Stop Feeling Fear Speaking English—Speak Confident English

227,797 views ・ 2018-03-21

Speak Confident English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident English and welcome to this week's
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Confident English lesson where we're focused on common fears when speaking
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English and how you can overcome them. Everyday I hear from my students in
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emails and in my small group classes and I often hear about three common fears
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again and again and you might have some of these same fears about speaking
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English. Those three common fears are often related to the fear of starting
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conversations in English, the fear of not knowing what to say or what is
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appropriate or correct to say. The second fear is related to making mistakes in
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English, the fear of feeling silly in a conversation. And finally the third fear
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that I often hear about is the fear that no one will understand you or that you
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won't be able to express yourself correctly the way that you want. If those
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are some of the fears that you have in English, I want you to know first that
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you're not alone having those fears and number two we can totally change that. In
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fact it's what I love most in my work. I love helping my students overcome their
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fears in English, to overcome feeling shy and nervous so that they can do what
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they want and what they need. And the reason it's so important is because if
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you are always afraid to speak, if you never learn how to overcome those fears
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then you might lose opportunities. You might lose professional opportunities to
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grow your career or to get a better job; you might lose the opportunity to get a new
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client to work with your company; maybe it means losing opportunities in
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an English-speaking country where you live; it means being stressed every day
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just to go to the grocery store or the bank; and maybe it means it's really
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difficult to get to know people and make friends. And we don't want any of that. We
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want it to be easy for you to communicate in English, to feel
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comfortable, and to know that you can say what you want. So today I want to share
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with you a couple of practical ways that you can do that. There are just two words
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that I want to focus on in today's lesson and these two words are
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everything you need to overcome your fears and to help you advance and be
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more confident in your English. Those two words are preparation and practice. It
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sounds super simple but you and I both know it's not so simple. The truth is
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preparation and practice take time, they require a little bit of work, they might
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also require some opportunity and even a little bit of courage. Preparation means
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the process of getting ready, it means that you have to collect information, you
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have to think and evaluate, and make sure that you have everything you need to be
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ready for something. If preparation is the process of getting ready, practice is
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the process of doing something regularly, doing something as a habit. And those two
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pieces together are what allow you to overcome those fears, to become more
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confident and sure about what you want to say in your English. I want to share
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with you an example of why preparation and practice must go together to help
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you overcome fears and nervousness, and to help you become proficient and
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confident in what you can do in English. This is an example I often share with my
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students in Fluency School. Imagine that you play the piano and you're going to
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learn a new song maybe a new song by Chopin or Mozart and of course before
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you learn to play a new song you need to get familiar with it, you need to make
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sure you know how to read music, you need to know where the notes on the piano are,
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what the different keys do, you need to make sure your piano is in tune.
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All of that is part of that process of getting ready. And then if you
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just know how to read the music but you never practice and you have a concert
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tomorrow it might be really difficult to go to that concert and play perfectly if
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you've never played the song before. Of course you've read it, you've read the
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song, you understand reading the music but you've never played it on the piano
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so it's probably going to be really scary to go to a concert and play that
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song without knowing exactly how to do it, without the practice. So of course
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most of us don't do that. Most of us do the preparation and then we practice. The
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first time you play that song you might be really slow and sometimes you look at
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the piano, sometimes you look at the music, sometimes you play the wrong note
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and you have to start over. Sometimes there might be a really difficult part
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of the song and you have to do it again and again and again. But after the first
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week it gets much easier you don't have to read the music so much your
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hands go where they need to go more easily, it feels more natural you, just
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know what the music is. And of course, with time, eventually
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you can just play the song. It's easy. You don't think about it, you don't read the
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music, it's in you. You've got it. That is the process of preparation and practice
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working together. And now let's go back to language. That is absolutely the same
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process that we need in becoming confident in English and learning how to
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say what you want and to not feel afraid in that moment. First strategies for
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preparation and again remember this is the process of getting everything you
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need so that you're ready to practice. So when you have to start a conversation
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and you're nervous about making mistakes, you want to make sure that you're
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understood, you want to think about what are the things you need for that
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conversation. Are there specific questions that you
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need to ask? Is there information that you need to be prepared to share? If
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there are, then you want to know what those are
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in advance. That means you need to spend some time thinking about them, maybe
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doing a little bit of research or even writing some things down. If it's a
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business meeting and you know that you'll have to share some information,
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write down what it is that you'll need to share. If you really want to get to
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know your neighbor and you would love to ask some questions
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think about what those questions are in advance. Now before we talk about
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practice, I want to give some practical tips about starting a conversation,
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asking questions because that's often one of the biggest challenges or areas
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of fear that my students have. Number one I have a lesson on my 10 favorite
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questions to start a conversation with anyone. In that lesson I share with you
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what those questions are, why they are great questions, and how you can use them,
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who can you use them with. And the second lesson that I have is all about
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small talk and how to be better at small talk, what kinds of questions can you ask
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and how can you be ready for any of those situations where you might need to
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get to know someone and start that conversation. Now let's go to the second
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part of that equation - that preparation and practice. You've prepared for a
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conversation, you've prepared questions to ask but now you have to do the work
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of practice. If your goal is to overcome feeling afraid of speaking, of making
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mistakes, or of being understood, practice is what will help you do that.
