10 Lessons I've Learned in 10 Years of Teaching English

Ah yeah! What's up. I'm Ethan, your Real Life  English fluency coach and it's really crazy for  

me to think that I have been actively helping  learners from around the world to improve their  

English for over 10 years. Now during this  time I have created content for millions of  

learners just like you, I have communicated  personally with thousands of you and I've been  

listening to your biggest frustrations when it  comes to learning English. So during this time  

between my experience teaching and actually  learning six different languages myself  

I've identified some key secrets that I've seen  truly help people go beyond the classroom and  

really learn the skills that they need to  communicate in English successfully. So in  

this video we will be covering the 10 lessons  that I have learned in 10 years of teaching.  

So the purpose of this video is to give you  a roadmap that is going to help you learn to  

communicate in English successfully while also  avoiding some of the traps that learners often  

fall into. That way you can get to speaking  English confidently a lot faster. But before  

we get started with today's lesson, I want to  let you know that if you are new here, every  

week we make lessons that help you to stop being  a lost and insecure English learner and become a  

confident and successful English speaker. Does  that sound like what you want for your English?  

Then join our community of over 300 000  people who are doing just this by hitting  

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So don't just learn English, live it. So this  means that you make learning English an enjoyable  

part of your everyday life so this is doing the  things that you already enjoy doing in your mother  

tongue but doing them in English. So to give you  some examples that you're probably already doing,  

maybe watching a TV series. But it doesn't have to  be just consuming media, it could be, for example,  

if you love cooking, maybe you look up a  recipe from the United States or from the UK or  

just one that's in English that you love  from your home country and following that.  

Or maybe for example you just love swimming, so  you could join a forum online of swimmers and  

communicate in English with them, make friends  from different places who have that same hobby  

that you do or maybe you could just consume videos  that can help you to improve on your technique.  

Now as you become more advanced, something that's  really important is that you start to consume more  

and more challenging content in the language.  A good way to do this too could be if you are  

working in a certain area to start learning the  English that you need to communicate with people  

about that and that could even help you to get a  promotion or to get a better job. So the big thing  

here is to stop studying English like a school  subject, like Math or Science and start living it  

out in your everyday life. This is really creating  a bilingual lifestyle for yourself where you are  

getting the maximum exposure every single day to  the English language through consuming different  

things that you enjoy. So be creative, have fun  with it and let's move on to the next lesson.

Okay, so the second lesson that I learned is  to speak from day one. Now this probably isn't  

possible for you if you're watching this video in  English, obviously you have already been studying  

for some time, but basically this is speak as  soon as you possibly can start speaking. Don't  

get so caught up on having to perfect your grammar  or having to study a little bit more, learn more  

vocabulary before you can start speaking. Even if  you are still a beginner you can start speaking  

right now. That's right, you don't need to be  at an advanced level already to start speaking,  

even if you are more basic you can have simple  conversations with people. And something that I  

found really useful in my language learning where  I do like to start speaking as early as possible  

is to create a script in that language, like,  "What is the typical first conversation that  

what I would have when I meet someone?" And I  actually write that out and then translate it to  

the language. Either you know having help from my  teacher or just using google translate, at worst.  

And then really practicing that over and over  again, even recording yourself or filming yourself  

and then when you go to speak with someone,  be it a teacher or be it a language partner,  

you've already practiced this so you're good  to go. And you probably can also practice  

what would be some common responses  that person would give you. So you can  

learn different questions to ask and then you  know what would people typically say to this. Take  

this as an opportunity to step outside of your  comfort zone to do something that you're really  

not very comfortable with because this is really  going to help you to grow not only as an English  

learner and speaker, but also as a person. Trust  me, I am both shy and an introvert and so going  

to any sort of social event for me is usually  pretty uncomfortable if I don't know people,  

but learning different languages has given me a  lot of opportunities because I wanted to improve  

my speaking I had to do these things. So I highly  recommend that you give this a try because the  

benefits are just endless. I know now you might be  thinking "But Ethan, I don't have anyone to speak  

with. I don't live in an English-speaking country.  I don't have money to travel." Be that as it may,  

you have no excuses to start speaking because  we have talked to so many learners from around  

the world and we hear this all the time, that  people feel like there's plenty of opportunities  

to improve their listening, to improve their  grammar, to read books, but that they really  

don't have enough opportunities to speak. And so  we decided to solve that. So even if you don't  

have money to afford a teacher or you don't have  the time to go live in another country, you can  

start practicing your English right now at a touch  of a button with the RealLife App. So anytime,  

anywhere you can have a conversation with another  English speaker in another part of the world  

and discover other cultures. You can  speak to someone about your hobbies,  

you can talk to someone about something that  you recently saw in the news or, if you prefer,  

you can just talk about the weather. So  why don't you give it a try right now?  

