How Successful Learners Become Fluent

Oh I- - I need to practice my speaking.

I'm going to try to find a speaking  partner on the RealLife English App.

Hi I'm Andrea! Where are you speaking from?

I... I... I come from... uh...

Well, it's Friday night and I have no plans.

You know what? I'm gonna find  someone to have a nice chat with.

Hey, what's up! I'm Ethan from  Barcelona. Where are you speaking from? 

Oh what a small world, I'm  Andrea and I'm also in Barcelona. 

Oh, awesome! Yeah. So, I wanna  know what do you usually do  

on Friday night. Um I really like hanging  out with my friends, but tonight...

Hey there RealLifers! As you might have noticed,  confidence can totally impact your capacity to  

communicate clearly. If you are constantly  avoiding having conversations and connecting  

with the world out of fear and insecurity,  this lesson was created especially for you.

As a language learner myself,  I’ve experienced various moments  

of insecurity and even considered  quitting learning a new language.  

But my purpose of connecting with my friends  was stronger than my fears and insecurities. So,  

as someone who has been there before, here I  am to share some valuable insights with you.

In this lesson we are going to reflect on:

Language as a means for communication. What confidence is and how it impacts  

your fluency and clarity in the language. What accent is and if it really matters. 

And finally how to improve your confidence. So, if you want to become more confident and  

connect to the world through English, just like  Shrushti who says they literally improved their  

English within 3 months of watching our channel  and now can speak more confidently, make sure  

you hit that subscribe button and bell down  below so you don’t miss any of our new lessons.

So, let’s start with something that is  fundamental to every language learner.

Fun fact - The root of the word  “communication” in Latin is communicare,  

which means to share, or to make common. In order to communicate effectively,  

you need to be what we call, communicatively  competent. You might be wondering, though.  

What makes someone a competent communicator?

According to Jack C. Richards,  

“communicative competence includes the  following aspects of language knowledge:

• knowing how to use language for a range  of different purposes and functions.

• knowing how to vary our use of  language according to the setting  

and the participants (fo example knowing when to use formal and informal speech  

or when to use language appropriately for  

written as opposed to spoken communication).

• knowing how to produce and understand  different types of texts (for example narratives,  

reports, interviews, conversations).

• knowing how to maintain communication  despite having limitations in one’s  

language knowledge (for example through using different kinds of  

communication strategies). And last but not least,  

let’s understand communication as the relationship  that involves interaction between participants.

It is in interacting with others that  confidence plays a fundamental role.  

That’s why our main goal at RealLife English is  to empower you to actually use language in order  

to communicate, rather than merely repeat  what you are told to in your classroom or  

even in your textbook. This is why we created  the RLE App, to allow you to practise English  

at the touch of a button! You can connect  with other learners from around the world,  

for short conversations and build up  your confidence when speaking English.  

The best part is that it’s free and  you can download it right now in the  

Google Play or Apple Stores! I’ll also add a  link here and one in the description below!

With that being said, let’s reflect on how  confidence can determine whether you are going to  

be a successful language learner or not and talk  a little bit about clarity, fluency and accent.

First of all, it is fundamental not  to confuse confidence with arrogance.

I really like how Scott Berkkun defined these:

On the flip side:

Now, let’s talk about the opposite of  confidence which is fear and insecurity.

Fear and insecurity are the number one  enemies to anyone trying to develop  

a new skill. When it comes to language learning,  

people tend to be afraid of judgment and  making mistakes when communicating with others. 

Let’s hear some insightful comments  that Hadar made on this topic.

...positive thoughts generate  positive feelings, and 

positive feelings lead to take  action. It's easier to take 

action when you feel better than when you feel depressed or 

insecure. So when you're  insecure, and you allow those 

thoughts to consume you, you're  less likely to take real action 

that will actually change the  results in your life. So when 

you're positive, you actually  take action, and you dare more.

With this difference in mind, why  is confidence important at last,  

and how does that relate to your fluency?

Let’s consider what Shannon said about  fluency in episode seven of our talk show:

I typically aim for conversational fluency in a lot of my languages,  

because that's a lot of what I want to be  

able to do is have conversations sometimes about specific things, sometimes just generally,  

but there's not, there's really just not one  

definition of fluent. Like so for me if I can  

be understood and understand that's and that like, that would be my definition of fluency.

Thus, based on what Shannon said, fluency is  largely associated with being understood and  

understanding someone during a conversation.  And in order to do so, clarity is a fundamental  

aspect of fluency because according to Richard  Nordquist, “Clarity is a characteristic of speech  

that communicates effectively with its  intended audience. Also called perspicuity.”

With that in mind, the more  confident you feel about yourself,  

the better and more clearly you are able  to communicate as shown in this graph.

However, there is one important thing  to point out regarding confidence.  

It’s just that your confidence  level should be balanced, because  

if it’s too low, you might not take initiative  in starting and keeping conversations going.  

Otherwise, when you are excessively  confident, you may sound cocky and  

discourage your speaking partner from holding  and maintaining a conversation with you.

You also might be wondering... What  about accents? Does it really matter?

First off, let’s explore in  more detail what accent is:

Accent can be defined as a  particular way of speaking  

which tells the listener something  about the speaker’s background.

A person’s pronunciation may show:

1 - the region or country they come from, e.g. a northern accent, an American accent

2 - what social class they belong to, e.g. a lower middle class accent

3- whether or not the speaker is a  native speaker of the language, e.g. 

