How to Learn to Speak English with a Fluency Challenge

How are you I am so excited to be here with you live

I am your American English teacher Gabby Wallace from go natural English

Dot-com and we're doing a special

Live video today. Usually we post a new

video on YouTube and a new lesson on the blog at go natural English comm at this time, but today

We are shaking things up. Yes. We are doing a special live

And what are we gonna talk about today? Let me tell you but first please say hello, please

Interact in the comments because this is a live video. My favorite part is

Two-way communication. So I'm going to ask you some questions and please respond in the comments. So hi

How are you? Tell me in the comments. So what are we talking about today? We're going to talk about

practicing your English and how to practice in an

effective way so that you get the most

benefit out of the time that you spend practicing

practicing outside

Of the traditional English classroom. So I'm going to give you some pointers for things that you can do

Strategically to improve your practice time. Does that sound good?

Tell me yes if I can continue and give you some tips about practicing

Outside of the traditional English classroom. I'm watching for your comments

Okay, if you see my eyes go over to the side is because I'm reading your comments

It's hard to talk and read at the same time. I don't know if you've ever tried it not easy a special skill

So I love that I'm seeing some familiar faces here. I would love to ask

Where are you watching from?

because part of what makes me so excited about go natural English is our

community which comes from over 100 countries

yes, I

Love knowing where you are from all over the world. So tell me in the comments and it's so awesome to see some familiar faces

Our go natural English community is also what makes it so special

having you

here, so it takes a community to

learn English fluently

this is

One of my beliefs and one of the core principles of the go natural English method

Is that you don't only learn?

with one teacher or one

person

You actually learn with several different

Native expert teachers from the go natural English team and our community

because it takes a community as

The phrase goes it takes a community to educate a child or to raise a child, but you're not a child

You're an adult but I think that we can apply this to learning English because in the real world

You're not only going to talk with one person. Am I right?

you're probably going to talk with many many different people over the years in different places and

so to only learn English with one person with one teacher is

actually not as helpful as

if

You could learn English with several different voices with

expert native teachers and also with other

English learners

Who also learn English as a Second Language because in the real world?

Did you know that if you look at everyone who speaks English?

There are more people in the world who speak English as a non-native language than native speakers

So the odds of you having to speak with someone who is also a non-native English speaker are quite high

So it's a good idea to practice with people from all over the world. At least. That's what I think

So, what do you think do you agree? Yes, or no. Tell me in the comments. I want to hear from you

Do you think it's a good idea to?

practice English with

People from different countries with several different people not only one person all the time

ever

Do you think you're going to have to speak with more than one person in your lifetime in English?

Tell me in the comments. All right, I'm seeing some

Yeses. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes, excellent. Okay, so I

Want to announce that today?

We are starting the go natural English fluency challenge

So I'm going to give you some strategies that you can use no matter where you practice your English

But I want you to know that

We're opening this week only

this week only and you should participate each day for the most exposure and the most

benefit from the event the English fluency challenge

You can find the link in the description or you can go to go natural English comm slash

challenge

Challenge yes because it's the English fluency challenge and it's free to sign up

It's free to join. It is five days only Monday through Friday this week

So I'm announcing this challenge today because I think it could really help you to practice your English because there's a big problem

I hear from a lot of my English students that

Well before they become my students, so go natural English audience. I should say I get a lot of emails asking me

How can I practice how can I find someone to practice with me? Oh, I have a problem

I don't have anyone to practice with so I hear this all the time. It's a huge problem

Have you ever had this problem? Tell me in the comments. Have you ever felt?

That it's difficult or it's a problem for you to find

Someone to practice English with you. Now, this is a problem for people who don't live in an english-speaking country

But it's also a problem

Surprisingly enough. It's also a problem for English learners living in english-speaking countries

Why because you get isolated? Maybe you spend most of your time with people from your country

or maybe you work or study with people from your country and you don't have as many

Friends who are native English speakers, so it happens no matter where you are

So I see some yeses in the comments. Okay, we're gonna talk about that. I'm gonna help you today

so

first of all, you need to practice English with other people now, I talked a lot about

Techniques for you to study English on your own to advance and to improve

Without practicing with anyone and that's fine

You can definitely practice on your own and improve but that can't be the only thing you do

