Is your English class hurting your fluency?

Hey, Go Natural English learner!

How are you doing?

I'm so happy you're here today.

We're going to talk about classroom English versus real life English and how they're not

the same.

Maybe you've thought about this before.

Of course, classroom English is different from real life English, but how are they different

and how could you actually be hurting your English fluency by learning in the classroom?

It seems so counter intuitive: you want to study English, you sign up for English class,

you go to your class every day, you learn from a good teacher, why are you still not

fluent in English?

These are the thought that you might be having in your own head.

So, let's talk about it a little bit.

I taught English as a second language in a classroom for over ten years.

That's right, ten years.

So, I know what it's like.

And I did my best to help my English learners to become fluent in English.

But the fact is inside the classroom is not the real world.

We can do role plays, we can pretend, we can act, we can do theater, and that's really

fun, and they are all great ways to learn, especially at the beginning levels of English,

but when you are ready to become and advanced, fluent English language speaker, you need

to get out in the real world, you need to get out of the classroom.

Here's why.

The classroom is rigid, the classroom is its own real world, its own bubble.

In the classroom, you're going to learn more classroom English, such as "Turn to page twenty",

such as "Please, raise your hand", such as "Any questions?"

These are phrases that you don't always hear on daily basis in the real world.

Sure you might hear them, but it's going to be more likely that you hear something different,

like "Hey, what're you doing?

Where're you going?

What're you up to?"

And these are phrases that ... They're a little bit casual for most English

teachers to be teaching.

Now, maybe you have a really great English teacher, and yes, I was a pretty good English

teacher, but the thing is we often have to use textbooks, and textbooks can be quite

rigid.

And the time we have in the classroom is limited.

So, as teachers we can't always cover natural, conversational, casual English in the classroom.

When you learn English in a classroom with an English teacher, that English teacher might

be an amazing English teacher, but they might only have experience as an English teacher,

not in the specific area that you want to learn English for.

For example, if you want to become a doctor, you want to learn medical English.

Or if you want to have conversational English, maybe out in the world, like in a bar or a

restaurants, well, sure your English teacher might have experience in bars and restaurants,

but in the classroom, they're probably not focusing on English for the bar.

Anyway, other specific examples.

If you want to be a pilot, a flight attendant, these are English for specific purposes.

So, you may want to find a course or a teacher that helps you in those areas.

If you're preparing for a test, find a teacher who can help you with those areas.

So perhaps, you have a course or a tutor that can help you, but just be aware of what you

want to learn, what are your goals and can your teacher, can your class, can your textbook

help you with those.

Another thing is inside the classroom, conversations can seem a bit forced, scripted.

You might be reading examples from a textbook, and then, your teacher calls on you, and you

know you have to answer.

But in real life, how do you know when to join the conversation?

I find this is a big issue for a lot of English learners.

They hesitate to join a conversation in the real world, because no one is calling on them.

Of course, no one is calling on you.

It's not a classroom, it's a real life conversation.

You have to call on yourself.

I know it sounds weird, but you have to train yourself to speak up and do that most of the

time in the real world.

You need practice outside the classroom.

So, in the classroom, English is scripted, predictable, maybe boring.

Maybe you're sitting in your desk watching your teacher write on the board, listening

to a lecture.

And it's quite passive, you're just receiving information.

In the real world, you're going to have to interact with your conversation partners,

with your friends, with your colleges.

You're going to have to actively listen.

You're going to have to speak up and join the conversation, at least a little bit and

maybe a lot.

And there's no script for real world conversation.

Sure, there's situations and there's common topics or phrases that I repeated over and

over, but it's fun, it's exciting, it's spontaneous.

There's no "Turn to page twenty."

It's real life.

And you can take a conversation where you want it to go.

And of course, the English classroom is rigid in another way.

You have a specific schedule and a place.

It might not fit your busy lifestyle to be in that English classroom in that place at

that time.

Maybe you have to commute a long ways to go to class.

Maybe you'd rather be doing something else, like meeting people for dinner, at the time

of your English class.

And so, you slowly get unmotivated to go to class.

I don't want that to happen.

I want you to be able to make English fit your life, to use English as a tool in your

life, to be motivated to learn, because English is exciting, and it works with your life.

That's why we're on-line, that's why we're watching right now.

Because it's easy for you.

So, make English fun, easy, spontaneous, make it an amazing part of your life that you look

forward to and that you enjoy, and use it as a tool to connect with people, to reach

your goals and to live your life outside of the classroom.

So, I hope I motivated you to get out of the classroom.

Now, it doesn't mean to stop learning English, that just means to become a proactive English

learner and English speaker.

I want you to see yourself as a real world English speaker.

You're working on your fluency, we're working on your fluency.

So, keep watching Go Natural English.

You can come and take my "7 Steps" course for free to learn more about how to learn

the English language the Go Natural English way naturally, for fluency.

Come to GoNaturalEnglish.com/7steps.

That's the number 7, S-T-E-P-S.

And let's keep going, let's take your English outside the classroom, let's give you your

power back.

I want to empower you to become and independent, awesome English learner.

So, welcome to our Go Natural English community, and I hope to see you inside the course.

Make sure that you're subscribed and feel free to share this episode with your friends

who are learning English and who you want to join you outside of English classroom.

All right, I hope to see you inside the course.

Thanks so much for watching and for being an awesome part of the Go Natural English

community.

Bye for now.