My English Doesn't Improve, What Should I Do?

So if you feel like you've been  learning English for a while now  

but you feel like you're not improving as  much as you used to when you first started,  

then today's lesson is for you. You'll first watch a clip with subtitles  

and then I'm going to teach you the most important  vocabulary in the clip while giving you practical  

tips on what you can do to advance your English. And then finally you'll have the chance to watch a  

clip again without subtitles and see a summary of  the words and tips that we studied in this lesson. 

Oh! And there's a surprise quiz at the end  that will help you identify if you are ready  

to move towards becoming an advanced learner. But before we get into any of that if you are  

new here I wanted to quickly let you know  that every week we help you to understand  

fast speaking natives, to be understood  by anyone and to connect to the world! 

Just like Allah, who says that our lessons  are helping him improve his accent. 

We look forward to joining you on your journey  to English fluency too. The first step is  

hitting that Subscribe Button and the Bell down  below, so that you don't miss any new lessons.

So in this part Ollie is  sharing his frustration after  

starting to learn Portuguese. He says  he feels like he's stuck in a rut. 

Now this means that learning the  language has become monotonous  

and he feels bored with it, probably because  of that he can't see any improvements. 

This is such a common situation when learning  a foreign language, that's why I feel that  

classifying the levels of English just as  beginner, intermediate and advanced isn't  

a very good representation of the reality. You don't simply jump from one to another  

overnight. It's a process and there  are differences within the levels  

you are at because sometimes one skill like  reading or writing is more developed than others. 

Still when you get to an intermediate level it  becomes really difficult to see exactly where  

you're making progress. Improvements become  harder and harder to see as you don't feel  

the small wins like you did before you may feel  discouraged and demotivated to keep studying. 

This situation can even make you  feel like you're not good enough.  

However even if it is small as long as you're  consistent the progress is there. You probably  

already sound more fluent and you don't have to  think a lot about the words you're going to use. 

You don't pause that much and your listening  is better. Your reading maybe is even faster.

So how can you find the motivation to  keep going? Alright, so my first tip  

is to "Keep a record of your learning." The easiest way to do this is by creating  

a folder on a cloud service like Google Drive  or OneDrive and use it as a digital portfolio. 

Actually my favorite tool for this  nowadays is Notion, it's really powerful  

and I highly recommend you check it out, but  I won't talk too much about it in this video.  

But give us a like down below if you would  like me to do a video on my favorite tools  

for language learning and productivity.

So in a service like one of these that I  mentioned, you can upload things that you write,  

audio you record yourself speaking English,  exercises you did in class or even nice feedback  

that you received on your language abilities. Or you could even upload some notes of  

a successful situation where you used your  English. You can separate your files by date  

and make a note on your calendar  to revisit from time to time. 

Maybe once every quarter or semester.  By revisiting your old work you'll be  

able to see how much you've progressed, maybe  this sounds like a lot for you. If that's the  

case a simpler alternative would be to record  yourself talking about some advanced topic. 

Do it once per month and compare it to your  past ones. A lot of times when we're studying  

we don't realize the progress that we're making,  so this tip is a good way that you can start  

observing your progress, which will help to light  the fire inside and motivate you to continue.

Did you notice the expression he  used to emphasize how bored he was? 

If you are bored to tears it's like saying  that something is so uninteresting that it  

could even make you cry. When you throw  in the towel you give up doing something. 

Learning a new language demands consistency and  over time that can indeed become too repetitive.  

That's when you fall into the danger of  getting trapped in your comfort zone,  

so to avoid falling into that trap the second tip  is to "Constantly slightly increase the challenge" 

The foreign language I speak most  here in Barcelona is Catalan. However  

a couple years ago I noticed this  feeling that I was stuck in a rut,  

I wasn't making progress even though  I used the language every single day.  

So at the beginning of 2019 I decided it  was time to take it to the next level.

What I did to break out of the comfort zone was  to sign up for the C1 Level Test in Catalan.  

Now I had never studied the grammar  in this language before so getting a  

good teacher and studying every day for the  exam over four months forced me to discover  

where the holes were in my learning and fix them. For me this was the trick to breaking out of the  

intermediate plateau and into advanced, giving me  more confidence in my abilities in this language. 

Of course everyone has to find what will work  for them to step outside of their comfort zone  

to where the magic happens. Have you had any similar experiences?  

I would love to hear about it.  Share it down in the comments below.

The key here is to do something that's just a  little bit more difficult than what you were  

doing before. For people who work out it's  the same principle of progressive overload,  

that is when they gradually increase the weight or  number of repetitions in their training routine. 

Of course it's not so obvious when  it comes to learning a language  

what it means to increase the weight. Every time our brain faces a new challenge  

it actually creates new brain cells. The  process of responding to a new challenge  

requires the brain to do some work that it  is not used to do or hasn't done before. 

