Why Are You Stuck At The Same English Level ???

so I had a conversation with one of my students and he was telling me that he was frustrated because his English didn't seem to be improving he'd been studying English for so long you know studying books attending classes even having private tutors but it seemed like every time he went to speak to someone in English he would get stuck and he didn't know what to do and as I was listening to this student I realized that I experienced the same thing when I was studying Korean you feel like you kind of reached this the ceiling right there there's no way to go above the ceiling and and you don't know what to do you just feel stuck now I'm sure you've felt that way before you know you've studied English for years probably and you still feel like you're not an advanced English speaker well that's why I created today's lesson because I'm gonna tell you how to get unstuck and to actually take your English to the next level I'm teacher Tiffany let's jump right in [Music] all right so the first reason you feel stuck is you don't know what to study now this is a common issue that many students come across or face when they're studying English so there are times when you don't know what vocabulary word or what expression or what idiom to study or even what methods you should be using to study that's an issue and it can make you feel stuck so one of the main issues connected to this is you have too many options I mean there are tons of amazing English teachers on YouTube not just me but many other English teachers then there are thousands of books that you can choose from and there are so many options and you kind of get a little bit confused well there are some solutions here are two solutions first study in groups what you want to do is think of topics that you are actually interested in and speak about regularly then find words expressions idioms and discussion questions about those topics now here's the reason why I love this solution so much you see a lot of times when you're studying English you're trying to study everything I mean everything you want to know every single word every single expression but the truth of the matter is that's not how it works even in your own language there are words that you don't know however you can speak confidently about the topics you are interested in so all you have to do is think about those topics and then change them over into English and then study in groups what you're gonna do is for example if you're a favorite thing to talk about is let's say food because you know I love food well then okay think about when you're cooking the food think about when you are actually eating the food what are the emotions what are the thoughts going through your head now try to translate those thoughts emotions and ideas into English so the next time you go to speak about cooking or food you will have a group of English words and expression and ideas that you can properly express in English and you have much more confidence so again focus on what you're interested in and study in groups now another solution to this issue is what you can do is create goals specific study plans think about what you want to accomplish then find study goals or study plans or guides that will help you reach those goals this solution will help you know exactly what to study and for how long so let me explain exactly how to do this now you will notice my voice is a little bit different today I think I'm getting a little bit congested all of a sudden so I'm okay but I think you notice my voice sounds just a tad bit different alright so create goals specific study plans for example let's say for this month you want to improve your pronunciation okay well then write that down what are you going to do in order to accomplish this goal this is gonna help you know what to study for what period of time I tell you the truth I am not lying when you put a goal and you work towards that goal your brain goes into overdrive to help you accomplish that goal so again you don't have to worry about what to study because you have one goal in mind and you're working towards that goal all right now the second reason why you feel stuck in English is right here you don't have time to study or in other words it's hard to balance work family and life listen I get it when I was studying Korean I was working full time and studying and training my trying to manage my you know my friendships and my family life it was difficult so I understand it's a little bit hard to know how to balance all of these things and actually find time to study in English but I have some solutions for you so here's the first solution first you want to pick one set time to each day that's right one specific time it could be in the morning it can be in the evening now you can decide the exact amount of time but try to select a specific time that you will study every single day all right this may be five minutes in the morning or 10 minutes at night that's right I did say five minutes or ten minutes you see you need to create a habit and you don't have to stress yourself about oh I need to study for an hour or two hours every single day you're busy you don't have time to study but think about it five minutes you can kind of find five minutes in your day right or maybe even ten minutes so start off with a small amount of time but make sure you set aside that time every day and you stick to your plan now the other solution to help you you know when you feel like you don't have enough time change up the style if you change things up you won't be as bored instead you will look forward to studying English in other words you will make time for something you enjoy here's the fact if you study vocabulary every single day good not bad at all but you're going to start feeling a little bit bored if you do the same thing every single day so you have