You have nothing to lose, it's absolutely free.  Just click up here or down the description below  

to download it or you can search for RealLife  English in the Apple App or Google Play Store.

All right now let's move on to the next lesson.

So lesson number three: don't be too dependent on  your eyes. Now the reason I say this is because  

almost all schools really hammer into us when  we're learning a foreign language a dependency on  

reading and the reason they do this is basically  convenience. It can be difficult to teach a whole  

room full of kids, maybe the teacher doesn't even  have that great of a level of English themselves  

and so this is what can be done to teach English  to the masses. But the problem with this is that  

you know when we come out of school and into  the real world we really aren't used to hearing  

English as it's spoken. We just have read it so  much that we really filter it through our first  

tongue. This can cause first language interference  which is when you're letting your native tongue  

influence the language that you're learning. So  this might be pronouncing something like you would  

pronounce it in your native language instead of  how it is actually supposed to be pronounced.  

It can also cause fossilized mistakes which  often happens because we've made a mistake  

so many times, we're just so used to it that we  don't even realize that it's wrong anymore. But  

even if you have had a highly reading dependent  learning habits up until now, it's not too late.  

I had a guest on beyond borders who really  is an expert in learning with your ears,  

so let's hear what he has to say about this topic.  Why do people study language through reading and  

writing? Because that's where the light is, that's  where they feel comfortable, that's where you can  

very precisely see the letters and have that  kind of measure of certainty. Um... But what  

you and I are doing right now, we're not looking  at any letters, right? What you and I are doing  

is moving our mouths generating sound effects with  it, perceiving those sound effects with our ears  

and then going back and forth in rapid time.  There's no visual processing really going on  

of letters, I'm though I am looking at your face  in this case which is also very important and we  

teach that as well. So the point is that you  just have to look at what conversation is,  

so I'm sure you want to avoid people not being  able to understand you when you speak English.  

So start depending a bit more on your ears, really  try to listen in to the individual sounds instead  

of trying to say things like in your native  language. There are tons of resources which  

are beyond this video, but a good place to  start might be that interview with Idahosa.

So next: natives don't just speak too fast. Often  when we're learning another language, we think  

that people in that language are just speaking  so fast. Now, in the case of English, this is  

actually caused in most cases by what's called  connected speech. This is how we cut and connect  

our words. Once I discovered this in my English  teaching, I could never hear English the same.  

So the reason why you perceive it as being really  fast, is because you're not used to the melody,  

to the tempo, to the rhythm, to all these little  differences in the music of the language that you  

don't have in your native language. So basically  you just panic and it just sounds way too fast.  

Everything mashes together. But you don't need  to fear, you know, if you're not understanding  

anything outside of teacher English, you can start  to practice listening to this and understand it  

much better. Now if you're more of an intermediate  learner, then you can just start trying to focus  

in on not understanding 100% but really  what's the main message of what's being said.  

It's okay if you only catch like 40, 50 or 60% of  it. You can try this while watching a tv series,  

you know, you can watch it first without  the subtitles and then you can watch it with  

subtitles, or watch it in your native language  to get the full meaning and then go back again  

to watching it in English without subtitles  to see what you catch a second time.  

If you're more advanced on their hand you're  going to want to start really trying to hone  

in on the details. You know, learning about  the connected speech and then when you watch  

something, you listen to something, trying  to catch examples of this. And of course,  

if you're in a conversation with a native or  someone who speaks the language really fluently,  

you can always ask them to slow down or to  repeat or to say a certain word again if  

you didn't catch it. You should not be ashamed of  asking for a little bit of help when you need it.