How can you apply that to learning English? Well  if you have a favorite TV series and watched it  

with subtitles go back and watch it without them. Or maybe you like to read so you could pick up  

a book that is a little bit above your  level of English, or instead of doing  

book exercises to revisit your grammar you could  start creating your own exercises. For example  

by removing all the verbs from a news article  or song and having to conjugate them yourself. 

You could do crossword puzzles, watch  videos of your favorite subjects,  

play trivia games, etc. all in English. Or maybe if you feel like you need a little  

bit of an extra push, then you can sign up for  a language exam just like I did. For English  

learners you have the IELTS exam, TOEFL or  Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English. 

It will help you to focus  and structure your learning.

If you're like Ollie or me then when you got to  the intermediate level you probably felt like you  

could understand most things quite well, right? Well despite that you feel you can't quite respond  

as precisely as you do in your first language, and  you end up always using the same words, don't you? 

This limits your conversations and maybe  they just don't feel that interesting.  

Just like I once felt you may not be using a  wide enough range of expressions. The range  

is the extension of your vocabulary, how varied  it is, relying on the same expressions because  

they're comfortable is perhaps the biggest thing  that stops you from getting to an advanced level.

The thing that you can do is to start  learning chunks instead of isolated words.  

Chunks are expressions that are used in  certain contexts or that often come together.

Reading is one of the absolute best ways to  discover wonderful new word chunks that you're not  

currently employing when you speak. When I read  I like to highlight these chunks on my e-reader  

and then during my study time I add them to a  spaced repetition software like Anki or Memrise. 

I'll link our lesson on how to  improve your English reading  

in the description in case  you want more tips about this.

So I said here that deep down I was aware I  had a good level of Spanish. Use "deep down"  

to refer to things that you feel strongly about  but that you often don't admit to other people. 

That's probably the case of your  English, because at an intermediate  

level your English is already good enough  for most situations you need to use it in. 

You convince yourself that that is it you  don't need to continue studying and putting  

effort into it. Furthermore this could result  in fossilized mistakes, it is like you're  

so used to saying things in a certain way and  it becomes harder and harder to correct them.

The tip to overcome this and refine  your language is to ask for feedback.  

As I mentioned for me a huge turning point  was when I got a professional teacher.  

Actually I used to be really against the idea  of getting a teacher, I thought that I could do  

it all on my own. However having someone with  experience who could identify my own mistakes  

and guide me made all of the difference  in breaking out of the intermediate level. 

If you can swing this it will make  a huge difference for your progress,  

so I highly recommend that as soon as  possible you find a teacher if you can.  

Other good options can be a friend that you  trust or a mentor, constantly ask them to give  

you feedback on your language. Ask things like: [...]

Of course this feedback is only useful if  you actually apply it. Ask yourself "why  

do you need to have advanced English?" and set  clear action points making sure that they fit  

your purpose, intention and needs. Another great way we have for you to  

gain confidence with your English is  with our Power Learning Mini Course,  

this will help you to gain the vocabulary  that we natives really use and to improve  

your pronunciation so that you can speak clearly. Look what Itzel, who is a student of our Premium  

Course recently shared in our community about  her experience. She says that now in her meetings  

in English she feels confident speaking. So you can get started right now and it's  

absolutely FREE, just click up here or in  the description box down below to sign up.

Now you'll have a chance to check everything  we saw in the lesson. Before doing that though  

I have one last tip, so even after you have  reached an advanced level of English it is  

important that you are always learning, so you  don't lose what you've worked so hard to achieve. 

We say in English that if  you don't use it you lose it. 

I mentioned sometimes that I have learned  six different languages. Several years back  

I tried my hand at learning Hebrew, now the first  five months went great I made a lot of progress  

but my life got busy, I wasn't using  it and I put it on the back burner. 

Unfortunately I've never come back to  it and I lost most of what I learned.  

Luckily I have learned from those mistakes with  other languages that I've learned, so don't make  

this mistake with your English. I recommend that  you make it a fun part of your everyday life. 

For stress-free ways you can do this  be sure to check out this lesson  

which you can find linked up here  and down in the description below.

I hope that you've enjoyed today's  lesson and you learned some new things.

If you did just a reminder Subscribe and  click the bell down below so you don't miss  

any of our new lessons, but before you go as  promised it's time to complete the final quiz  

and find out if you are ready to move  towards becoming an advanced learner.

If you answered Yes to seven or more you are ready  to start taking your English to the next level.

One last thing, don't forget to  connect with me on our Instagram page  

where you can keep learning with our lives,  quizzes and mini lessons. See you next Friday  

for another lesson and now it's time to go beyond  the classroom and live your English. Aww yeah!!