Don't Make This Mistake when Learning English (Many Fail Because of This)

hello this is jack from tofluency.com and welcome to this english lesson where we are going to talk about the five stages of learning english but not in a good way so i'm going to talk about what i see happen to a lot of people when they start this journey or when they restart this language learning journey and i'm going to talk about what you can do to solve this problem so we're going to go through quite a lot today and i'm really excited about you being here now if you are new then please subscribe to this channel and also let's just go through a couple of things straight away so there's some vocabulary for this lesson which we'll talk about in a second but first click that like button this helps the stream it shows that you appreciate these lessons that you like these lessons and it helps me reach new people then if you want to become a to fluency youtube member then click the join button it might not be on your mobile but have a look at it if it's on your desktop and become a member i'm going to start adding a lot more for new members inclu including exclusive videos so more videos just for members and then after this lesson feel free to watch more lessons including this one okay this is the last live video i did and it's becoming very popular right now over 20 000 people have watched it and it basically talks about how it's important to focus on what matters so when you're learning english or learning a new skill starting something new focus on the most important things the things that are effective and i broke this down i summarized it in these two ways listen a lot and use the to fluency method okay so get lots of listening and use the to fluency method and i'm going to talk about what you should do in order to ensure that you do this over the long term that's what we're going to talk about today so there is some vocabulary for this lesson the first one is excitement excitement and another one is called enthusiasm as well so you can see excitement and enthusiasm both of these things are similar and um it just means that you have this energy and good feeling about doing something so lots of excitement about learning english i'm excited about giving this lesson and enthusiasm is similar where you have that energy and motivation to do something um welcome lolly lolly is a new member so thank you for joining the to fluency youtube membership now the next one is really important for this lesson and this is a verb it's a second one track to track something another way to say this is to measure something so think about tracking things or measuring things you can track your progress you can track lots of things when it comes to learning english like the level you have now how many new words you learn how many lessons you take how many sentences you learn how many times you use english during the day these are all things you can track and this is going to be very important when we talk about it later the next one to give up to give up means to quit to give up smoking to give up learning english and the verb pattern here is give up plus gerund give up smoking give up learning etc and the last one which i use all the time is to make progress which means to improve so if you make progress with your english you improve your english excitement track give up enthusiasm and make progress so what i've done is i've broken it down into five stages of learning english and this is a cycle that repeats so i see this repeated all the time and it's something that i do as well when it comes to other things now if you want to learn more about this in depth then get my book the five step plan for english fluency this is free to download there is a link for that in the description so i'm just going to say hi to everybody very briefly um we're going to do questions at the end so if you have any questions then be sure to stick around to stay until the end and you can ask me questions then and i'm going to ask some questions as well during this live lesson so that you can feel involved in this so that you can feel like you are part of this okay let's go back to this and talk about stage one so stage one when you start a new goal when you are thinking about doing something big is excitement it's excitement because what you do is this you say i am here i want to be here and how amazing is it going to be when i am here hopefully you can see this on your screen yes you can so you are here you want to be here this is going to be amazing my life is going to change when i have a fluent level of english i currently don't have a fluent level of english but when i have a fluent level of english it's going to feel amazing you are here you're not fit you are unhealthy and you think it's going to be amazing when i am ripped when i am in great shape and strong i have muscles etc or i can't play the guitar right now but it's going to be amazing when i'm an expert and i'm really good at playing the guitar now those three goals fluent in english a c1 level being ripped and muscular being able to play the guitar these are big goals these are things that are difficult to reach where you have to do a lot of work but at first when you start thinking about it you're really excited so you have lots of enthusiasm about it and you're thinking about how your life is going to change that's the the part where you feel great when you feel fantastic okay so that's stage one and i'm sure you've been there as well now stage two is dedication so see that on your screen dedication okay so this is when you think about what you need to do in order to reach this goal so the initial stage you're excited you have enthusiasm the next stage is dedication where you think about okay in order to learn the guitar i need to buy this guitar course and practice three hours a day or when it comes to working out and getting healthy i need to eat salads fruits and vegetables and do lots of exercise when it comes to learning english i need to take lots of lessons i need to get grammar books and study really hard and learn verbs and verb tables and this is where you have this dedication okay this is where you have this dedication where you are so focused on your goal that you are