So maybe at some point you've seen this image  that shows us that everything that we want  

is on the outside of our comfort zone. And in my  experience, this really is true. The people who  

are most willing to make themselves uncomfortable  to do things that they wouldn't normally do,  

are the ones who tend to see the most growth. So  really what you want to focus on is getting one  

percent better every day and the more advanced you  get in the language, the really the more difficult  

it's going to be to make these small improvements.  When you're in the beginning, it's really exciting  

because you're able to learn things so fast, but  as you get better and you get a better base you  

really have to search for the things that you need  to iron out the mistakes that you're making. So if  

you're like me that you're shy or introverted,  then you probably have a voice that comes up  

when you say like "Let me go use the RealLife app  and practice my English there" or "Let me go to  

a language exchange in my city" that's telling  you "No, I should do it next weekend." Because,  

you know, you'll think of any sort of  excuse to get out of it, right? Because  

just thinking of yourself in that position just  sounds so uncomfortable, but just do it now, just  

push yourself even if it's just five minutes, it  can make all the difference. And usually when you  

just get started it's usually the most resistance  is right before we get started doing something.  

So as soon as you just sit down for a couple  minutes to do it, then it gets a lot easier.  

And you can even break this into micro habits,  if you're finding that you're having trouble  

committing to something bigger. So you might not  want to tell yourself "I need to sit down every  

day and study for 30 minutes or an hour" you might  want to say "I'm going to study it for just five  

minutes, just five minutes, just sit down open my  grammar book and do some exercises." And the great  

thing that happens is when you do this, it's so  small that you can't not do it, right? But then,  

once you do it, you find that you really get on  a roll with it, so you don't want to stop after  

the five minutes. Now if you've ever failed in the  past, I highly recommend that you give this a try.

So I'd have to say that every successful English  learner or other language learner that I have met  

has a strong burning why for why they want to  learn that language. And the reason why this  

is so important is because if you're wise your  purpose for learning is just coming externally,  

like your parents are telling you have to learn  it or you have to learn it because you want to get  

a better job or whatever the case is, that's not  going to be very motivating for you. So you need  

to actually deliberately seek out an internal why  for learning the language. So there's an exercise  

I used to make every single one of my new students  do on the first day of class. So it's called the  

Five Whys and the reason why it's called this  is because the first thing I would have them do  

is ask themselves this question "Why are  you learning English?" Now the first answer  

that you give to that question is almost never  any good. It's usually something very external  

facing that doesn't really represent why you're  truly learning the language, why it's important  

to you. So that's why you have to ask yourself why  again, why is that important and you keep digging,  

you know, at least five times until you get to  an answer that is much more powerful for you,  

that excites you, that makes you want to do the  difficult things that you have to do to really get  

to an advanced level in the language. I was always  really amazed at the answers that my students  

would come up with, they would be something super  personal and unique to them and the next thing I  

would have them do is put it somewhere where they  could see it every single day. So it might be a  

sticky note on the fridge or on the mirror, it  might be actually writing it down and taking a  

picture of it. I had a student who actually set  it as the lock screen on his phone, so every time  

he'd look at his phone, he would see why he's  learning English. So find that place for you  

that will work perfectly for you to see it often  so that when you have those moments you're just  

like "I don't wanna have to study English again,  I don't want to have to do the grammar exercises,  

I don't want to go to English class", you'll  just look at that and you'll be like "okay,  

you know, I know why I'm doing this" and  you'll reconnect that and you'll do it anyway.

Something else for me that was pretty surprising  is when you think about English and you think  

about learning English, it's usually because you  want to speak to Americans or you want to speak  

to Brits, right? But the thing that's really  different about learning English as a language,  

is that English is the global language, so it  opens up the entire world to you so as an English  

learner. This is really important, because you  don't need to just focus on being understood by  

Americans or Brits, you need to focus on being  able to understand anyone and be understood  

by anyone. So if you're an advanced speaker of  English, then it's really important that you work  

on your adaptability so it's absolutely fine if  you like English media from the US or from the UK,  

if you want to work on your pronunciation,  if you want to have a near native accent,  

if you want to learn the connective  speech so that you sound more natural.  

