess what after doing this for a while you're
going to be so much more confident okay you're going to build confidence as you
go and just think about it this way if you mess up or if somebody blocks you
and thinks oh my gosh that guy is creepy like just move on go find somebody else
there are millions of us for you to interact with okay and again you will
get better as you go so if you want to know more about how to practice your
English with native speakers I made you guys a guide that breaks everything down
kind of step by step so you can really just absorb the information quickly if
you would like that guide feel free to download it I will put the link in the
description okay so anyhow that's it you guys it's super simple go where the
native speakers are okay and then start interacting with us and go with the
communities that are about things that you already love and enjoy so you
already have something to talk about okay don't think that this won't work
for you because of where you live what your native language is what your
nationality is or anything like that don't don't think it's not going to work
you it will as long as you can find ways to support other people and give your
time your energy your thoughts your nice words people will appreciate that and
they'll talk with you so again for more information just go ahead and download
the guide and that will get you started okay talk to you guys later and I'll see
you in another video bye hey guys thanks so much for watching this video if you
liked it go ahead and give it a thumbs up make sure to subscribe too if you're
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description because I often include extra tips there or resources or links
to other things that I think you might find helpful so go ahead and check that
out so for more English stuff from me you
can also go ahead and follow me on Facebook and check me out at my website
englishfulltime.com all the links are in the description thanks again and I'll
see you guys in another video bye