Interview: Improving Your English & Speaking With Partners

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

today I have one of my former students with me and we are going to talk about

how he improved his English so hi Stefano how are you hi Stefanie I'm

very well great good to hear that I think before we even begin this

interview we have to tell everybody that I've been pronouncing your name wrong I

I guess like ever since we met and you introduced yourself because you're from

Italy and how do you say your name in Italian I say my name

Stefano you say Stefano right? yes and to me to me in

English like that just sounded so strange I was like that doesn't sound

like an English name I needed to make it more comfortable for me so I was like

well my name is Stefanie yours is Stefano so I was like what if I call you

Stefan-o how does that sound and you're like sure call me Stefan-o and later we

learned that your name is pronounced in English Stefano like that right yes yes

anyways I just thought I would give that introduction because if someone watches

this video and sees me saying Stefano they're gonna be like whoa that's not

how you say it and we just have to explain that it's something between us

right yes yes cool okay so why don't you go ahead and just tell everybody how we

met yes we met one year ago I was on

Facebook and I get a message pop up the English coach page was making a live video

and I didn't have some something to do and I start to watch your video and I

found interesting the project that you proposed and I have subscribed at your

English full time Academy in one minute after I started to watch your video so and in this

way started my path to improving my English videos yes fantastic and that's

exactly what we're gonna talk about so when you joined

why did you join like you were struggling with your English

you wanted to improve what was your motivation for joining I wanted to improve

because I have started English in the high school and but I have

studied English in the traditional way studying grammar making exercise but in

five years I didn't had the opportunity to speak English after I work in the

I.T. I'm IT consultant freelance and I have

read a lot of technical documentation in English and so I I feel that the

probably I have continued my study of English without practicing it so one

year ago I started to make some one to one lesson on internet and I was just

for challenging my English skills and I feel that I wasn't which a level of

English that I like so I will to continue my improving and I have found

just as I said your project yeah so I think that's really

interesting what you said because you studied English for five years before

ever working with me and you didn't get to the level that you wanted I think a

lot of people are gonna relate to that because I hear stories like this every

single day people study English for decades not even 5 years some people

study English for decades and they still don't reach a level that they're happy

with and then on top of that you even did private lessons with a private

teacher and you still felt like oh this isn't really helping me so that's

incredibly interesting because those are all things that a lot of people think

are the answer basically right they think that if they learn English through

the traditional system that they will get fluent they think that if they do

private lessons that they will get fluent or confident I totally understand

that because as a language learner myself with Spanish I used to believe

those things too and then I learned that that doesn't always work at least not

for everybody so what kind of activities do you remember doing in our group that

maybe you felt scared to do but you did them anyways do you remember any

interesting activities I had you guys do probably the first activity that I was

scared for was the like make a live video in

English and I remember the first time I made this live video but after made it I

realized that it was a way to go out from my comfort zone and understand

better what was my English level and then understand also my improvement on

the way so it was very useful for me yeah and we did lots of activities like

that I had you guys do lots of live videos I had you guys do group

discussions with each other and I think it's really important for people who

learn to understand learning process and how to learn better so this is a

strategy that you can use first of all if you are in the position of here here

you are as a learner and here the teacher is it's really hard to build

confidence because there's always somebody that's like above you there's

always somebody else but if you are in the position of a leader and you are

sharing your knowledge with other people because I had you guys make these live

videos to share experiences to share your knowledge your areas of expertise

etc if you're in that position all of a sudden it's you have like a lot more

responsibility on your shoulders and you're more focused you take it more

seriously and it helps you improve even faster and build your confidence because

now you're like oh my gosh this is so scary and that is where we have our

biggest improvements when we go outside of our comfort zone and I watched you

and several other students do these activities and again have these amazing

transformations right before my eyes and the incredible thing is that there was

no English learning at all inside of this community you guys were all people

that understood the language like you said you use it every day for your job

and your field everything that you you study and do so I wasn't even teaching

you grammar or vocabulary or anything I was just saying okay create like create

this video do this do this live discussion and you guys had to pull from

your knowledge and speak with each other so I think that is really really awesome

