How to Speak English Without Making Grammar Mistakes

- Many teachers say,

"Don't worry about your grammar mistakes, just communicate."

Um, well, yes.

But you see, there's something else very important

you need to know.

And if you don't do this,

your spoken English will just never improve.

Let me explain.

(upbeat music)

Hello, it's Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy

and the YouTube channel English Speaking Success,

helping you become a more confident speaker of English.

Now, I remember at school I had to write essays

and then give the essay to the teacher.

A few days later, the teacher would come back,

and there's your essay, my essay, covered in red ink,

all the mistakes.

And I think, oh, no.

And that's why nowadays,

a lot of people think about mistakes,

they have a negative feeling.

So I understand why lots of teachers and linguists now say

don't worry about mistakes, don't focus on the mistakes.

More important is your communication.

Now, that's true, right?

We should embrace our mistakes.

You have to make mistakes to get better.

The important thing not to forget

is you then need to correct your mistakes

and learn from your mistakes.

Otherwise, you're always gonna be here.

And many people forget that,

and they just carry on making the same mistakes

again and again.

And so they stay at the same level.

Now you can rely on your teacher to correct your mistakes.

However, there's quite a bit of research

that shows teacher correction doesn't always work,

not always the most effective way.

I think actually the most successful students

learn to self-correct.

And I think that's the key.

So in this video, I want to show you how to do that,

to learn to self-correct.

So you can use grammar, making mistakes,

but then correcting your mistakes

so later you can use grammar without making mistakes.

Yeah, that should be the title of the video. (laughs)

But if I put that title, you wouldn't click, right?

Welcome to social media world, Keith. (chuckles)

It reminds me of a story, right?

I had a friend, I still have a friend, he's a Buddhist monk.

I don't see him a lot 'cause he lives out in China.

But I remember when I visited his temple one day,

and I was struck by all the visitors

being attracted by the gold and the glitter.

And the monks would say, you know, "Come and pray with us

and you will become rich."

And I remember thinking Buddhism isn't about becoming rich,

getting money.

And so I asked him.

I said, "Why do you promise these people

that they will become rich?"

His answer, well, listen,

I'm gonna tell you the answer later,

because right now let's focus on your grammar, right?

Grammar first, Buddhism second. (laughs)

I'm not a Buddhist, by the way.

So I don't get distracted, let's focus on helping you

learn how to correct your grammar

so you can use grammar without making mistakes.

Now, in this video,

I'm gonna show you a framework to do that

that you can use for all your grammar in the future.

I'll use one example today to make it clear.

But once you have this framework, boom, Bob's your uncle.

You'll be able to use it for all of your future study.

Are you ready?

Of course you are.

You've been waiting.

Let's do it.

Okay, so this framework has six steps.

Step number one is focus on one rule at a time.

This is important 'cause when you practice,

very often when you're speaking or writing,

you're trying to correct and use all the grammar correctly,

and there's just so much grammar it's overwhelming,

and you can't do it, and you go blank,

or you make lots of mistakes.

So focus on one area of grammar that you find difficult

or that you know is a problem for you

and just focus on that, right?

For example, if you confuse the present simple

and the present continuous.

I mean, for example, right?

Why do we say I eat breakfast at seven o'clock,

but we say I'm eating breakfast with my friend now.

Why?

Or, on the other hand, maybe you confuse countable

and uncountable nouns, right?

I mean, why do we say how many apples?

How much water?

And what about coffee?

How much?

How many?

So focus on one area at a time.

Next.

Right, now, step number two is practice.

Actually I suggest here

you use what I call the Speaking Success System.

It's at the heart of all my teaching and my courses.

It's the heart of the GOLD Course

for IELTS speaking students.

Discover the language, practice using it,

and then review it.

I'll talk about reviewing later,

but let's look at discover the language,

and discover the rule of its grammar,

and then practicing how to use it, okay, practice speaking.

Now you can discover the rule

through a grammar reference book. (coughs) (laughs)

Hello, granddad.

Reference book.

I've got ChatGPT.

Okay, sure, that as well.

That works.

Whatever.

For this video today,

let's discover the language through context, right?

And for those of you who are IELTS students,

let's take an IELTS question and see some language.

So here's the question.

Do you usually cook at home?

And the answer, yes, I cook most evenings after work.

I usually cook Spanish dishes because I like them.

Right now, I'm learning how to cook Italian food.

Right, interesting.

So he says, yes, I cook most evenings.

I usually cook Spanish dishes,

but I'm learning how to cook Italian.

Okay, why is he using

the present simple sometimes

and the present continuous other times.

What's the rule?

Right, yes.

So the rule is we use the present simple

for a habit or a routine

and the present continuous for something happening now

or around this time, okay?

Very, very simple.

So that's discovering.

Let's practice.

Let's practice speaking.