She speaks English with an  accent/with a German accent.

It is fascinating to see that accent is  actually connected to the speaker’s background.  

Based on that, we can assume that there are as  many accents as there are speakers of a language  

since each individual has their unique background. 

Let’s listen to Emma’s constructive  consideration on accents:

Even the idea of just obsessing over or focusing on a particular  

accent, it locks you in, you know, to a certain  

way of life, a certain experience, a certain limited or finite set of opportunities.  

Where by exposing yourself to a much  

richer or diverse range of accents and English speakers, your opportunity  

to interact, engage with connect with people,  

you know, all around the world is so much greater than then by restricting  

yourself to just one, prioritizing one.

So, accent shouldn’t get in  the way of your interactions.  

As long as you have clarity in your  speech, the sky’s the limit considering  

the number of English speakers you  can connect with around the world.

Now, before we talk about how you can improve  your confidence and become a better speaker,  

let’s hear from Max, who's a member of the  RealLife team and passionate about the English  

Language. So, Max, what role does confidence  play on your English language learning journey?

Yes, I think that confidence is very important  when speaking another language. You know, just  

the act of using your mouth to create all these  crazy new sounds that sound nothing like the ones  

you've used your whole life. That takes a lot  of courage in my opinion and maybe you can look  

at it as a spec right where on one end you have  fear and on the other end you have confidence. If  

you're constantly operating around here, instead  of fear that's obviously going to limit you. But  

if maybe it's not so much about you know taking  this huge leap all across the spectrum and all of  

a sudden being this super confident person. Maybe  it's not about that maybe it's just about getting  

enough distance away from the state of fear so  that you can actually be yourself, enjoy the  

moment and be present in that English speaking  situation. And another idea is that even though  

grammar and accuracy are important, they can  also be dangerous if you let them paralyze you.  

But if you feel comfortable speaking in English  despite making mistakes, that's going to allow you  

to have more and better conversations in English  than if you are in this constant state of fear,  

if you're scared. And this is another path  to becoming a better English speaker just  

because you're going to have more conversations  in English, more opportunities to speak and this  

obviously is going to develop your skills as an  English speaker a lot more, a lot further, right?

Thanks a lot for your inspiring comments, Max! 

As Max already gave you some tips  on how to improve your confidence,  

let's expand on that a little bit more and  talk about how you can improve your confidence.

Tip number 1 - Language Exposure.

As we say at RealLife English, don’t just learn  it, live it. To live your English means to do  

some of the things that you do on a daily  basis in English. For example, if you like  

listening to music, you might turn this into an  opportunity to get involved with the language  

by singing along and even talking about  your favourite songs with your friends.

Exposing yourself to the language in various  ways is crucial to improving your confidence.  

Your brain gets accustomed to the  language and it helps to reduce the  

discomfort that comes naturally when  you have to use English in real life.

And our tip number 2 is: Speak to yourself.

Pay attention to what I said in  episode 247 of the RLE podcast:

And also, I often get asked a lot in the Instagram Live that I do  

every week about like the app and how people are saying, Oh,  

I'm nervous to go on it because 

I'm nervous to speak and what  can I do and things like this. 

So this is a great way to  prepare yourself to help to 

build your confidence to practice having those conversations on your own or recording  

yourself, you know, to then prepare and just  

bite the bullet and go for it. And do you start using the app and speaking to people.

Tip number 3 - Focus on Connection

Another core value that we have at RealLife  English is connection over perfection.  

When you are too concerned about sounding  perfect when communicating in a foreign language,  

you forget about the essentials. That is,  language is mainly used to establish connections  

with others and in order to do so, clarity  is way more important than sounding perfect.

Let’s Listen to Emma’s and Lindsay’s insightful  thoughts and tips about language and connection:

And I think that the more that we genuinely and deeply connect with each other, and obviously,  

language is a powerful,  

the power, the most powerful way of doing that. We 

get to, to re-imagine or  re-experience the world on our 

own terms. And, you know,  often that's quite eye-opening.

So the 'connection,  

not perfection', the way I connect to that is, I never want our learners to feel that,  

right I never want language to get in the way  

of human connection. That's what that's all about. It should  

always be the number one goal is to maintain the connection. So if  

you make a mistake, don't drop your eye contact,  

don't feel embarrassed, don't move away, look at the person in the eye  

and keep the connection going. It's up to you at that  

moment, whether you lose the connection, or you keep it,  

right. So we have a lot more control than we think we do.

Tip number 4 - Take action

And for our last tip, let’s compare learning  a language to learning how to swim. If you  

only read about it, you will never actually feel  confident when you jump into the swimming pool.  

So, you can only master a skill if you  actually focus on the practical aspects  

of it and not on what is said about it. So,  start, then learn. Don’t learn, then start.

With this action taker mindset, your confidence  growth is directly proportional to your attitude  

of putting things into practice. In other words,  you gain confidence by doing things consistently.

As a final consideration, remember we are  all human, and it is OK not to be confident  

all the time. From time to time we have put  ourselves out there and there are moments that  

we are going to feel nervous and insecure,  but we do it anyway and this is how we grow.

I hope this video has helped you boost your  confidence. After watching it, I highly  

recommend that you start practicing right away.  So, check out this video packed with precious tips  

on how you can improve your speaking even if  you have nobody to speak with at the moment.