If you even want to use the slang that you  hear in your favorite music and TV series,  

that's all great, but make sure that you're also  able to change when you're in a situation where  

you're speaking with someone who might not have  that awareness of American or British culture,  

who might not have the understanding  that you do of connected speech. You  

need to be able to change your pronunciation and  vocabulary that you're using in those contexts.

So we touched on this a little bit earlier, but  small habits are so crucial. The learners who I've  

seen who are the most successful are able to fit  these in around all different parts of their day,  

even if they are super busy. So this could be that  you are preparing your breakfast in the morning  

and you're listening to the news in English and  then while you sit down to eat your breakfast,  

you are reading some tweets in English, or maybe  you do a few quick grammar exercises. While you're  

waiting for the bus, you're Whatsapping a  friend that you have in another country in  

English and then on the bus, on your way to work,  you're listening to a podcast. As you can see,  

when you start to get creative here you can fill  up almost your entire day with different little  

touch points with the English language, even if  your job's not in English, even if you don't live  

in an English-speaking country. So you really have  no excuses and this part really is the place where  

you can have that imagination and have a lot of  fun with it. And this can also be a great excuse  

to try things that you've always wanted to, but  you never have in fact. In this recent lesson that  

we did, I give you 10 different ideas of things  that you can do to have small wins in English, why  

don't you check it out by clicking up here or down  description below after you finish this lesson?

So deliberate practice is especially important  when you get to that upper intermediate stage  

and you feel like you're not really advancing. And  this is where you need to really sit down and iron  

out the mistakes that you're making most commonly.  So this could be doing drills. I had a guest on  

Beyond Borders, Anna, who has exceptional English  and she found that this was really important.  

Watch a video or listen to a podcast and  I would just shadow, repeat and shadow. So  

my first and, and always go to things are, 

and this is something that I always  recommend to people do, is to listen, 

listen as much as possible, like try  to immerse yourself in the language, 

podcasts, audio books, uh, YouTube videos,  movies, like whatever, for as much as you can,  

and then shadow. Shadowing, or just repeating  what you hear, this will help you so much  

with your speaking skills, with  confidence, with vocabulary even.  

And especially when you're at this stage,  there's a lot of fun things that you can do,  

but you also have to accept that the  process is not always going to be fun.  

In fact, another guest that I had, Leo,  talks about this concept of no pain no gain,  

let's check it out:It's not always going to be fun. When you're exercising, you gave the example  

of going to the gym, a person who wants to get a  six-pack, it's going to be a lot of pain. I mean,  

I don't want to go back to the old cliche,  but it's true - no pain, no gain. If you don't  

go through the, if you don't go through those  moments of boredom, of, of tedious repetition,  

the menial work, if you don't go through that,  you're not going to be able to learn the language.

Finally, it's crucial that we all recognize  that it is not a destination, it's a journey.  

So it's really important that we enjoy the  process, that we're able to stop and smell the  

roses from time to time. Sometimes maybe you'll  fall down, you just need to dust yourself off,  

get back up and try again. Reconnect with your  why, maybe if you haven't done that exercise yet,  

definitely do it, because it's going to help you  in those moments. It's really important that you  

don't compare yourself to others, we're all on  our own journey, we all learn at different paces,  

we all have different goals of what we  need to use the language with. Maybe  

that person who speaks English practically  like a native, you don't actually need to be  

at that level for the purposes that you need it  for. So really sitting down and determining you  

know what is it that you need the language  for, so that you can have the right goals.  

And remembering that if it's important to you, you  will probably be learning English for your entire  

life, you're never going to be perfect, I'm a  native speaker, I'm not perfect. There's still new  

things for me to learn in this language, so let's  learn it together. Thanks so much for joining me  

in today's video, if you enjoyed it, you want more  content like this, be sure to subscribe and join  

our community. And I'm really curious, which one  of the lessons that I gave you today did you find  

the most useful or what's been the most crucial  lesson that you've learned on your own journey?  

Why don't you share with me and other  learners down in the comments below?  

So I hope that today's lesson has given you  some sort of tip that you can use to improve  

your English and maybe even your life. And if you  liked this lesson, I know you're going to love  

this other one where I give you 24 tips from 24  amazing English teachers and experts from around  

the world and how you can take your English  to the next level in 2022. Let's check it out!