working an hour two three maybe five hours a day on this new goal you're completely dedicated to it you are constantly thinking about doing what you want to do you're constantly reading articles on how to improve you're looking at people who have reached this goal you're thinking about okay later i'm going to exercise then and i'm going to eat this for dinner no i'm not going to go out today because i'm going to focus on this goal no i'm not going to go to that party because i'm so focused and dedicated on this goal okay lavinia has a question thank you for the super chat give up is with the ing form yes so to give up learning give up smoking give up studying give up working etc it's always with the ing form the gerund thank you again okay so go back to this dedication you're fully dedicated and you're doing what you think is the best thing to do but stage three is difficulty when things get difficult when your dedication isn't quite there now an example of this is let's say you want to get fit and healthy but then there's a party weekend you your friends invite you to the the beach house and you go to the beach house there's alcohol everywhere chocolate chips bad foods fast foods everywhere and this is difficult because you have your ex a goal that you're excited about you're dedicated but you're in this situation where it's difficult to do so you drink you have some beer you have some chips you have lots of chocolate lots of mcdonald's and you you don't stick with your goal or when it comes to learning english you get sick so you're in bed for three days you don't do any english and then you find it difficult again to get motivated and dedicated the same with learning the guitar you hurt your fingers playing basketball you can't play for a week you have this difficulty in doing something now usually it's because of time and other commitments okay time and other commitments it might be a wedding weekend or your children get sick and you have to stay home or you just get really busy with family life and you don't have that time to dedicate and this is when things start getting difficult you're not feeling excited or motivated anymore you don't feel that dedicated and this can happen a week after getting started two weeks three weeks four weeks it usually happens early on especially if you are super dedicated in the beginning and trying to do four five hours a day now let's get to the next stage this this is important this is one of the key parts stage four you're unhappy you're unhappy you are unhappy okay because you say this to yourself i'm not there yet i'm not there yet now this is the key part and you can think about it in terms of let's say you are climbing a mountain a very big mountain and you start climbing the mountain with that enthusiasm and excitement i can't wait to reach the top it's going to be amazing and you work really hard you're dedicated you keep walking and walking and walking and then somebody says you know we've got another 10 hours to go and at that point you think oh goodness me i've put all this work in i've done all this work and i've worked so hard but i'm only here when i want to be here and this happens with me when it comes to health and fitness where i work really hard at trying to improve myself let's say it's soccer and i work really hard for six weeks and then i play a game and i play terribly i don't feel like i have improved at all i feel like i should be here but i'm really here or learning the guitar you practice for two months you work really hard at it and then you go to a party and somebody passes you the guitar and you start playing and you're just not good at it and somebody else takes the guitar and there's a wizard just playing beautifully or with learning english you've done a study plan for six weeks you are dedicated you've worked really hard at it and then you have a conversation with somebody and you just can't speak you think oh i want to be here but i'm here and especially if you're working really hard at it for six weeks which is quite a long time four hours a day but you're still here and not here that's when a lot of people move on to stage five which is to give up okay where you think it's not worth it i am putting in all this work and all this energy and i'm not where i want to be why am i doing this why am i doing this it's not worth it i'm going to give up now let me know below if this has happened to you before with english when you have worked really hard with it and then you are only here when you want to be here and you've given up maybe this has happened with you with something else because it happens with me it's happened with me so many times with the guitar where i put in the energy i think i'm going to get better i'm going to get better but i'm only getting a little bit better and all that energy doesn't seem worth it okay um andre thank you for your donation are you a frustrated musician lol i am very frustrated and i think frustrated it's a really good word here you get frustrated you're just so frustrated because you want to really push on um and you want to be here but you're only here i see it happen all the time so many people send me an email saying i've worked hard but i've still got this this lower level now people are saying it's happened to me too um fun hacks tube says yes qualm says yes that's happened to me lolly lolly says i'm not gonna give up even though it's hard sometimes yeah and if you're watching the replay please let me know in the comment section below too okay so this is a key part i'm just going to go through these stages quickly again and then we're going to talk about a solution and then i'll take your questions so stage one excitement so excited about this new this new journey this new english journey i'm going to be up here my life is going to change when i get there stage two dedication okay i'm gonna work four hours a day to reach my goal over the next few weeks stage three you find it difficult to continue going because you're trying to go for four hours a day and that's not sustainable stage four is you say what i'm not there yet i haven't improved in this time i'm not speaking english fluently yeah so stage five is i give up it's not worth it i'm gonna put that phrase in the comment