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Practice is that process of doing something as a habit, doing it regularly
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or repeating it so that you are proficient at it. Let's imagine that you
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have a business meeting coming up next week and the meeting will be in English.
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You know that you will have to present some information and maybe even offer
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your opinion on a solution to a problem. So of course, before that meeting, you
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will prepare, think about what it is you need to say, what information do you need
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to share, but then you need to also practice it. If you want to feel more
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confident, if you want to not feel afraid to say what you want and to know that
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you're going to be understood and that you can do it clearly. One easy way that
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you can do that (in a way that I love doing even with my students) is recording
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yourself. Use your computer or your smartphone and record yourself by audio
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or video. This gives you the practice of speaking out loud and then, when you're
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finished, listen to it. How is it? Are you happy with what you said? Are you happy
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with how you sound? Are you okay with the vocabulary that you use,
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the grammar choices that you made? This is a little bit like that first time of
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playing the piano and maybe as you listen to it you think -
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oh I don't like that. Or I made a mistake I want to fix it. Just like when
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you practice playing the piano, when you record yourself, the great thing is you
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can delete it you can start over and do it again.
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And through that practice you start to perfect what you want to say, you make
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changes and improvements, it gets easier to remember the words that you want to
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use and maybe you change your sentences a little bit but through that process
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you build confidence in what you're saying, it becomes less scary and you
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feel more sure about what words you want to use and what grammar you need so that
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when you go to that business meeting, you've done the preparation, you've done
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the practice and you're ready. You're ready for that business meeting, you're
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ready to say what you need or what you want. The awesome thing about recording
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yourself is you can do it no matter where you live, even if you have no one
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around you to practice English with. This is something you can do anytime, you can
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do it for five minutes a day and again that process of doing something as a
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habit is what will help you build that confidence so that you can do it more
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easily. The second strategy you can use to help you get that practice that you
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need is to invest in yourself. If speaking English with confidence is
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something that is important to you, if it is essential for you to get better
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opportunities or to feel more comfortable where you live, then invest
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in it. There are so many wonderful language schools around the world and
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online. You can hire a tutor, go to a class near where you live, or you could
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even join me for my Fluency School course which is focused on speaking
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practice. The reason this second strategy is great
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is it gives you someone else to work with, whether it's a teacher or a small
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group. You have others who can help you through the process and support you,
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encourage you as you practice to perfect your English and be more confident. If
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you've ever wondered how someone else has become successful in English or how
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they became so confident, this is exactly how. It is always the process of
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preparation and practice combined together. This is what leads to
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overcoming your fears, it is what leads to confidence and the ability to make
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progress or advance your abilities. Now that you know exactly what it takes or
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what is necessary to help you overcome fears in English, I have a question for
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you -- are you ready and are you willing to give English the time and the work, the
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commitment that it needs so that you can become more confident and to feel that
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you can speak freely in English? Remember preparation and practice do
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take time but if you know that your time and your work will be worth it, that they
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will help you accomplish what you need, would you be ready to do it? This is an
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important question because it's so easy to be discouraged if you've spent a lot
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of time studying English, if you've taken classes and bought grammar books and
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watched videos on YouTube like this, it can be really easy to feel discouraged
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if you don't see progress. So it's important to ask that question -- are you
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ready and are you willing to give English a little bit of time and energy,
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work, commitment every day to see those changes? This is where I would love to
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hear from you and this is my challenge question for the week -- if you feel that
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you are ready or maybe you've already started the process of doing a
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little bit of work in English every day and trying to make progress, what steps
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are you taking? That's what I want to know. As always, you can share your
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comments with me in the comment section just below this video. I want to hear
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from you what steps you are taking to do that process of preparation and practice
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in your English. When you share your comments, I do always read them, I often
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provide feedback and you can read what others in the community say. You might
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get some new ideas or maybe you have a strategy that will be just what someone
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else needs. With that thank you so much for joining me this week, I love having
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you here every Wednesday and I'll see you next week for your Confident English
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lesson.
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