and I want to ask you now what did you find most difficult about improving your

English probably the first time the pronunciation I feel

that also now I'm not I don't have a good pronunciation but the first time

I was struggling with this and sometimes with the vocabulary I miss

some words sometimes to express myself these was the two area that I had the

most difficult at the start and but probably is I am a little bit more

confident in speaking English I could say that during at the activity I have

made inside the community speaking English was not the first focus but was

using English to communicate to each other and then we speak about our skill

and our college and this's helped me to don't worry about my English don't

worry about my mistakes and magically my English comes better day by day right

that's how it feels it feels like magic exactly and this is why when students

ask me like oh correct my mistakes or do this I usually don't because if you're

focused on your mistakes you're not focused on communication and it's okay

to make mistakes in communication and as we communicate more we tend to

self-correct you know you hear something and you go oh I realize I've been saying

this wrong and then you make that correction so it's really interesting to

me because what before you joined the community you said you understood

English but you never really spoke it and now you speak English with other

people you go to conferences in English you have business discussions in English

and when people watch this video they're gonna hear you have an accent you mess

up with your grammar your English isn't perfect but like it doesn't matter right

yes yes I agree with you I never realized that also that sometimes I'm

speaking Italian with other people that don't speak Italian as primary language

and also I don't focus about the mistake in Italian so I suppose that

also an English speaker don't don't worry about my mistake but he'll

focus to understand me and if I make some mistakes probably you will ask

me to repeat the my my expression yeah exactly everyone is so focused on

understanding each other that they're not sitting there thinking oh my gosh

what bad grammar what bad pronunciation they're just like wait what did you say

yes exactly so okay you met some really awesome people in this community too and

I mean I did we all did and you actually came away with real friendships and

you've met some of these people in real life so I want to talk about that for a

second especially because everybody in the community was a non-native English

speaker and I hear people all the time saying oh my gosh I need to practice

with native speakers in order to improve my English and I offer a course now that

shows people how to do that and they have lots of success with it and they

love it but in the beginning I started by creating this community where you

guys could practice with each other because I really wanted to prove to

everybody and to myself and you guys that you can improve your language

skills even if you are practicing with non-native English speakers so what was

that experience like to chat with people and do Skype calls and other things with

other English learners I think that it doesn't matter because is for me is the

opportunity to practice my English and communicate with my English and improve

my English if I speak with a native a native speaker it doesn't matter for me I

need to speak English and I need to communicate with the person that is in

front of me so I it doesn't matter if it is English or from another countries yeah

absolutely I agree with you and this is what people think they think that if

they practice with the non-native English speaker that somehow that other

person's language skills are gonna rub off on them and make their speaking

ability worse or make their comprehension or listening ability worse

or vocabulary worse right I totally understand that because that's how I

used to think I don't know about you but that's how I used to think and then in

Argentina I met this girl who is from France and she spoke French and Spanish

and I spoke English and Spanish so the only language we could

communicate in was Spanish and we were both messing up and you know because

this was back a lot long time ago before I had the fluency that I am now but it

was so nice to practice with somebody else who also made mistakes and we

didn't care we would just communicate and tell stories it was great

anyhow do you still keep in touch with the people that you met in our community

yes I keep in touch with Renee Fabrizio Erika with you yeah I had the

opportunity to meet someone of you like Fabrizio Fabrizio is now in in Italy and I

had the opportunity to meet to meet him and I realized that on the Internet we

make relationship that are true relationship also if we get in touch

through our webcam or a microphone but at the end we had the opportunity to

know other people so yeah I think that was probably like one of the highlights

of the entire program is that I was able to bring people together from all over

the world you guys formed relationships and ended

up meeting in real life so the people watching this video aren't going to know

this so I'll just tell them but you and I met in real life we met in Italy with

my husband because my husband and I were travelling there and you took us to this

