Should you practice with other English learners?

hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com

in this video I'm gonna be answering the question will practicing English with

other English learners make my English worse okay this is a very popular

question and I totally understand why people ask this and worried about it and

wonder about it right you think that hey I'm trying to improve my English so if I

speak with someone who's making mistakes then their mistakes are gonna get stuck

in my brain and I'm not going to improve so a lot of English learners actually

avoid speaking with other English learners because they don't want to make

their English worse right they're trying to make progress they're not trying to

you know go back in time and get worse with their English but here is what I

tell my students practice is practice is practice is practice if you avoid

speaking because you don't want to practice with another english learner

then you are not taking advantage of an opportunity that exists for you to

practice so practice in general is important it is so important for you to

speak and if you don't have speaking opportunities if you don't have native

speakers to speak with well the next best thing is another English learner

who's just as willing as you are to practice with you to help you improve

however they can to correct your mistakes if they hear any and vice versa

you can collaborate and work together and you know if you think about it

people do this in school all the time in college all the time you study with your

classmates you study for tests with your classmates they're not better than you

are but you study together you practice together you help each other out and

then you take the test right so this actually is not a crazy idea and it's

not a bad idea it is not bad to practice with other people who are learning

especially because they are the most dedicated people you will ever meet who

are dedicated to improving speaking with a native English speaker is great but

they're not going to be as interested in correcting your mistakes helping you or

being patient with you when you speak but another English language learner is

going to be patient with you because they're gonna expect you to be patient

with them when they speak and make mistakes

etc now the next thing that I tell my students is that input and output are

two different things okay so input when you're consuming English for the most

part you want to be consuming English that is spoken by native English

speakers because that is showing you and demonstrating to you how it should be

spoken so watch TV in English watch movies in English listen to the radio

in English do all of those things in English but when you speak all you need

is somebody who's willing to listen to you so that you can practice speaking

and if that person is another English language learner then so be it that's

perfect that will give you the opportunity to practice your speaking

skills right you just need somebody who's willing to listen and again if

you're thinking oh well I need a practice with a native speaker so they

can correct me unfortunately that rarely happens when

you speak with native speakers they don't sit there and correct every

mistake because they're not focused on correcting you they're focused on

communication they're not interested in correcting you for the most part they

just want to talk you know get the message across and move on so if that's

what you're hoping for and expecting from communication with a native English

speaker then unfortunately you probably aren't gonna get that either unless you

pay a teacher who will correct your mistakes for you now the next thing that

I want to say and very few people actually think about this practicing

your English with other English learners is so important because it will help

develop your listening skills to understand different accents and this is

very very important if you want to live in the USA if you live in the USA if you

want to work for a multinational company if you ever have to deal with clients

from abroad or whatever having the ability to understand multiple accents

from around the world is powerful okay because it opens doors to new

opportunities it allows you to communicate with more people lots of

people even native English speakers struggle with understanding accents so

the more you talk with people who have a Russian accent Japanese accent Chinese

accent Arabic accent Spanish accent Portuguese accent etc

you're gonna be able to understand more and more and more people and that is a

very very valuable skill to have for me personally I understand almost

everybody in English every accent I don't really have a problem with it but

that's because of the nature of what I do I work with English language learners

and it's part of my job to be able to understand people but again that is such

a valuable skill because I'm able to talk with so many people have

conversations and me understanding other accents is not getting in the way of a

conversation whereas with many other people it does

get in the way so again realize that when you have the opportunity to speak

with another English language learner it's not just about you developing your

speaking skills it's also about you developing your listening skills and

again if you plan on working in any kind of company that deals with customers

from around the world or if you want to build your own business you're gonna

have to deal with people around the world okay and if you want to live in

the USA or something like that there are people living there from all over the

world so having the ability to clearly and easily understand other English

speakers with different accents is a great skill to have so hopefully I have

made my case in this video speaking English and practicing your English with

other English learners is an excellent excellent way to improve it should not

be overlooked in fact you should be very excited about this opportunity because

there's so much opportunity for you to practice with people I mean here alone

on my youtube channel there are hundreds of thousands of people who could

potentially be your partner on my Instagram account on my Facebook you can

easily find people who would be willing to do calls with you to practice and

plus you'll get to know awesome people around the world you guys are so cool

all right you guys that's it if you have any experience practicing your English

with other English language learners by doing Skype calls or anything like that

please share your experience in the comments tell us how it has impacted

your English how it has helped you what you have learned alright so that is it

if you want a guide on practicing your English with native speakers meeting

native English speakers online interacting with us so you can practice

your English improve your English learn new vocabulary build your confidence etc

have a guide on my website I'm going to link it here in the description I always

share this guide because it is literally the most popular one on my entire

website EnglishFullTime.com that's it you guys have a great day and I will see

you in the next video bye