Are you stuck at intermediate? | Canguro English

[Music] now if you follow me on instagram you'll know that recently I broke two skipping ropes this Reebok skipping rope I completely broke it in half and this other plastic one the handle just snapped so I went and bought steel skipping rope because a guy on Instagram called Washington told me that that's what I should buy but what he didn't tell me is that if you make a mistake and you whip yourself with this it hurts like a mother [Music] this morning I bought my mixing desk because it's podcast time now last time I recorded the podcast in my house because upstairs it has good acoustics but here there's a bit of echo so I need to make some sort of cocoon to absorb the sound and amplify my sexy radio voice the cocoon is finished and isn't she beautiful she is made of removal blankets and cushions and plastic chairs she might not be pretty but she does the job welcome to the inside of the cocoon I have my microphone mixing desk recording software and script now it's time to record [Music] it has been a hell of a week what happened this week well my car got towed bah-bah-bah I did live classes on YouTube and Instagram and I taught loads of classes here at the school and now it's Friday which is important for three reasons the first reason is that today is Australia Day the second reason is that today Nutella was discounted by 70 percent in French supermarkets causing riots and the third reason is that I finally updated the word of the day from Monday because I forgot well today's word of the day is Jim crack which means a showy object of little or no value so something that looks good but it's not worth anything but that's not what I want to talk to you about today today I want to talk to all of you intermediate learners who feel stuck you feel like you're studying and studying but your English is not progressing maybe you feel like it's even getting worse now the technical name for this is called fossilization hmm and I think it's a great word you're like a fossil static you're not progressing this is a horrible horrible feeling and I think it's at this point that most learners either give up or they lose completely their motivation to keep going but today I'm going to show you how to solve the problem of fossilization with a pen and a piece of paper by now you've probably noticed that all of my solutions are very low-tech very simple and that's for two reasons one is that I have nothing to sell you know ebooks no courses no website nothing and the second reason is that I honestly believe there are no secrets to learning languages so how do we attack the problem of fossilization well we start by doing this [Music] what you have created here is the first step to implementing the noticing hypothesis proposed by Richard Schmitt so how does it work it's really simple the first step is to become aware conscious of your mistakes the next step is to write them down and the third step is to then work on those mistakes now maybe this seems like totally childish it's too simple too basic maybe it's even ludicrous but you will be amazed at the power of simply paying attention in 1997 the neuroscientist Bernard Bars released a book called in the theatre of consciousness in this book he said paying attention becoming conscious of some material seems to be the sovereign remedy for learning anything it is the universal solvent of the mind so by simply being conscious of our mistakes and writing them down we can completely eliminate fossilization and it couldn't be any more simple you see when you're an intermediate learner then you're pretty aware of the mistakes you make and the areas of the language that you're not strong in like for example I made a list of some problems I have in Spanish I know that I'm not very good at making conditionals I don't really know how to use the subjunctive my vowels in Spanish are a total mess I need to improve my vowels a lot an important part of the process is being honest with yourself carry this list with you when you notice something that you know you're not good at write it down but thankfully one thing that I don't have a problem with in Spanish is ordering coffee every day I receive lots of emails and messages but I wanted to tell you about an email that I received earlier this week from an anonymous guy he told me that I should stop trying to make daily classes because I won't be able to keep it up now in life there's always going to be negative people telling you that you can't do things and you shouldn't try and sometimes that negativity comes from inside our own minds but I believe that if you really want something and you're willing to work hard you can have it and that includes fluency in English passing that English exam whatever it is that you're willing to work hard for so to that anonymous guy who thinks I won't be able to keep it up I just want to say one thing watch me I'm Christian this is kangaroo English I'll see you in class [Applause]

Channel: Canguro English

Views: 58,934

Keywords: canguro english, kangaroo english, canguru english, how to learn english, Are you stuck at intermediate?, stuck english, English isn't improving, simplest way to learn english, stuck with english

Id: o-EWStj1mX8

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2018