There are two ways of learning the traditional way and the real-life way sometimes I think that
Traditional methods of learning traditional classrooms textbooks teachers. They don't allow you
enough exposure to the real world or
Street smarts and so learning only this way is going to result in really poor
fluency and
Hesitation and shyness and all the things that you guys tell me that you have trouble with all the time
Our whole education system is a little bit broken because we're not encouraged enough to use what we learn in real
life am I right and
studying English or being a student of English is really the antithesis of
Being a fluent English speaker
so in this lesson
I'm gonna explain how you can move from being a student of English to a fluent speaker of English
Welcome to go natural English if this is your first time here then welcome
My name is Gabby Wallace and I'm an American English teacher. This is where we talk about
fluency confidence conversation skills culture and everything that you need
step-by-step from zero to
Fluency in English. This is where I guide you with how to learn English. Not just the
Specific words vocabulary or rules, but actually where I guide you as an expert in language learning
so today we're gonna talk about how to move from being a student of English to a
Really amazing speaker of English. So what's the difference between a student of English and a speaker of English?
Well, first of all, it's really a mindset. It's how you think of yourself
So do you think of yourself as an English student or an English speaker?
There's a really important difference and you can be both but I want to really emphasize
And I want to encourage you to think of yourself as an English speaker
Even if you are a beginner if you can say hello
Then you are an English speaker to me at least you are. So are you English speaker? Yes
Amazing. So there are other differences English students traditionally
well, I think of English students as
People who sit in desks in a classroom and listen to the teacher talk a lot and don't really get real-life
applications of
English so you don't usually use English outside of the classroom if you are an English student or
You might be studying on your own
you might be an English student who uses YouTube to learn or who studies in the library or studies in your
Home in your bedroom. That's great. I'm not saying that's bad, but we need to add to that
We need to add to your mindset to not just be an English students, but to be an English speaker
So an English student
studies English
And to study English in the traditional sense means that you're memorizing lists of vocabulary
Maybe you have spelling tests. Maybe you have grammar tests. You're probably
Learning the rules of grammar and you're probably afraid to make mistakes
you may have never used English in the real world because the only real application you have for your English is
Using it to pass tests or get grades or pass an English class that you need
For your high school or your degree program?
Anyone here in that situation, you can tell me in the comments
So studying English or being a student of English in a nutshell means to study
About English it's not
Using English, but it's actually reading about English or memorizing
Details about the language that may or may not be super helpful for actually using the language in real life
now studying English can actually feel
Better to a student because now stick with me here
It feels better because you don't have to leave your comfort zone. If you're a student, you're already used to the classroom
You're already used how to take tests, you know
how to abide by the rules and how to get good grades if you're a good student
But in order to be a good English speaker, you actually have to step out of the classroom
You have to step out of your comfort zone
You have to try new things things that you might not be good at things
that might be scary things that might embarrass you like you might not like the way that you speak English at first you might make
Mistakes people might even laugh at you
But this is the only way to become
Fluent in speaking English in the real world is pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and it is uncomfortable
but that is what growth feels like and think about it as
babies, you didn't learn your native language by memorizing grammar rules or studying lists of vocabulary words you
Weren't even in a classroom until maybe age five
So, how did you learn your native language?
well
you learned it by observing and by speaking it and
surely you improved your native language skills by going to school and becoming an
Educated speaker of your language. So I'm not saying that school is bad. I'm not saying that school is unimportance
It is definitely an important part of speaking educated English
But it's not the only thing we need we need to use English in real life
So I'm going to talk about how to stop being just a student and how to actually use
English in your everyday life as an English speaker. I just want to be really clear that being an English speaker is not
About memorizing lists of vocabulary words. It's not about memorizing rules
It's not about getting an a on the test. In fact, I know a lot of English
Students who are able to get really good test scores, but when it comes to speaking in real life
They fall short, which means they're not very confident in their English skills
So remember that if you want to truly be a fluent English speaker and confident in your skills
Well, we have to use them. It's a lot like playing a sport
Imagine let's say that you wanted to play tennis
You want to be a professional tennis player, maybe even go to the Olympics. So the first thing that you do is
What read a book about tennis? Sure, maybe maybe you watch some youtube videos about?
Tennis, maybe you learn the rules of the game. Those are all good ideas great ideas, but
There's something missing. What do you need to do to become a really great tennis player. Well, you need to play tennis, right?
It's the same thing with English. It's not enough to know the information
English as a skill is a skill that
Requires us to create to speak to write and that's why it's so many English learners
Maybe you feel that it's easier to listen or to read English
to listen to English might be easier because it only requires you to
Get information in from the language and not to actually create
outputs which would be speaking or writing so
Anyway, you have to play the game the game of English in order to improve your skills
Okay. So, how do you stop?
Studying how do you stop being just only a student of English?
You can continue studying but the real point here is how do you?
Become bigger than just an English student in the classroom. How do you
Master your English. How do you control your fluency?
This is really about you taking control of your life through English speaking
Okay, so we need to stop thinking about English as something that just exists in the classroom
It doesn't just exist in a block of time when you have to be with your teacher in class
So that is a great start
But if you spend one hour in class or in tutoring or studying on your own each week, that's great
But you have to expect to spend at least
Two to three maybe even five or six times
That amount of time
on your own using English
So if you have one hour with your teacher or studying on your own
You should be actually using English or speaking English for maybe four hours a week outside
of that and this is a huge issue with a lot of
Learners is that we think that we're good if we just show up to English class
But the reality is if you want to be really good you have to apply it
Outside of class you have to use English
Outside of your English study time outside of your English class. So how do we do that?
