Learn English: Stop Being an English Student - Be an English Speaker | Go Natural English

There are two ways of learning the traditional way and the real-life way sometimes I think that

Traditional methods of learning traditional classrooms textbooks teachers. They don't allow you

enough exposure to the real world or

Street smarts and so learning only this way is going to result in really poor

fluency and

Hesitation and shyness and all the things that you guys tell me that you have trouble with all the time

Our whole education system is a little bit broken because we're not encouraged enough to use what we learn in real

life am I right and

studying English or being a student of English is really the antithesis of

Being a fluent English speaker

so in this lesson

I'm gonna explain how you can move from being a student of English to a fluent speaker of English

Welcome to go natural English if this is your first time here then welcome

My name is Gabby Wallace and I'm an American English teacher. This is where we talk about

fluency confidence conversation skills culture and everything that you need

step-by-step from zero to

Fluency in English. This is where I guide you with how to learn English. Not just the

Specific words vocabulary or rules, but actually where I guide you as an expert in language learning

so today we're gonna talk about how to move from being a student of English to a

Really amazing speaker of English. So what's the difference between a student of English and a speaker of English?

Well, first of all, it's really a mindset. It's how you think of yourself

So do you think of yourself as an English student or an English speaker?

There's a really important difference and you can be both but I want to really emphasize

And I want to encourage you to think of yourself as an English speaker

Even if you are a beginner if you can say hello

Then you are an English speaker to me at least you are. So are you English speaker? Yes

Amazing. So there are other differences English students traditionally

well, I think of English students as

People who sit in desks in a classroom and listen to the teacher talk a lot and don't really get real-life

applications of

English so you don't usually use English outside of the classroom if you are an English student or

You might be studying on your own

you might be an English student who uses YouTube to learn or who studies in the library or studies in your

Home in your bedroom. That's great. I'm not saying that's bad, but we need to add to that

We need to add to your mindset to not just be an English students, but to be an English speaker

So an English student

studies English

And to study English in the traditional sense means that you're memorizing lists of vocabulary

Maybe you have spelling tests. Maybe you have grammar tests. You're probably

Learning the rules of grammar and you're probably afraid to make mistakes

you may have never used English in the real world because the only real application you have for your English is

Using it to pass tests or get grades or pass an English class that you need

For your high school or your degree program?

Anyone here in that situation, you can tell me in the comments

So studying English or being a student of English in a nutshell means to study

About English it's not

Using English, but it's actually reading about English or memorizing

Details about the language that may or may not be super helpful for actually using the language in real life

now studying English can actually feel

Better to a student because now stick with me here

It feels better because you don't have to leave your comfort zone. If you're a student, you're already used to the classroom

You're already used how to take tests, you know

how to abide by the rules and how to get good grades if you're a good student

But in order to be a good English speaker, you actually have to step out of the classroom

You have to step out of your comfort zone

You have to try new things things that you might not be good at things

that might be scary things that might embarrass you like you might not like the way that you speak English at first you might make

Mistakes people might even laugh at you

But this is the only way to become

Fluent in speaking English in the real world is pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and it is uncomfortable

but that is what growth feels like and think about it as

babies, you didn't learn your native language by memorizing grammar rules or studying lists of vocabulary words you

Weren't even in a classroom until maybe age five

So, how did you learn your native language?

well

you learned it by observing and by speaking it and

surely you improved your native language skills by going to school and becoming an

Educated speaker of your language. So I'm not saying that school is bad. I'm not saying that school is unimportance

It is definitely an important part of speaking educated English

But it's not the only thing we need we need to use English in real life

So I'm going to talk about how to stop being just a student and how to actually use

English in your everyday life as an English speaker. I just want to be really clear that being an English speaker is not

About memorizing lists of vocabulary words. It's not about memorizing rules

It's not about getting an a on the test. In fact, I know a lot of English

Students who are able to get really good test scores, but when it comes to speaking in real life

They fall short, which means they're not very confident in their English skills

So remember that if you want to truly be a fluent English speaker and confident in your skills

Well, we have to use them. It's a lot like playing a sport

Imagine let's say that you wanted to play tennis

You want to be a professional tennis player, maybe even go to the Olympics. So the first thing that you do is

What read a book about tennis? Sure, maybe maybe you watch some youtube videos about?

Tennis, maybe you learn the rules of the game. Those are all good ideas great ideas, but

There's something missing. What do you need to do to become a really great tennis player. Well, you need to play tennis, right?

It's the same thing with English. It's not enough to know the information

English as a skill is a skill that

Requires us to create to speak to write and that's why it's so many English learners

Maybe you feel that it's easier to listen or to read English

to listen to English might be easier because it only requires you to

Get information in from the language and not to actually create

outputs which would be speaking or writing so

Anyway, you have to play the game the game of English in order to improve your skills

Okay. So, how do you stop?

Studying how do you stop being just only a student of English?

You can continue studying but the real point here is how do you?

Become bigger than just an English student in the classroom. How do you

Master your English. How do you control your fluency?

This is really about you taking control of your life through English speaking

Okay, so we need to stop thinking about English as something that just exists in the classroom

It doesn't just exist in a block of time when you have to be with your teacher in class

So that is a great start

But if you spend one hour in class or in tutoring or studying on your own each week, that's great

But you have to expect to spend at least

Two to three maybe even five or six times

That amount of time

on your own using English

So if you have one hour with your teacher or studying on your own

You should be actually using English or speaking English for maybe four hours a week outside

of that and this is a huge issue with a lot of

Learners is that we think that we're good if we just show up to English class

But the reality is if you want to be really good you have to apply it

Outside of class you have to use English

Outside of your English study time outside of your English class. So how do we do that?