Okay, that can be a great addition to your study time to study on your own

but in the end if you want to become fluent in English

You have to practice with other people you have to speak with other people. It's not enough to just

Speak to yourself. It's not enough to just think to yourself. It's not enough to just write to yourself

We have to interact with other people if you want to be able to

communicate

Fluently in English. So let me ask you something right now

Do you want to be able to communicate fluently in English?

tell me in the comments yes or no, because if you don't really want to learn how to communicate fluently in English then this

Might not be for you. These strategies might not be as helpful for you

But if you do if you say yes, you want to learn to communicate fluently in English

Then these strategies are going to help you. Okay?

so you need to practice because

When you practice by yourself

You are not

Actually getting any feedback

You're not actually seeing how you're speaking partner would react if their

Understanding you are not you're not getting any

corrections either like you would from a tutor or a teacher so

even if

you know that said even if you are speaking English with other people and

To sing if you don't have an agreement

with those people that they should correct you then you're not gonna be

improving as much as if you had someone to correct you and

most of the time your friends your colleagues people that you meet in everyday life are

not going to correct you why because it's considered rude to correct someone it's considered rude unless you have a

special agreement where you help each other and you correct each other and that usually comes with a

speaking partner a language exchange partner a teacher a tutor or

someone like that who you have a special agreement with so

First thing is I need to tell you is

Studying alone is good. But you also need to practice with other people and it's not enough to just practice with

Random people like from work or school or people you meet on the street

You need to practice with someone who's willing to correct you and as I mentioned that could be a language exchange partner

It could be a teacher or tutor

It could be a friend

But they need to be willing to help you improve and that can be uncomfortable when they're pointing out things that you're doing wrong

But it's very important in order for your improvement. Okay, so we know that you need to practice with someone

Okay, in order to become fluent in English you need to practice speaking and

Some people skip this part which seems really silly but a lot of students spend way more time

Reading English and listening to English which is good and helpful and necessary. You need a lot of listening

You need a lot of reading. This is called input

But we cannot stop there

we cannot stop with only input if you want to become a fluent communicator in English you have

To do what we call

Output which means that you're putting words and indication out into the world. So you absolutely have to

Speak and write and create your own

Communication this is called output

Okay

so as

I mentioned this week we're doing an English fluency challenge

This is this week only. So this is an awesome time where you can join for free at gonaturalenglish.com

Slash challenge to put into practice the strategy is that I'm telling you today. You can actually practice

with over

20,000 members of our go natural English community

in our

group, so you can join that at gonaturalenglish.com

Slash challenge. I want to make sure that you don't miss this opportunity because it's this week only

so

How do we do it?

We use the strategies

From go natural English to improve your English with practice. So

Every day we do give you input. So you're listening to English. You're reading English and

You get an assignment so it's not like something that's gonna be super super

difficult like a long essay

I don't want to scare you away, but it is a question that you need to think about

We have a daily question in the English fluency challenge. You need to think about the question we reflect on it

Think about it a little bit

Write your answer

Practice saying your answer and then record yourself saying your answer

It's a short answer maybe one minute

But you'd be surprised how difficult it can be to speak English non-stop for a minute

Especially when you know that other people are going to be watching you

but it's a great exercise because

one technique that we love at go natural English is to record yourself speaking because

You're going to be able to see yourself

through a

different lens

you're aware of yourself when you're speaking in real time, but when you actually see yourself and listen to yourself on a

Recording you do see yourself with different eyes because you're not thinking about what you're saying at the same time that you're watching

yourself you can focus on

your performance

100% and

Sharing your recording with others allows them to give you feedback

Did they understand you are they responding in a way that makes sense? And

Our go natural English team teachers give you feedback as well

so this is general feedback for the challenge because we have a ton of

students in our challenged community over 20,000 but in our

Members course we have less students

So we focus on each student and give them more attention before the fluency challenge that is free at gonaturalenglish.com

slash challenge

You still get feedback and you get attention for your English speaking practice?

