How Isabelle became less afraid of speaking English

- Okay, hello everyone.

This is Christina from Speak English with Christina,

and this morning I have a really great pleasure,

I can't speak, to be here with Isabel

who has just recently finished a three-month program

of the Master Real American English program.

Isabel, it's good to have you here today

to talk about your experience.

- Thank you.

- You're very welcome, my pleasure.

Just to, I guess, give everyone a little bit of context,

can you just tell us an introduction to yourself,

who you are and why you're learning English.

- Okay.

I'm Isabel and I live in the U.S. projects

and my English it was very, very, very, very bad

and I wasn't,

I wasn't confidence when I speak

and now it's better.

- Okay great!

No that's really, it's really nice.

And it's always nice to like to hear, of course,

to hear someone say like, oh, I feel more confident,

but also to be able to see it.

'Cause I remember before you started the program

you were really kind of, I don't know if I can do this

and I'm not sure, and now it's completely different.

- I think so, yeah.

I am shame about every word pronounced and I know I'm not.

- Yeah, now you're like, I can do this.

- Okay, okay, I make a fault, it's not a big deal.

- Yeah, exactly.

Yeah and I think that's actually a message I think

that a lot of people, they need to hear is that you

can make mistakes, you can pronounce things incorrectly

and it's okay.

- I make some mistake in friends too, okay.

- Exactly and I think that that's good.

I mean, sometimes we don't always, you know,

use the right grammar, whatever, in our native language,

but we don't think anything about it.

We're like, yeah, who cares.

All right, so why did you decide to join

the Master Real American English program specifically?

- Because it was a lot problem of this program

with vocabulary,

common vocabulary.

And all your familiar video are very, very important

because that's life.

- Yeah, you mean the videos

in the Understand Real American English, yeah.

- Yeah and we need to be in life,

not to learn in the book or a specific courses, no,

I think it's very important to learn with common,

with popular conversations.

- Yeah, like real people and real conversations.

- Yeah, sure, because it's in American,

it's a lot of expression

and you notice (mumbles).

- Yeah, (mumbles) exactly, yeah.

- And we don't have in French and it was very difficult,

but very good to learn that.

- Yeah and that's the idea is that it pushes you,

something that maybe you watched the video the first time

and you go, I don't understand anything or I understand

very little, but then you try again and again

and you realize, hey.

- Maybe sometimes I try ten times, but it's okay.

- That's what you have to do to learn.

- At the end, it was okay for me.

- Exactly.

- That's more important.

- Yeah, exactly, it's just really to keep at it

and not give up, I think.

A lot of people give up too early.

- I was trying to hear the pronunciation

and to read again, to read and to hear again

and at the end it's very, very nice.

- Yeah, all right, great.

So before you started the program,

what hesitations or questions did you have about joining?

No questions or hesitations.

- No questions, no.

I was very confident in your process because

I'm making an advice and I was very confident in that.

No, no, nothing wrong with that.

No questions especially, no.

- I was gonna say, yeah, that's true,

it was Alexander who actually referred you to the program

so I guess that's, it helps to make the decision

when someone outside of the program says,

hey, you should do this program.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, right.

So you did the three-month program and how has the program

helped you over these past three months?

- I'm sorry, Christina, I don't hear you very well.

- Sorry, can you hear me now?

- The line is--

- It's cutting, okay.

- Can you try to repeat slowly, please?

- Sure, yeah, I'll do the question again.

So you did the program for three months

and how has the program helped you

in those past three months?

- I can't explain really but because I think it's global,

it's a global thing.

You are very, very present in our life during three months.

- Sure.

- By conversation, by mail, by on WhatsApp.

At the beginning I don't understand,

I don't understand all the things.

My mistake is I don't talk about that with you

and I try to understand by my phone and I make mistake

and I loose a little bit of time with that,

but at the end I understand.

And it was very nice to be like in a cocoon.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly, in a little cocoon.

- Yeah because you are very present

and we can speak about everything with you every day

and when we are question and it was nice for me.

- And I think, again, that's a good point

about if you didn't understand something

or how to do something in the program

to just like ask a question.

- Yeah I mistake with that.

- Yeah, sure, and you know it's good you learn

from your mistakes and then you also share that lesson

with other people because I think in the program

like there's me, there Jeanine, whose the business coach.

There's your individual teacher and it's like we're all

there and so that whenever you have a question

or you don't quite understand like how does this work,

what do I need to do, to just say,

hey can you explain it to me?

I mean like, that's our job, and I think sometimes students

are afraid to ask.

- Yeah, because you know, we are afraid because I,

in my case, I don't speak English and everything is writing,

writing in English so I have to read in English,

I have to pen English.

It was very, very difficult to understand and I was,

I wasn't...

- Maybe like a little overwhelmed.

It's an immersion so it's like you're all in English

and so you have to manage everything in English.

- Yeah, I have to, I don't know how to explain my,

my feeling at this moment, but I thinking,

okay you don't understand...

- Right, like okay if I don't understand

I just have to figure it out myself.

- Yeah.

- And no, and no you don't.

- I know I make mistakes, but that's okay.

- That's okay, you learned a lesson.

- Not worry about that again.

- Exactly right.

So what has changed in the way that you use English

from before the program and now that you've finished.

- I not care about my mistakes.

- Right, you're like, I can do it.

- I can do it and it's really,

it's my personal victory.

I don't care about my mistakes.

- Exactly and that's really just like very liberating.

- Yeah.

- Because then you say, you know what,

I'm gonna go and do it and I'm gonna make mistakes

and that's okay, but I'm gonna do it.

And then it becomes easier every time.

- Yesterday I receive a big email with some words,

some sentences, okay I work on, on this email

and after that I try to speak about with Matthew

and okay in ten minutes I was okay with that.

I know that I have to

learn again and to work on this project,

but I'm not stressed and it's very nice for me.

- Yeah just like not feeling stressed.

- After three weeks in Vietnam,

I don't speak English for one month.

My first conversation with Matthew

was a little bit difficult, but it was okay.

It was,

I was appear and, okay, we make mistakes.

- Exactly, and like I said its just very

like a weight off your shoulders as we say in English

to feel that.

And the final question, is there anything that you

would like to share or to say to someone

who is thinking about maybe joining this program?

- Okay, don't be afraid to, like me,

to talk about explanation

or details with Christina

and maybe if I can do an advice.

If you're afraid, if you don't understand,

take a translation.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

- Talk in translation to Christina and

that's all because that's

a really big deal to understand all your mail

and all your message in English and we

maybe sometimes we don't understand well

and if you're not sure, okay, talk a translation.

- Exactly and I think that is a good advice

because I think a lot of times people,

like we have these tools available to us

like Google Translate, for example,

which is not perfect but it can really help you

to understand better than if you didn't have it.

And sometimes I think students feel like, no, no, no,

I can't do a translation because that's cheating,

but it's a tool that's available to us.

- I think about my lesson who was bad,

I need really, I needed some translation.

- Yeah and that's totally fine, exactly.

- I loose time.

- It's all about finding what helps you to, I guess,

communicate effectively and to understand effectively

in English whatever tool or whatever technique that is.

- Yeah.

- Very good, okay well thank you so much, Isabel,

for sharing all of that with us

and looking forward to hearing

about your future success in the U.S.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.