Well, hang on I'm going to share how

Learning English in a classroom is good

You know

You can do role plays

You can practice your English and you might have a really great teacher who lets you speak a lot

But even the best actors are not going to be able to recreate what it's like speaking with a native English speaker

Inside your classroom doing role plays. So the first step is to get outside of your classroom

So don't stop going to your English class

don't tell your teacher Oh Gabby told me to skip class so I'm not gonna come no, no, no, keep going to your class, but

Outside of class time make sure that you're getting out into the real world to use your English

close your textbook leave your textbook at home and

go out into the real world you use English without the crutch of

your

electronic dictionary or your

Textbook or whatever you're using to learn English. It's okay to make mistakes

Speaking English is not a competition right now. You don't have to be perfect

What you do need to do in order to improve is to actually use it

So look around do you have opportunities right now to use English in your daily life?

What about right now in the comments?

You could use English to say hello

And I'm going to ask you a couple more questions that you can respond to in the comments

Most importantly get ready to leave your comfort zone

You're going to need to start using English as soon as possible

So as soon as you hear something new in English, you can imitate it

You can copy it. You can say it out loud now

I learned Spanish in college and I could not speak it for the life of me for over two years

Studying it everyday in college. I

Really was not confident in my speaking skills. I would go to

bodegas, I would go to real-life situations where native speakers were speaking Spanish and I didn't understand a word they were saying and they just

really kind of

Intimidated me because I wasn't sure where to begin

So I knew I needed to get out of my classroom and start applying my Spanish in real life

so I started doing this in little ways like I mentioned going to the bodega saying hola como estan and

Maybe going to a Spanish

church service, which is something pretty common in most American cities and

listening and then speaking with people who are there just starting with greetings and then starting to get to know them a little by little

So I really put myself out of my comfort zone you guys I was nervous. I was sweating bullets in church

Only because I knew I would have to speak Spanish not for any other reasons

But it was really outside my comfort zone

But I encourage you to do that because today I feel great speaking Spanish and actually just the other day

Here in Brazil. I was able to help a Spanish speaker translating from Spanish to Portuguese. So that was pretty fun

So the thing is about English

It's gonna be a skill that you use for the rest of your life and you're never gonna know

Which is when it's gonna come in handy basically all the time English comes in handy. Okay. So now

How do we actually become better speakers of English?

We stop being just students now. We're going to grow into being better speakers of English

So I mentioned get out of your comfort zone start using English immediately. Some other things you can do is

imitation so when you hear English when you're watching a TV show in English or a movie in English try to actually

Repeat what you hear under your breath quietly unless you're watching it by yourself. Then it doesn't matter. You can say it loud

But if you're watching with other people, maybe say quietly, okay, and listening to songs in English learning the lyrics singing along with them

I do this all the time with Spanish and Portuguese and other languages that I want to learn like today

I was practicing my Portuguese actually with a song. Let's see if anyone knows it. It's hey

Vienna

Hey

Bye

vayan

Okay, there's not that many words in the song but that's not the point. The point is I got to practice my

Portuguese, and there are some other words in the song. I'm trying to remember it's like

Legolas said gee sound by ghost Ajit. How does it go? So?

You should keep your English use fun

See where you can use English like let's imagine a situation that actually happened to me today

I was walking down the streets

I had just gone out to lunch and a woman recognized me from go natural English

And so she's from Brazil and she started talking with me

And so I want you to imagine right now if you saw me walking down the street

What would you say to me right now without your textbook without consulting other resources?

Let's create a little conversation. Tell me in the comments. What would you say? It's Annie right now?

If it's not

100% correct? I don't want you to look up the correct way right now

I want you to just type something that you could say right now and then

After you type it after you leave the comment then you can check and see if it's correct and you can see where you can

improve

So English should really feel like a tool that you can pick up at any time to help you accomplish something

Else to help you to talk to someone or to help you to get information. So it's okay

If it's not perfect, we're going to keep using it and keep improving it every day

So take what you have right now

How could you create a?

conversation with that and when you want to study English or when you want to improve your skills then try doing

more

activities key word here action

Activities that are not just

Reading or absorbing information or listening to English. These are all good things, but try to add more

activities where you're actually

Taking action like when you read you can

underline or circle words if you're reading take notes if you are listening then try to

imitate to shadow or to say what you hear how loud

So you're using English. You're actually speaking you're writing

This is so important for your English fluency and speaking of learning the lyrics to songs

What is one of your favorite English songs right now that perhaps you could share in the comments with us?

For us to learn in English. I know sometimes it's hard to even think of where to start what song should I?

Actually learn to sing

So if you have a favorite song that you think would be kind of easy to learn in English

Put it in the comments and that's a great place for us to start to use English and not just study it

So I hope that this has been helpful for you again to quickly summarize

The idea here is to not just think of yourself as an English

Student who is waiting for information from a teacher but to think of yourself as an English

Speaker who is actively using the language each and every day and this is going to change

your English

Profoundly, I see you becoming a fluent confident

Conversational English speaker, and I'm so proud of you

Thank you so much for watching this if you enjoyed it

Be sure to give a thumbs up it helps a lot and I'll be looking for your comments below

make sure that you're subscribed here at go natural English by clicking right down there and the big red subscribe button and that definitely

Helps us to help more English learners like you, so thank you again

if you want to keep watching another great lesson that I'll post right over there is about why you might not

Understand native English speakers and how you can improve your listening comprehension?

So, thanks again, and I'll see you here next time. Bye for now