It's really cool. So recording yourself and sharing that with others are

two amazing techniques

You have daily prompts for practice. This gives you structure so

Structure is super important. I remember when I

Tried a language exchange partner many years ago

I was practicing my Japanese before I moved to Japan and I had a

lovely nice kind wonderful

Partner for my language exchange and we would meet and have coffee and talk together

But we really had no plan. We didn't have anything

specific that we were practicing and so I didn't feel like I was improving I felt like I

Made a new friend, which was nice, but my actual language skills were not improving why

Because there was no structure there were no specific goals

And so as part of the English fluency challenge, we have goals we have daily

That give you structure so, you know exactly what to practice and what to do each day

it's also a lot easier this way because when you don't have a guide when you don't have a plan you waste a lot of

Energy trying to think about what should I do today when you could be using that energy to practice your English?

I hope this is clear and makes sense

But we want to put all of your energy into actually using your English and not spending time and energy

Thinking about what to do today

So we take care of that part for you

Alright, so looking at yourself on your recording sharing your recording with others getting community feedback not

just community are not just feedback from one person but community feedback from

thousands of people now

I'm not saying that you're going to have thousands of comments on your recorded English speaking practice

But you'll definitely get feedback from other people who are learning English and the go natural English team teachers

This is super important. You need to have

Self-reflection and you need to have feedback from a community

Not just one person but many people. Okay, so we talked about

self-reflection

feedback having

structure in your practice

Not wasting your time trying to create your own structure

but actually getting guidance so that you can put your energy and your time into practicing your English and

fourth

Accountability what is accountability accountability means that you

Said or you promised are you committed to doing something?

So you feel responsible for doing that thing in this case with the English fluency challenge

You by signing up you're saying yes. I want to practice my English

for five days for free because it's awesome and

So today, you know that you should do the assignment. So this creates a

Responsibility in your life that is very very positive. If you don't have a pound ability, it's too easy

To just say oh I'll do it tomorrow

Why not tomorrow tomorrow's just as good as today, right?

Oh, maybe there's something more important that came up or something that you'd rather do

okay, but when you have a

Challenge events or when you sign up for a course or when you agree to be a language exchange

Partner and make a meeting all of those things give you accountability. So the power of

accountability and

responsibility

Makes your English better because you follow through you're more likely to follow through with

anything when you make a promise to someone so for example, I

Often leave my exercise my running exercise, especially

To tomorrow, why not do it the next day? Maybe I can just skip today and do it tomorrow, right?

but that's when I do it on my own if I

Make plans to meet with my running friend. I

Never leave my running to the next day. I never cancel

I never come up with excuses because I'm accountable to my friend and that social

Accountability is super important. Okay, so we talked about

Self-reflection getting feedback and correction from more than one person

having structure having accountability

and

I

Was just about to mention another thing accountability and the social part. Yes, so when you have a

social reason to do something you're much more likely to do it because

Well for me, for example, I don't usually cook a lot for myself

But if I can cook for other people I get really excited about it when I'm cooking for

Friends or having a dinner party?

I love to cook why because I'm doing for other people so in our English fluency

Challenge we have that social aspect where you're not only practicing for yourself

But you're in the fluency challenge to help other

people part of the challenge is not just recording your own videos, but actually commenting on other people's

practice

Supporting them giving them encouragement

giving them suggestions in a kind

supportive positive way to

Improve so we have this social aspect as well, which is super important. So what do you think so far?

Do you think that these five strategies could help you?

Let's review and tell me yes or no

we have

self-reflection feedback and Corrections from more than one person we have

Accountability we have the structure and we have the social interaction where you're helping

Others as well as getting help yourself. Let me have another sip of my coffee

while you answer

Awesome I see a lot of yes is yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes

Yes is the plural of yes is funny, isn't it? Yes is

anyway

Let's talk about the English fluency challenge. Maybe by now. You're thinking. Okay. Cool

How do I join the English fluency challenge? So you go to gonaturalenglish.com?

Slash challenge and yes, it's totally free. We're doing this. We do this a few times a year

It's not open all the time because we're usually focusing on our course members

But we like to open this up a few times a year for the public

To practice in our open community and to give you a taste of our go natural English method

Because it's really revolutionary and its really working for people. So I want to share it with you

so this is for the fluency challenge is for

Adults, there's nothing

Adults about it, you know, there's nothing inappropriate

But it's mostly for people who are learning English

For their career or maybe for grad school for their studies

For work or for travel? So it's not really like children's English. It's an adult English. It's for men and women

equally it's for

Intermediate English learners, so can you understand at least?

60% of what I'm saying now?