section it's not worth it okay so those are the five stages again i'm going to talk about how you can overcome this in a second but before i do please click the like button on this stream so if you haven't done that yet just click the like button it won't take you a second and also know that again i'm going to do questions at the end of this lesson and if you want to join the to fluency membership here on youtube just click that join button and join now that way i get to see members questions and i'll take members and super chat questions first there are 180 people watching live right now which is great okay george has sent in a donation thank you so much george with the thank you um it means a lot it's great to have you here and feel free to ask any questions you have okay now let's go back to this i'm going to show you um this picture here okay so can you see this on your screen this guy here he's obviously very strong he's doing something here which is called squatting to squat which is a great exercise to do if you want to learn about exercise english watch my last lesson i think you're going to find it very useful now when we talked about stage four i'm not there yet okay i'm not where i want to be yet that is what a lot of people track to track to measure that's what a lot of people think about when when they're constantly thinking about their english and if they're making progress track yourself here now i'm going to give an example with exercise first as an analogy and it'll help you understand this concept a bit more so what i've put here is don't constantly think about your body and your goal okay so don't constantly think about your body and your goal so if you're thinking about your exercise and getting fit and healthy and stronger don't constantly think about how you look and where you want to be because if you do that then you're going to be really annoyed with the difference between where you are now and where you want to be so what i've said here is and this is not health advice this is just an example two things to track track your strength progress so when it comes to strength what you can say is the overhead press okay where you're lifting the bar over your head track how much weight you are lifting so if you're doing 100 pounds at the start of the program and then six weeks later you're at 115 pounds that's great that's making progress that is improving and if you track that then you're tracking the right things because your strength is related to the muscle you have the stronger you get the more muscle you have more or less okay so you're tracking things that you can easily manage and things that are showing you how to improve and the second one is to to track calories how much you're eating because if you eat lower than what you normally eat then you're going to lose body fat relatively speaking and that those are two things that you can track in order to know that you're making progress two things to measure in order to know that you're improving now when it comes to english this is what i think is important don't constantly think about your level okay this is hard to do but don't constantly think about your level don't constantly think about i'm here i want to be here because if you do that there's that massive difference it's just going to make you feel upset what you can do is track your level every three months okay so track your level every three months now lolly lolly has a question here which is really important i feel like i've reached a plateau i am stuck what should i do i work on my english every day a lot of the time it's very difficult to track your english level and where you are very difficult the same with your body you can look in the mirror and guess you know okay i've improved somewhat but generally speaking it's a slow progress and beginners will make progress quickly but then things slow down it always happens in everything guitar you go from nothing to learning a few chords and you think this is amazing and then things slow down with english you go from knowing nothing to having an intermediate level and then it seems like things slow down that's why the next two sentences are so important and what you should focus on instead so i've put here do track sentences learned this is going back to the to fluency method again if you want to learn more about this method there is my main video on my channel home page so if you just after this lesson click to fluency on your phone um on my channel it's the first video you see also watch this lesson here the last lesson i did okay so track sentences learned how many sentences you have learned because if you internalize a thousand sentences your english is going to improve dramatically especially if you use the to fluency method to learn them so let's say you do 100 sentences this week new sentences where you you learn exactly how to repeat them you put them into anki to learn them over the long term you learn new vocabulary from those sentences you write some of them down and you do that for a hundred sentences you can say fantastic i am making progress because i'm using a really effective method and i've done it a hundred times this week that is something to think about and to track that is something to focus on instead of thinking i'm here i want to be here and then another thing to track is hours spent listening hours spent listening where you are listening to things in english you are listening to podcasts watching movies listening to graded readers now i recommend again i talk about this a lot but i recommend finding things that are for your level and things that are enjoyable so that makes it more effective but track hours you spend listening because the more you listen the more you're going to improve these two things i think are the most important things to focus on when learning english you can do other things instead if you prefer but whatever you want to do whatever you think is most effective track how much you do of it measure how much time you spend doing it but in this case how many sentences you have learned and how many hours you have spent listening and then that way you can focus on what matters and then just don't have this constant i'm here i want to be here instead you're saying