Well, hang on I'm going to share how
Learning English in a classroom is good
You know
You can do role plays
You can practice your English and you might have a really great teacher who lets you speak a lot
But even the best actors are not going to be able to recreate what it's like speaking with a native English speaker
Inside your classroom doing role plays. So the first step is to get outside of your classroom
So don't stop going to your English class
don't tell your teacher Oh Gabby told me to skip class so I'm not gonna come no, no, no, keep going to your class, but
Outside of class time make sure that you're getting out into the real world to use your English
close your textbook leave your textbook at home and
go out into the real world you use English without the crutch of
your
electronic dictionary or your
Textbook or whatever you're using to learn English. It's okay to make mistakes
Speaking English is not a competition right now. You don't have to be perfect
What you do need to do in order to improve is to actually use it
So look around do you have opportunities right now to use English in your daily life?
What about right now in the comments?
You could use English to say hello
And I'm going to ask you a couple more questions that you can respond to in the comments
Most importantly get ready to leave your comfort zone
You're going to need to start using English as soon as possible
So as soon as you hear something new in English, you can imitate it
You can copy it. You can say it out loud now
I learned Spanish in college and I could not speak it for the life of me for over two years
Studying it everyday in college. I
Really was not confident in my speaking skills. I would go to
bodegas, I would go to real-life situations where native speakers were speaking Spanish and I didn't understand a word they were saying and they just
really kind of
Intimidated me because I wasn't sure where to begin
So I knew I needed to get out of my classroom and start applying my Spanish in real life
so I started doing this in little ways like I mentioned going to the bodega saying hola como estan and
Maybe going to a Spanish
church service, which is something pretty common in most American cities and
listening and then speaking with people who are there just starting with greetings and then starting to get to know them a little by little
So I really put myself out of my comfort zone you guys I was nervous. I was sweating bullets in church
Only because I knew I would have to speak Spanish not for any other reasons
But it was really outside my comfort zone
But I encourage you to do that because today I feel great speaking Spanish and actually just the other day
Here in Brazil. I was able to help a Spanish speaker translating from Spanish to Portuguese. So that was pretty fun
So the thing is about English
It's gonna be a skill that you use for the rest of your life and you're never gonna know
Which is when it's gonna come in handy basically all the time English comes in handy. Okay. So now
How do we actually become better speakers of English?
We stop being just students now. We're going to grow into being better speakers of English
So I mentioned get out of your comfort zone start using English immediately. Some other things you can do is
imitation so when you hear English when you're watching a TV show in English or a movie in English try to actually
Repeat what you hear under your breath quietly unless you're watching it by yourself. Then it doesn't matter. You can say it loud
But if you're watching with other people, maybe say quietly, okay, and listening to songs in English learning the lyrics singing along with them
I do this all the time with Spanish and Portuguese and other languages that I want to learn like today
I was practicing my Portuguese actually with a song. Let's see if anyone knows it. It's hey
Vienna
Hey
Bye
vayan
Okay, there's not that many words in the song but that's not the point. The point is I got to practice my
Portuguese, and there are some other words in the song. I'm trying to remember it's like
Legolas said gee sound by ghost Ajit. How does it go? So?
You should keep your English use fun
See where you can use English like let's imagine a situation that actually happened to me today
I was walking down the streets
I had just gone out to lunch and a woman recognized me from go natural English
And so she's from Brazil and she started talking with me
And so I want you to imagine right now if you saw me walking down the street
What would you say to me right now without your textbook without consulting other resources?
Let's create a little conversation. Tell me in the comments. What would you say? It's Annie right now?
If it's not
100% correct? I don't want you to look up the correct way right now
I want you to just type something that you could say right now and then
After you type it after you leave the comment then you can check and see if it's correct and you can see where you can
improve
So English should really feel like a tool that you can pick up at any time to help you accomplish something
Else to help you to talk to someone or to help you to get information. So it's okay
If it's not perfect, we're going to keep using it and keep improving it every day
So take what you have right now
How could you create a?
conversation with that and when you want to study English or when you want to improve your skills then try doing
more
activities key word here action
Activities that are not just
Reading or absorbing information or listening to English. These are all good things, but try to add more
activities where you're actually
Taking action like when you read you can
underline or circle words if you're reading take notes if you are listening then try to
imitate to shadow or to say what you hear how loud
So you're using English. You're actually speaking you're writing
This is so important for your English fluency and speaking of learning the lyrics to songs
What is one of your favorite English songs right now that perhaps you could share in the comments with us?
For us to learn in English. I know sometimes it's hard to even think of where to start what song should I?
Actually learn to sing
So if you have a favorite song that you think would be kind of easy to learn in English
Put it in the comments and that's a great place for us to start to use English and not just study it
So I hope that this has been helpful for you again to quickly summarize
The idea here is to not just think of yourself as an English
Student who is waiting for information from a teacher but to think of yourself as an English
Speaker who is actively using the language each and every day and this is going to change
your English
Profoundly, I see you becoming a fluent confident
Conversational English speaker, and I'm so proud of you
Thank you so much for watching this if you enjoyed it
Be sure to give a thumbs up it helps a lot and I'll be looking for your comments below
make sure that you're subscribed here at go natural English by clicking right down there and the big red subscribe button and that definitely
Helps us to help more English learners like you, so thank you again
if you want to keep watching another great lesson that I'll post right over there is about why you might not
Understand native English speakers and how you can improve your listening comprehension?
So, thanks again, and I'll see you here next time. Bye for now