5 Tips to Increase Your CONFIDENCE in English

- Confidence is hugely important when speaking English,

but a lot of people are thinking

about confidence in the wrong way.

Let me explain why, and also give you

five simple ways that you can start

boosting your confidence when speaking English right now.

(upbeat music)

Hello, this is Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy

and the YouTube channel English Speaking Success,

here to help you speak better English,

give better answers and get a higher score

on IELTS speaking.

Oh, and if you're not doing IELTS,

then I'm just here to help you enjoy English.

Now in English, there's quite a popular phrase

that goes, fake it till you make it.

fake, right means false or to pretend.

To fake it is to pretend something is true,

although it's not.

And then eventually, it will become true.

Fake it till you make it,

pretend that you're confident until you feel confident.

It's a bit of a psychological trick.

And sometimes, in some situations, it can work.

And listen, if it works for you, brilliant, stop the video,

go and have a cup of tea, go and have a lie down.

However, I began thinking twice about this

when, this was a few years ago,

when I said to a student, listen,

just pretend to be confident

and you will speak better English.

And the student looked at me in the eyes and said,

listen, Keith, dear teacher,

when I can speak better English, I will be more confident.

And I thought, oh wow,

am I putting the cart before the horse?

Which one actually comes first?

Are you confident,

then you speak better or do you speak better

and then you're confident?

And I began doubting.

The reality is right, it's probably a cycle, right?

That you do both and they go round and round.

The point is, you don't want a downward cycle

where you lose confidence.

You want an upward cycle where you're gaining confidence.

So today let me, give you now

five tips that can help you boost your confidence.

And as a bonus, I'm gonna tell you about a fantastic tool,

right, which can also help build your confidence.

It's a mobile app.

It's called ELSA Speak,

and more about that very shortly.

Right now, let's get into tip number one.

Small challenges, set yourself small challenges.

Challenges are great because they help you grow.

But if they're too big, you'll fail

and you'll lose confidence.

Small challenge plus small success equals more confidence.

Simple as that and you repeat this cycle, right?

So set yourself challenges, set yourself up to win,

as we say in English, right?

Give yourself a realistic goal

and a challenge that you can achieve.

So maybe, I'm gonna learn two idioms today.

I'm gonna study for 10 minutes today.

I'm gonna improve my level over the next six months,

right, small challenges.

Don't be thinking big challenges like, well,

I'm gonna study for three hours today.

You're more likely to fail.

I'm gonna go from a band five to a band seven

in two months, you're more likely to fail.

Set yourself up to win.

And here, a couple of super mini tips, right?

The first one is when it comes to reading, right?

Read stuff that is just below your level,

because then you'll read more quickly

and you'll look up less words

and you'll feel confident about your reading.

Super mini tip number two, when you're listening,

take very small extracts, very small passages,

maybe 30 seconds, and just listen and repeat.

That is such a simple challenge, right?

And you can then slowly up the challenge,

increase the challenge by listening and changing one word.

So maybe you hear the phrase, for example,

I live in London and I've lived here for five years

and you repeat, I live in London,

I've lived here for five years,

but then you change something.

I live in London, I've lived here for three months.

Simple as that.

So you're setting these small challenges,

maybe upping the level as you build your confidence.

Great, tip number two, coming up.

Tip number two, push your comfort zone.

Now this is related to the challenge, right?

It's pushing the area where you feel comfortable

to an area where you feel less comfortable.

This is great to help you grow and build confidence,

but it's really important you do it slowly and gradually.

There is a very good idea,

it comes from a guy called Pat Flynn,

who's a wonderful entrepreneur, online business man.

And he's called basically, he calls it the three second rule

and it goes like this, from the moment

that you decide to do something,

within three seconds, you must take action.

So if you decide, okay, I'm gonna find a speaking partner

or I'm gonna go and speak to this colleague in English,

or I'm gonna sign up for this English class today.

From the moment you think of doing it,

within three seconds, you must act.

One, two, because in those three seconds,

you don't have time to think.

You just go and you act.

If you let a thought come in, what happens?

But what if? but maybe no.

Oh, but I'm not sure about...,

you must not let the thought come in.

And the three second rule is really powerful.

It can work really, really well.

Stops you thinking, helps you act, builds your confidence.

Moving on.

Prepare well and practice lots.

Now in my personal experience, preparing well

really helps with my confidence, right?