i have done so well this because i have done 100 sentences and listen to four hours of english another thing about this as well and i talked about this in the last lesson is that when you're in this dedication stage stage two what most people do is they try to do too much too soon four hours a day for example but instead stage two should be about how can i fit learning english into my daily life so that i can enjoy life spend time with my family do my job correctly and focus on my other hobbies too how can i bring english into my life in a way that i can do sustainably over the long term and that's actually step four in the five step plan for english fluency is how are you going to use these most effective methods so it's quite a lot there to think about um i recommend as well going through this a lesson again just to have a good feeling about okay what is do i need what do i need to work on why do i quit learning english and think about times in the past when you have stopped or you've given up okay you have given up learning english playing the guitar exercising etc those are three big things learning a language learning a musical instrument and getting fit and healthy probably the three main new year's resolutions and a lot of people start new year's resolutions and then quit because of what i've talked about here okay so again be sure to like this stream go into the description and download the book the five-step plan for english fluency if you are new here then subscribe subscribe to this channel and turn on the notification bell i go at the moment i'm going live every other week every two weeks and then a lesson every two weeks as well i'm also on instagram search for to fluency and find me on there okay so let's take some questions now let's take some questions um why are you not doing more lives so yeah every two weeks at the moment live lessons sometimes on my phone mainly in the studio here i love doing it in the studio french language is too similar to english language because of the culture i think yeah there are similarities with the french culture of french language mainly due to history and uh 1066 where the normans invaded england um william the the conqueror took over and then french and english were both of those were used but the french language so many vocabulary items that we use now in english that are from uh french lucia says your videos are amazing and your accent is lovely thank you so much for being here it's um it's my pleasure to teach you and if you if you want to support me and then again like the video join as a member and also share this video with your friends maybe on whatsapp or elsewhere can you see this sign it's a little bit dark in here today but this is a sign that i couldn't find for a long time and i found it in my garage at home and brought it into the office so please tell me about the live class timing yeah it's i've never been able to have a fixed time because of family life as you know a lot of schools aren't going back now i have children i'm at home quite a lot more teaching and trying to work at home while teaching them at the same time it's not the best at the moment but i'm enjoying it regardless now here's a great question how can i find a native english speaker to practice speaking there are a few main ways you can pay a teacher for one that way you are going to get good lessons the teacher is going to come to class and you have somebody who is going to be dedicated to helping you you can find a friend who will teach you or you can find a language exchange partner somebody who wants to learn your language and you spend half the time speaking in english and half the time speaking in your language i watch your videos daily thank you so much follow your faith yeah i have 500 lessons here so if you want more from me just go to my channel and watch some old videos i do that with channels i like i go back and watch old videos um i understand everything in english and i'm an english major but when it comes to speaking i feel like i don't know anything and the words don't come out my mouth i don't know what to do focus on basic english when speaking don't try to use complex english so focus on words you already know i also had a video where it talks about asking questions so when speaking and you feel a little bit nervous at first ask somebody some questions so that they do a lot of speaking and then you can take the vocabulary and phrases that they use when they ask you similar questions and it just helps you feel a little bit more comfortable but also work on things that will help you improve your speaking go to my channel and just search for speaking tips i have two videos on that which talk about the best methods that you can use at home to improve your speaking i would say one thing that makes people not speak fluently is thinking that you have to speak in a perfect way yeah and that's a good point there's this fluency in accuracy and fluency is different than accuracy accuracy is speaking with the right grammar the right words the right sentence structure fluently or with fluency is a bit more where you can speak at a normal pace or at a good pace and you're not constantly uh you know words just come out naturally what do you think about the technique shadowing i like shadowing if if you can easily shadow but the to fluency method focuses a little bit more on accuracy and then i recommend using some shadowing in order to help you with your fluency now shadowing is when you listen to audio in english and you you copy what the person is saying without stopping the audio so you're constantly listening and saying the downside is a lot of people will mumble a fast chance we can assist they'll mumble and not enunciate properly so find something that you can easily follow but i quite like the method i do like the method and one person talks about walking while doing this just walking back and forth try it out you might people might see you and think what is this person doing if you're speaking in english or mumbling in english and walking around everywhere i started listening on youtube learning this for a story and it really helped me i'm watching you as well thank you how to maintain your british accent while you live in america is