I'll ask another question and I want you

to give one sentence with the present simple, I do A,

and another sentence with the present continuous,

now I'm doing B, okay?

For example, if I say,

do you usually go to cafes or to restaurants?

Right.

Let's find out what our student says.

Well, I go to cafes about twice a week.

I usually go to a cafe near my home.

This week though, I'm trying a new cafe near my office.

Right, I go to cafes twice a week.

It's a habit, a routine.

This week, now, I'm trying a new one.

It's around this time.

You see the difference?

Keep practicing.

Here's another one for you.

Do you have a hobby?

Well, I might say, yes, I play the guitar.

I usually play in the evenings.

Right now, I'm learning a new song by Van Halen, ta-da.

Let's move on to step number three.

Okay, step number three, speak slowly.

Now, just now, you were practicing

with one or two sentences.

You also need to practice kind of longer turns,

speaking more a longer time.

And when you're doing that and having conversations,

speak more slowly,

'cause when you slow down, it gives you time to think

and practice specifically the grammar that you're doing

and to get it right, right?

Focus on accuracy by speaking more slowly.

The big mistake so many students make

is that they speak too quickly.

And they think fluency is speed.

It is not.

Fluency is not speed.

Slow down and it's really gonna help you

speak more accurately and use grammar correctly, right?

Slow down.

Do you remember the Buddhist monk,

the story of my friend, the Buddhist monk,

who in the temples they used gold and getting rich

to attract people.

So I said to him, (chuckles) I said, "Why'd you do that?

Why'd you tell people they're gonna be rich

if they come in to the temple?"

He said, "Well, if they never come in to the temple,

we can never teach them, or convince them,

or tell them the story we want to tell them.

They have to come in.

Once they come in, we can then tell them about Buddhism,

and it's not about money.

But if they don't come in, we can't teach them."

Interesting, right?

A bit like YouTube and clicking.

Hmm, interesting food for thought.

With that thought, let's move on to step number four.

Okay, step number four.

Well, remember, step number one, focus on one rule.

Number two, practice.

Number three, speak slowly.

Number four, record yourself and check.

You see, if you don't have a teacher to correct you,

you need to correct yourself.

And a great way to do that

is record yourself, audio or video, when you're speaking.

So when you're having a conversation

or telling a story to yourself, record it.

If you're having a zoom meeting with somebody

and practicing, record it.

Ask for permission, but record it.

And then listen back and focus

on the one grammar rule, right?

Not everything.

Forget vocabulary.

The one grammar rule you're focusing on,

are you using it correctly?

And if not, you'll see the mistakes.

And if you are using it correctly, pat yourself on the back.

Job well done.

Excellent.

And then move on to step number five, which is...

Step number five is to use AI to review.

Do you remember I talked about the Speaking Success System?

Your discovering language, your practicing, and then review.

So to review, use AI.

It's so simple.

You can get AI to create stories, podcasts,

news articles, anything.

You just need to tell it

the one grammar rule you're focused on

and then to create something, a short story,

a short dialogue using that grammar rule.

You can say, create a story

using five examples of that grammar rule.

And then you've got a little story in a different context,

but practicing the same grammar.

You can read it, you can listen to it,

you can get it text to speech, make it into audio.

If you're really clever, you can get text to video,

make a nice video, whatever.

But you can just create unlimited materials

to practice this and to review this.

So important and yet so easy.

Once you've done that, move on to step number six.

Right, number six, well, first, quick review.

First, one rule.

Second, practice.

Three, speak slowly.

Four, record yourself.

Five, AI and review.

Six, do some writing.

Because I think in addition to speaking,

writing is a great way to reinforce the language.

If you can write with a nice, beautiful pen,

I actually think that's better.

If you want to type, you can type.

Hey, just call me granddad,

but I think writing is a really good way

to reinforce the language.

Now, I know a lot of teachers do reading and writing first

and then kind of speaking later.

Course books as well.

Kind of speaking is the activity at the very end.

I totally disagree with that.

I think you should do speaking first,

and then some reading, and then some writing.

The writing at the end,

that for me is a much better way of doing it.

So there we have it.

The six steps, it's a framework you can use

for any grammatical item that you want to practice,

and it's all about learning how to self-correct.

Give it a go.

Try it out.

Now I've got two action points for you, actually, three.

The first one is if you liked this,

subscribe to the channel.

Ooh, and you could also become a member now.

If you look at the Subscribe button,

next door there's a Join button.

Become a member.

Become a Keithian.

You get custom badges, emojis, extra video footage.

Most importantly, you support all the work

that I do on YouTube.

Action step number two

is download the PDF for this lesson.

And you can review and practice everything

that we've been talking about.

That's it.

I hope this has been useful

and will help you on your journey

to using grammar correctly when you speak.

Thank you so much for watching.

I do appreciate it.

Take care.

Have a great day.

And I'll see you in the next video.

All the best now.

Bye-bye.

(upbeat music)