If so

Then your level is good to join the English fluency challenge

okay, I'm so intermediate and above it could even be like low intermediate because

different people have different

opinions about levels

it's for

People from all over the world. We have at least 100 different countries already in our

fluency challenge group on Facebook and

It's for you if you want to improve

your fluency

this is not

Like a writing challenge. This is not like a test prep challenge

Although I know improving your speaking skills could help you with a test depending on the test

There's a lot of tests English tests with speaking portions and it's for you

if you are ready to speak if you're ready to improve if you

Want to grow as an English speaker as a person if you want to connect with other awesome

motivated English learners from all over the world and the go natural English team

Then it's for you if you're looking for something that is free so that you can actually try it out before

Spending any money, then it's for you. If you are a positive person if you are ready to share your

Positivity your motivation your support your good vibes then it's for you good vibes only, please

I don't know. It's not for you. If you're not willing to put in the effort because

I'm here to help you the go natural English team is help is here to help you our community of over

20,000 go natural English learners is here to help you but

The thing about English fluency is that it's not like it's not like cooking a meal

It's not like cleaning your house

No one else can do it for you

And that's the real challenge is that you need to step up and put in the effort?

The focus and the time let's talk about time. So I see a question here

How much time does it take? So the whole English fluency challenge is just five days

The idea is to make an effort every day

To do your assignment in our group you can join our group?

We'll send you information about how to join our group when you sign up at gonaturalenglish.com

slash challenge each day

It will take you about 15 minutes

it may take you longer if you want to re-record and redo and

Practice a lot or if you want to comment on a lot of people's videos, that's great, too

But it's going to take you on average about 15 minutes per day

Maybe even faster if you're really fast, but that depends on you

I'm saying on average 15 minutes per day. I think everyone has that right?

I think everyone can find 15 minutes in the day if improving your English is really a priority and since

The English fluency challenge is only happening this week. I think it's a great time to

Make time to improve your English with us. What do you think? I hope you agree

So you can benefit a lot because we're doing so much practice in our group this week

That's pretty much equivalent to what a lot of classes do in one month. So this is intense. It's

Accelerated, but again, we need you to show up. We need you to do your assignments

We need you to comment on other people's

Posts so you are an integral

Important part of the English fluency challenge, that's why I'm inviting to join us. So

How it works is you go to gonaturalenglish.com

slash

challenge and

it takes less than one minute to join then you check your email for

All the information you need. So in your email you're going to get the link to join our group

You're going to get the daily English

assignments and daily English lessons and

You're going to know exactly what to do once you join so you get all the information there

This only happens a few times a year

so make sure that you join right now even as you're watching this open up another window and

Join, gonaturalenglish.com slash challenge. It's totally free you guys. It's just because I love

meeting you

knowing more about you being able to interact just like we're doing on this live video but even more because we'll be

inside our

Special group that is only for fluency members fluency challenge members

So it's a great way to stay motivated and to add some

Excitement and something fresh into your English practice also to learn about go natural English

Strategies method and technique and to meet people from all over the world

so again

Just to recap five things that are really important for your English practice outside the traditional classroom

Let's see if I can remember all of them is first of all self

Reflection you can reflect on your own performance by recording yourself and listening

Second to get feedback and corrections from more than one person. Your English teacher is awesome, but

You are going to interact with many many people in your life in English

So to prepare you for that you need feedback and interaction and correction from more than one person

Especially because we have to train our ears to listen to other people speaking English not only me

Not only if you have another English teacher, but lots of different people native English speakers and non-native

English speakers to

everyone is

important, okay

three

accountability

So we create this accountability

By giving you assignments that you agree that you'd like to do because they only take about 15 minutes a day

I think we can do that

you also need a

strategy, I think I flipped strategy and accountability there, but that's okay a

daily strategy a daily guide because trying to figure out

What should I study today can actually take a lot of energy

We don't even realize how much work a lot of our teachers are doing by planning our lessons

Every time we have an English class

So if you can give that work to us at the go natural English team

then you can focus on your English Studies and

Finally this social aspect where you're giving back to give back means that you're helping other

People one of the best ways to actually learn and improve is by helping other people

Seriously, you'll see the good effects if you try it

So I want to invite you to join the go natural English fluency challenge at gonaturalenglish.com

slash

challenge only

This week so come sign up and I'll see you

There have an amazing day. I'll see you inside the challenge. So I'll just say bye for now and see you later