If I'm preparing for a meeting, for an exam,

speaking in public, the more I prepare,

the more confident I feel because I can't control

a lot of the things that happen to me,

but at least I can control what I'm going to do

or what I'm going to say.

And so that preparation can be really helpful, right?

Practice as well is important.

And this is because I think confidence

is not your personality.

It's not a trait or a characteristic.

It's not fixed, it's more like a skill.

It's something you can develop and you must develop

and build over time, a bit like playing the piano.

The more you practice, the better you get, right?

So when people say, well, just be confident,

for me that's like saying, well, just play the piano.

I can't, I need to practice.

I need to learn, right?

For me, it's the same with confidence.

It's a skill you develop, so practice is really important.

Just going back to preparation,

when you're preparing, maybe for the IELTS exam,

I think it's so useful to get a teacher

or a speaking partner because they can give you feedback,

which helps tell you where you are and what you need

to focus on, what you need to prepare

and that will help you prepare.

Also they give you validation.

Now validation is like when a teacher says,

that's really good, yes, that's correct.

That's excellent, keep going.

They're validating what you're saying is good, is correct.

That could really help build your confidence as well,

whether it's a teacher or a speaking partner, right.

And of course, when it comes to preparing for an exam,

like IELTS speaking, prepare the format,

understand the kind of questions,

make sure you're familiar with the way

that the exam works and what you need to do.

That preparation is important.

When it comes to practice,

I've got a super mini tip for practicing.

And this is about vocabulary.

When you learn a new item,

of vocabulary or a word, at the beginning,

always use it exactly the way that you learnt it

or how you saw it.

So if you learn, for example, not my cup of tea, right?

Meaning, I don't like it.

If you learn or you hear the phrase,

swimming is not my cup of tea.

When you're practicing, always use it the same.

Just use that.

Oh, swimming is not my cup of tea.

As soon as you start to change things,

your confidence will go down.

You know, if I start saying movies are not my cup of tea,

can I use 'cup of tea' with movies?

You're not sure, what if I say,

you're not my cup of tea?

Can I say that if I don't like people?

Now whether it's true or not,

the point is your confidence comes down.

Whereas if you just use exactly the same phrase,

well, swimming is not my cup of tea, right?

You're confident that it's right.

Over time of course, you learn the nuances of the word

and you learn how to use it in different ways, that's fine.

But to begin with, build your confidence

by using it the way you learnt it.

Now come with me as I dig into my toolbox.

Here we go, hello.

So we've got stapler, mouse, not a real mouse.

Ooh, nice little speaker there.

This is the one, this is it, this is the tool.

So the tool I want to show you is my mobile app, ELSA Speak.

Fantastic, this is gonna build your pronunciation skills,

build your confidence like nothing else.

First of all, so ELSA is a mobile app

that helps you develop your pronunciation skills

in a wide range of different areas.

Single sounds, phrases, sentences and conversations, right?

You can study different topics.

You can even do IELTS practice.

Look, they've got IELTS topics.

They've got questions for part one, two,

and even part three as well, the conversation.

They've also got study sets where different students

and teachers have shared blocks of phrases

that they want to practice.

There are even IELTS study sets.

Even I've got some study sets in here.

You can go and have a look at, let's see how it works.

The key here is that the artificial intelligence

gives you feedback on how well you're pronouncing sounds

compared to a native speaker.

So we can see here the different topics,

we've got...categories, my favorites.

Trending now, we've got Tokyo, the Olympic Games,

the new normal after confinement, medical center,

one lesson per day, I'm gonna have a look here

and we're gonna have a look at this one.

- [Narrator] Do you know what the most popular

sport in the world is?

- So you're asked a question, you're given an answer.

You can listen and then repeat.

- [Narrator] That's easy, it's football, right?

- That's easy, it's football, right?

Excellent, so it's helping me with stress and intonation.

It continues.

- [Narrator] That's right,

it's called soccer in the US though.

- And then another phrase that I can repeat,

but notice if I take the word easy, right?

It gives me a breakdown of what's good

about the pronunciation and I can even practice

this one word.

- [Narrator] Easy.

- Now you can see it's telling me

I've got the vowel sounds wrong and it should be easy.

Let's try it again.

Easy, much better.

Fantastic, what a great tool.

You can use this to practice all kinds of pronunciation,

that's gonna help build your confidence.

The other great thing is that ELSA are offering discounts

for all of my students, including you, of course.

So if you go for the one year plan,

you can get a 30% discount.