to change it up maybe you can say hey Monday's our vocabulary days Tuesday's our YouTube video days where you go and you watch an entertaining video and just enjoy it maybe Wednesday's our new expression days so change it up and I guarantee you won't feel as bored and suddenly you will look forward to the time when you have to study English okay now the next reason why you feel so stuck in your English and you feel like you're not improving is because you don't have a way to practice or in other words you don't have anyone to practice with I hear this all the time this is why I wanted to show you these solutions alright so here's the deal you need to join an online group the Internet is amazing it's connected all of us even though we live on different sides of the world so there are tons of online groups where you can practice your English but remember to look for groups related to your interests remember earlier we talked about if you like cooking or if you like food find a group related to that interest all right join them and start participating I know you may feel nervous but being online maybe you'll get a little bit more confidence because they can't see you so slowly you'll start to practice even more and then you'll see wait a minute this is not as hard as I thought it was as you learn a new expression start using it in the group that you joined in the comment section even in this video underneath this video in the comment section try as much as possible to comment every single video to practice alright now the other solution is what you can do you can roleplay scenes now role-playing will help you get more comfortable and also understand the importance of body language when you speak in English you can also shadow videos you see online now you guys know that when I speak to you when I teach you I always use my hands I use a lot of body language when I speak so when you're role-playing it's very important to think about your body language but let's say for example you want to roleplay or act out a scene or a situation where someone is meeting their boyfriend or girlfriend for the first time well not the first time let's say it's the first date first date right they already know each other but it's the first official date well roleplay that scene how do you think you'd feel in that situation try to say it in English ah wow you really look great today ah thank you so much would you like to sit right here start acting it out and again this will create triggers in your mind connecting the emotions with the words that you're using and I guarantee it will make your English language journey a lot more interesting alright so again roleplay this will help you practice even when you're on your own ok all right now here's the neck reason reason number four you are tired and burnt out in other words you feel overwhelmed and tired now I had a conversation with one of my students this past week and he was telling me that he's just busy he's a lot of things going on at work and he's kind of tired and not really feeling like studying English and I understood what he was saying because you know after a while you get a little bit bored which we talked about earlier but if you're so busy at work you really are too tired to study English but don't worry like I said I have a solution for this problem here's the solution and it may shock you take a scheduled break every two weeks that's right I want you to not study English once every two weeks and let me explain why your body needs physical rest but your mind also needs mental rest so schedule a mental break every two weeks study hard for two weeks and then select a full day or two to simply do nothing at all related to English you see what's gonna happen is you're gonna start to miss English but your brain is also going to start to relax a little bit and start reviewing what you learned over the previous two weeks I guarantee that taking this break is gonna make you more excited when you start back again now don't take too long of a break some students say well I'll take about two weeks don't take a two-week break take one day or two days and then jump right back in but again it is important to take a break and give your mind a mental rest but remember to come back immediately after that rest all right now here's the fifth reason why you feel stuck you keep comparing yourself to others basically you feel like other people are better than you now I'll be very honest with you I did this as well when I was studying Korean because in my class there were some amazing students I mean they could speak Korean it was another and I was always impressed by the way they spoke in Korean and I also would start comparing myself like I'm studying so hard but why can I speak like them why don't I sound like them and slowly I started to be very discouraged and I started thinking about them instead of my own journey this is why I want to tell you to stop doing that don't do that because it actually can break you down and really discourage you so here are the solutions that worked alright so instead of comparing yourself you need to stop looking at other people you have to stop worrying about other people and their English skills focusing on other people only brings stress and discouragement instead analyze yourself you should take time to analyze your personal progress and see where you need to improve then periodically go back and see how you have improved so basically instead of focusing on Tom Dick Harry and Sally you now will focus on yourself you will see hey what are you good at what do you need to improve what you need to work on and then work on those things and you will feel more confident because again you have a goal and you know what you're improving and also how to continue improving so listen I really hope this encouraged you I hope it helped you see that even though you feel stuck there