american accent not affected your native accent great question yeah i've been here 10 years it does affect it a little bit i tend to just focus on vocal i change my vocabulary to use words that people use here just to make it easier so you know i say soccer all the time instead of football and i quite like the word soccer now but my accent hasn't changed in a big way what's the best way to achieve native like intonation and the fluency method will help you with this because it works on intonation too so if you you know if you have that rise fall intonation or the fall intonation or in australia they're always going up at the end intonation then just copy speakers so find audio and copy their intonation i'm taking ielts classes and i want to improve my reading and speaking what books and tools do you recommend past papers are the best for ielts so find the ielts website has lots of past papers model answers and you can just you can go through these and learn exactly what's on the test get lots of listening practice lots of reading practice and then find a teacher who will help you with your writing and speaking and they'll be able to give you a good idea of what level you are currently at and what you need to improve do you speak spanish uh yeah it's been a long time since i spoke i spoke to a friend's um dad who's from colombia the other day we spoke in spanish for a little bit but i had the same i had the same um problem as what the other person talked about at first you're nervous you're thinking uh what words to use think about how to say stuff but what comes out naturally to me are the phrases that i've just learned and it's the phrases i've learned and that comes out naturally and then in french it's it's things like poofy it's going to be hard it's been a while proof of media phrases come out naturally but if you're thinking ah the word the grammar etc it's harder to do that's why i say learn through sentences all the time i've kind of answered that question where you're i'm unable to remember context words when i talk again phrases sentences it makes such a big difference i'm not confident while i'm speaking with someone who's fluent i make a lot of mistakes but when i'm speaking with someone who's under my level i don't make a mistake yeah again it's this confidence and it comes with lots of practice and lots of time learning the sentences and and then also just getting that speaking practice so when i say the two things to focus on these are things on your own listening and the to fluency method whereas you also want to get speaking practice with people it really does help monica says i'm from colombia yeah and when i spoke to him i said something with the spanish i think it's like medellin or kaiji instead of lolly lolly says great accent in french thank you i follow you because your accent is a magical one so kind we have um nurul from bangladesh does trying to be a perfectionist kill your fluency def definitely yeah it it is like if you try to be a perfectionist in anything it kills it kills everything um because you never actually do what you want to do so let's say you're a perfectionist when it comes to playing the guitar you'll never play in front of your friends if you want to be a perfectionist um let's have a look i'm from mexico i'm new here renee thank you for being here now man says please say arrange online learning session on a daily basis whether it maybe just for 30 minutes uh i i i went through a time of doing a video a day it's really tiring it's a lot of work but yeah i'll do more videos like as soon as i can get more time coming into the studio into this office space i'll make a lot more videos i started listening to audiobooks to improve my english and no more words because when i'm speaking with someone i forget everything i still don't have confidence that is how the to fluency method will will make a difference i'm from columbia and i love that you know a little bit about our culture yeah i spent 10 days or two weeks there in 2007 it's great i've got some friends from colombia too okay so this is a good way to end it in fact i'm just going to give a quick summary about this because i think it's such an important thing um when it comes to to learning english because this we don't want this stage five where you give up learning we don't want to have that so it's important to watch this video after this one where you listen a lot talk about the to fluency method and then track what's important so don't constantly think about your level where you are now and where you want to be instead track how many sentences you have learned this week and track how many hours you've spent listening and then every three to six months do a test with the teacher and ask them if you have improved because that will give you a good idea if you're doing the right things and then think about this as more of a long-term goal where you're not just saying okay i want to learn english i'm going to work hard for six weeks and then give up think about how you can reach this goal in 12 months in one year going from b1 to c1 in a year is fantastic and that is what most people can do every day people who have lives and jobs and activities and other things going on like to party and they they can fit that into their life whereas if you just go really hard too soon six weeks you get burnt out you lose that energy desire motivation and you think oh it's not worth it so take it slowly get lots of repetition do the things that work and yeah be sure to watch those videos i've mentioned because it's really going to help you when it comes to um making this a long-term thing okay so with that in mind again click that like button before you go share this lesson with a friend and then go check out my other videos and if you want to support this channel and get exclusive videos then become a to fluency member okay thank you all for being here i'll speak to you soon bye

Channel: To Fluency

Views: 34,415

Keywords: learn english, to fluency, english, esl, online english teacher, how to learn english, english fluency, learning english, english lesson, english classes, conversation skills, speak english

Id: UjKE-EJXIdM

Length: 43min 6sec (2586 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020