fantastic restaurant I still remember the pasta it was amazing and we went

with your wife and Fabrizio one the other students that you said you

met in Italy was also there and so we my husband and I picked him up where he was

staying we all drove together to your house and

we all met up and it was so awesome and I remember what I have said to you you

are making a great project and I like the way you understand how to speak

English and and I was a result of your project it was a part of this magic

of this magic of my English improving so yeah well honestly like that's all I

want to see like I want to see people go from being where they are struggling

with English struggling with confidence to owning it and to just

basically saying you know what I understand English therefore I can speak

English I can communicate and then just get better along the way right just

you're gonna keep improving everyone's gonna keep improving and we can use this

language as a tool to get new opportunities in life create new

relationships and I love what you said about forming relationships online right

and that can be that can form real relationships yes yes they are real they are and

you know while we're on this topic I should just mention that Erika and Rene

who were also from the community they met up in New York when Rene went over

there to a conference and to travel and they surprised me they posted a picture

in our group and they're just like hey we're hanging out and I'm just like this

is incredible because I think a lot of people don't realize how powerful the

internet is like it connects you to real people like real people are using the

internet a lot of people I think are skeptical about being online using the

internet because we're always afraid like afraid of strangers afraid of bad

things happening but what we don't realize is that there are really great

people on the internet too that we can connect with form relationships with and

then visit in real life just like we all visited each other I should say one

thing this today during my lunch with my son I have said that is evening

now in Italy is evening and I will have an interview with you and my son told me but

Stefanie are coming here to make the interview with you no, I don't think it's trough webcam

but for him probably he didn't understand yes because wait how old is he I I met your kids too

how old is your son six years oh yeah so when you said you're doing an

interview with me and he knows me because he met me then he was probably

like wait is she coming over?

yes yes yeah that's so awesome and you know what okay I have to tell you this

it really like touched my heart something that you said when I was over

there remember we put one of my YouTube videos on your TV and I took a picture

with it and I was like in the video and next to your TV because you said SteFanie

I watch all your videos on this TV and my whole family knows you it's like

you're part of the family and like that just oh my gosh like it meant so much to

me to just real I guess to realize that what I'm doing is having an impact it's

changing lives because that's all I wanted to do when I got started so just

to wrap it up I have one more question for you if you could give one piece of

advice to other English learners what would you tell them don't worry about

the English this is the first thing that I realized start to speak English try to

speak English try to get to reach the opportunity to speak English as you have

said the Internet give the opportunity to build relationship and english is

the language to communicate with people from all around the world so it was easy

another thing tried to find the opportunity to practice practice English

during the day I have switch from Italian to English my mobile phone and I

use whatsapp or a messenger to make voice clip make also if I don't have someone

that are listening me in real time making a voice clip give me the

opportunity to practice my English and not worry about grammar grammar is

important I don't want to say that is not important but is a part of the

learning of a language that probably is not the first part needed to use our

language also with Italian but everyone we start to speak our language without

knowing grammar so we don't need to study

English we need to practice English and then everyone will reach a level that is

good for him so exactly and that's exactly what we mentioned in the

beginning of this call before I started recording that you're pretty much at a

level right now where you're comfortable you're like yeah I know I could improve

I could have perfect grammar and improve my pronunciation but you've learned what

you need to know for where you're at in life right now your English serves you

and at the end of the day that's what's important this language is a tool you

don't have to speak it perfectly you don't have to have perfect grammar you

don't have to have perfect pronunciation you need to be at the level that is

appropriate and convenient for you and once you get to that level just maintain

it right you just maintain it and use your English and let it serve you yes

yes awesome well thank you so much Stefano for doing this interview with me

and I look forward to staying in touch and of course knowing more about what

you're up to and you know how things are going well Stefanie thank you and "good luck for the future"

oh man I love Italian I know that you like Italian as you like Spanish so this is a message for you and for all

your students yes "thank you, thank you" all right thank you take care bye bye

bye bye