hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
in this video we are going to talk about how to improve your confidence in
English and I am making this video in my car for a reason because I was driving
downtown today and I was not feeling confident and so I really started
thinking about you guys and what it takes to speak English confidently okay
so here we go first of all the reason why I was not feeling confident driving
downtown is one because I don't have a lot of experience driving down town and
I'm I'm from Sacramento California and the streets downtown are different from
the streets in the suburbs and in the other areas okay so basically where I'm
used to driving in neighborhoods and freeways and stuff like that every
street is a two-way street that's point blank that's one thing and then another
thing is that the streets are pretty big so there's lots of space in each lane
and I feel confident when I'm driving on regular streets that I'm used to driving
on okay but downtown a lot of the streets are one-way streets and also
they're very narrow and I'm not used to driving in these circumstances right so
when I'm in these situations I feel less confident so I'm bringing this up
because I want to tell you if you're not confident speaking English there's a
good chance you literally just don't have enough experience okay because the
more experience you have with something the more confident you become just like
if I would drive down town every single day I would get super confident driving
downtown you know it's not that big of a deal the other thing is I've had some
bad experiences driving downtown two really bad experiences that I will tell
you about okay and these happen years ago like when I was first learning how
to drive but the reason I'm gonna tell you is
because if you've ever had a bad experience with your English like if a
teacher has ever embarrassed you or friends or strangers or if you were ever
in a dangerous situation and you didn't know what to do and you know that's kind
of traumatic stuff and that can really influence your confidence level so two
really big mistakes that I made driving downtown this happened when I was
probably like nineteen years old one day I was driving with my friend at
we had gone out to dinner maybe we went dancing I don't really remember but I
made a wrong turn and the next thing I knew I was driving on railroad tracks
it wasn't like for a train but it was for the kind of trains that go in the
streets anyhow there was a specific street designated for this tram and next
thing you know I'm driving with my truck like this and a train is coming at us
like this it's midnight the lights are shining at
us and it's like honking like like what are you doing lady get out of the road
okay that was really traumatic I don't even know what I did to escape from that
but somehow I got out of that situation I pulled over my friend and I we were
just like breathing really hard and I was like I'm so sorry like I don't know
how I made this mistake so anyhow that's one big mistake I made driving downtown
another mistake and this is super embarrassing the streets are so narrow
and I was driving a Ford f-150 which was my very first car it was a truck okay
and besides having narrow streets you always have cars parked on the sides
of the streets so I was driving in the right-hand Lane there were a bunch of
cars over there parked and as I'm driving I got too close to one of the
parked cars and my mirror slapped the mirror of another parked car and I just
kept driving like I didn't even know what to do I'm like oh shoot am I
supposed to stop pull over say sorry like you know give them my insurance
number what am I supposed to do and here's the deal with confidence if you
have bad experiences with something it will cause you to doubt your ability so
now every time I Drive downtown because it rarely happens I still sometimes
remember those traumatic experiences and I'm just like oh my gosh I'm so nervous
driving downtown and I have to like talk to myself like Stefanie you got this
you're okay you know how to drive you don't worry
you've been doing this for years but I'm telling you this because again of your
English right if you don't have a lot of experience speaking English
you may lack confidence the solution is simply to get more experience or if
you've had some traumatic experiences you may lack confidence speaking English
the solution is to just again keep practicing and talk yourself through
what's going on and reassure yourself you know you've got this it's okay if
you have a speech or something that you have to deliver if you have a phone call
that you have to make give yourself a little pep talk before you do it this is
my strategy this is what I do and it works okay it's reassuring now the final
thing I want to mention about confidence is sometimes you have had plenty of
experience you've had no traumatic experiences so there should really be no
reason why you lack confidence but yet you still lack confidence right you
don't feel that great when you speak English the reason for that you have to
dig so much deeper because it can be fear doubt embarrassment it can be a lot
of things but usually it's one of those three it's like you fear how other
people will perceive you or you fear making a mistake or you fear making
yourself look silly okay so if you want to be a confident English speaker write
what it what does it take it takes experience you have to have experience
speaking the language you have to speak with native speakers every day okay and
I'll talk to you guys about how you can do this in a second but you have to be
using the language every day in different circumstances so you get more
experience with it then if you find yourself lacking confidence you do have
to deal with your own mindset and mentality and ask yourself you know
what's really going on here is it just because I lack experience is it because I've
had bad experiences is it because of some underlying fear what is really
going on okay and then talk yourself through it you will gain confidence by
doing two things by gaining experience and by changing the way you perceive
yourself and situations around you okay so you can learn to be a super confident
English speaker in any situation now let's talk about how you can use English
every day to improve to talk with native English speakers to make friends to
you just you know because all of that stuff is gonna help you feel more
confident I created a free guide for you that's all about how to meet native
English speakers strategically and form relationships start conversation so you
can really be the one that's in control and leading the conversation leading the
relationship using your English even if your English isn't perfect okay even if
you don't feel super fluent anyhow thousands thousands of people have
already downloaded this guide and sent me really awesome feedback they loved it
so I know you're gonna love it too and I will link it in the comments anyhow guys
that's all I will say about that I've got to go I've got some errands to run
so that's it and I'll see you in another video