However, if you go for the lifetime membership,

when you get ELSA in your pocket for the rest of your life,

it's an 80% discount, it's a fantastic deal.

You can go and check out in the links below,

download the app, sign up for the lifetime membership.

I think it's great value for money,

when it comes to confidence,

it's well-worth it, go and check it out.

And for now, let's get back to some more tips

to boost your confidence.

Okay, tip number four, identity.

This is an interesting one, right?

And I think some people make the mistake of thinking English

is like other subjects like maths, geography,

history, something you study in books out there.

I disagree, I think English is a part of you.

Once you learn another language,

it becomes a part of your identity.

Your voice is unique, the sentences you make are unique.

Other people are not saying the same sentences as you,

you need to be proud of that uniqueness, right?

It's so important.

And I think, you know, accept your identity,

accept where you are.

If you're a beginner, accept that you're a beginner.

Some people have this strange idea

that being a beginner is a bad thing.

Oh, I'm a band four, it's terrible.

My English is so poor, it's so bad, what?

No, I'm sorry, I'm a beginner and that's it.

And I'm proud, right?

So listen, here are two phrases

you can start using to help you with this, for confidence.

The first one is 'for now'.

And the second one is 'not yet'.

I'm a band four, for now, right?

It means I'm a beginner, I'm a band four now,

but things are going to change.

Or I'm not a band seven yet, right?

I'm a band four, but I am going to be a band seven.

I just accept where I am, it's absolutely fine.

I mean, enjoy being a beginner.

A beginner is great.

Think about all the exciting language and experiences

you're going to have in the future as a beginner

and growing into a intermediate and advanced speaker.

It's so exciting, it's great to be a beginner.

I do really think it's all about having a growth mindset.

We are not fixed, we grow, we get bigger.

And if in your mind, you allow yourself to grow,

you will, I mean, trust me, I'm 53.

I'm growing and learning new things every day, right?

Growth mindset, I think it's so important.

My last word on identity then

is thinking of identity and being proud of it.

Think of yourself not as an English student,

but as an English speaker, whatever your level!

Great, let's move on.

Oh dear yes, look at this.

It's Facebook, right.

The other day, my wife said to me,

she saw a picture and she said,

am I as fat as this woman?

I said, of course not.

No. But, I said more importantly,

why are you asking the question?

In this day and age with social media,

there is a tendency for us to compare ourselves with others.

Don't compare yourself.

Don't compare yourself to other students.

And especially, don't compare yourself

to a native speaker of English.

It doesn't help you, it's not necessary.

And often that's the problem.

That's where people lose their confidence, it's like,

oh, I'll never be as good as that.

Why can't I be like that person?

Or Sam in my class so much better than me.

Comparisons don't help, instead,

focus on what is unique, right?

Focus on your value and your uniqueness.

Don't get hung up on thinking what other people think.

You know, some students say to me,

what do native speakers think of my English?

They must think I'm really bad right.

No, what about the examiner?

Oh, I think the examiner will think I'm stupid.

Well, no, don't second guess because you're probably wrong,

but more importantly, don't try and guess what people think,

focus on what's unique, right?

You, your voice is unique.

As I said before, your personality is unique.

Your manner is unique, the sentences you make in your story,

nobody has ever put those words together in that way

in the history of time, it's totally unique.

Be proud of that uniqueness

and that can build up your confidence slowly.

It's all a question of focus.

Don't focus on comparisons,

focus on your value and your uniqueness,

and the final point about comparing, right?

I think, also bear in mind the bigger picture, focus.

IELTS is actually not the end of your journey.

IELTS is the beginning of your journey

because that's after IELTS where you go out

and look at your bigger purpose in life,

whether it's studying, working, immigrating,

what you're going to achieve after IELTS,

that's the big picture, focus on that.

And it helps you put things in perspective

and it can help build up your confidence

with IELTS and with speaking English.

It's all about focus, so focus on yourself.

Great, remember, confidence comes with practice

and it takes time to build confidence.

But if you invest that time in your learning

and building confidence, you will see the results.

Stay with me and I will help you build your confidence

and move from just being an English student,

to being a confident English speaker.

If you liked the tips up here, leave me a comment below.

Let me know which tip you liked.

Do remember to subscribe and turn on notifications.

Last but not least, remember to check out

the ELSA Speak mobile app.

You've got a 30% discount on a one-year membership

and an 80% discount on the lifetime membership,

the links are down below, go and check it out.

And I will see you in the next video, bye-bye.

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