is a way out there is a way for you to take your English to the next level alright now remember if you want to watch part 2 of this lesson all you have to do is click the link in the description all my Academy students can watch part 2 I really enjoy preparing this lesson just for you and I will talk to you next week but as always remember to speak English [Music] you know what time it is it is story time story time story time a a story time alright okay guys so today's story is it's kind of serious um but it was a really big lesson that I learned in my life and it's kind of connected to feeling stuck so when I graduated from university I had a maid I majored in computer science and also commercial art so I was a web developer at NASA like I told you about before um but during that time I also started my own business and I was developing websites for companies you know after work when I go home so I had a side job now one time a gentleman contacted me and he wanted me to actually create a website for him for his business so we had an official meeting I gave him the proposal I told him how much it would be and everything seemed fine I told him okay it's gonna be three thousand dollars and you need to pay half up front and then half upon completion everything was perfect he was a really nice gentleman shook hands gave me the money immediately the first payment and I started working now I was running my own business and I had a contractor so who was actually my coworker at my actual job and then we would work together on the side and he and I are still very close actually his wife is Korean and they are really close to me I'm so close to them now and they were one of the reasons I also wanted to go to Korea so anyways he and I were working together and he had the job of working for on the database so the database aspect of the website and everything was going smoothly and we got to the end of the project the website was running perfectly and it was time for me to go back to the client and say hey everything is done can I have your final payment after you've checked everything and I was gonna also pay my contractor so I called the gentleman and there was no answer but that was okay because all right you know one time it's not a problem I call them every day almost for a full two weeks then I send them an email and I never got a response now remember I said I had a contractor working for me and I owed him a thousand dollars because of the work that he did and I hadn't paid him yet so I was getting a little bit worried because the client wasn't responding to my messages or my calls and I stood to pay this contractor now I remember I was very young I think I was about 23 or 24 and I was stuck I didn't know what to do I was concerned because I was thinking about my contractor that was my responsibility to pay my contractor but my client wasn't paying me so I called my parents and I said this is the situation what do I do do I take the person to collections collections refers to if someone doesn't pay you you can actually go the official route and get collections to get the money for you from the person and if the person doesn't pay there are legal ramifications they could possibly you know have to pay a huge fine to the state so I didn't really want to do that I didn't want to sue him I just wanted him to pay me for the work that was done but again I said I felt stuck but when I felt stuck I went to my parents for advice and they said you know what TIFF my nickname you guys can comment if you'd like your responsibility is for your contractor even though your client hasn't paid you he's your responsibility and after that conversation I realized that I had to take out a loan in order to pay my contractor and when I told him I was gonna pay him he was worried about me he said TIFF no $1,000 is a lot of money for you to take out as a loan just because your clients not paying that I'll wait I said no you are my responsibility I'm gonna pay you and then whatever happens with this client I'll just have to face the consequences so I paid my contractor and when I called the client back and I said hey you're not responding to me but I had to send this issue to the collections agency he suddenly responded he said why are you doing this to me and he was very rude so I was a little bit shocked remember I was young and he was a lot older than me and I was a little shocked because I thought that he was more professional long story short he never paid me ever and I just lost that money and I had to pay that $1,000 loan off because of my client didn't pay me but I learned a valuable lesson always pay your people first so moving forward whenever I had a job or I had a client I always paid my contractor's first and I also learned that when I get stuck in a situation I need words of wisdom and my parents gave me those words of wisdom in that moment so today we talked about being stuck in your English journey and I was hoping that my words were words of wisdom for you don't worry I know sometimes it gets difficult and you feel like you can't get above a certain level watch this video again follow the ideas and the plans that I gave you and the solutions and use them as words of wisdom I hope you enjoyed today's storytime and I'll see you next week

Channel: Speak English With Tiffani

Views: 109,627

Keywords: speak english with tiffani, teacher tiffani, interactive english, things native speakers say, what you should say in english, how native speakers talk, become native english speaker, learn english expressions, talk like a native speaker, english lesson, advanced english, advanced phrases, conversational english, english conversation, things americans say, english teacher, how to improve my english, why are you stuck at the same english level, same english level, english

Id: DsV4hWdh-WI

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020