Learn Prepositions with Feel Good English Advanced English Conversation

hi i’m vanessa from speak english with

vanessa calm today i have a special

guest for you he’s kevin from the feel

good english website today we’re gonna

be talking about prepositions would you

like to improve your prepositions let’s

see what he has to say about it hi kevin

thanks for joining me today yeah hello

Vanessa how are you oh I’m doing great

I’m glad to introduce you to my audience

and share some of your awesome English

knowledge with English learners around

the world well thanks for having me I

have to say it’s very nice looking at

somebody who has such a big smile on her

face

well gotta learn English with joy with

happiness yes yes the some of my

audience might already listen to your

podcast be familiar with your material

but if they are new to you can you

introduce yourself tell us a little bit

about what you do yes so my name is

Kevin um

I am from Colorado I live in Denver

right now and I spent the last eight

years in Brazil some of you may be know

me from my last site it’s called English

ninja it was kind of teaching English to

Brazilians stopped out about a year ago

and then a couple months ago I started

my news my new website and podcasts

called the feel-good English podcasts

and what I do

I’ve been somebody who always tries to

learn lessons to improve myself to

become better to simplify to become

better at life through reading books on

other people that have had a longer

journey than me and who have found

success through various means and they

put all of their their lessons and their

insights into books and so I read the

books and try to apply some of those

lessons and integrate them into my life

what I’ve been doing now is feel good

English is taking these lessons that are

not only good for my life but also can

help English learners around the world

and kind of simplify them put them into

shorter English lessons and put them on

my podcast so

ways to improve your English to listen

and to learn new English but also learn

lessons that can help you become better

and become a better version of yourself

in life in your career and in English

yeah that sounds like a beautiful way to

learn English it’s not just grammar and

vocabulary but improving your personal

life through English sure we have the

famous expression in English killing two

birds with one stone so means you can do

two to two things you can accomplish two

things with one action so you can

improve your English and learn valuable

life lessons at the same time yeah and

you’ve got some interesting interviewees

also on your podcast so English learners

can get a chance to hear your voice hear

about the books that you read but also

hear about what other English speakers

English teachers might be interested in

as well that’s great to hear to people

sure yeah there’s a lot of interesting

people out there and it’s cool to see

what what people are interested in and

what they’ve connected with and just

kind of make these people seem more real

and connecting with these people through

my podcast has been a real joy and I’m

sure English learners if they haven’t

checked out your podcast will love it

I’ll make sure I put all the links in

the description below this video but

thanks so much for making such a cool

resource for people to learn English

through self-improvement sure yeah I

hope they find the value that that it

provides if they’re into into themselves

yeah oh definitely definitely and today

I wanted to ask you some questions about

a specific topic that English learners

ask me about a lot it seems to be a

challenging thing because there are

small words prepositions sure yeah oh

yeah the evil prepositions yeah they

seem to always get you should I say in

the office at the office on the office

yeah sure so you you have written we’ll

talk about this later as well you’ve

written a course that’s gonna help

English learners with

several different challenging topics in

English so we’ll talk about that at the

end of our conversation but part of that

course is prepositions so do you have

any tips or ideas about how can English

learners master prepositions what do you

think so yeah in in prepositions are

probably if not the most challenging

aspect of learning English definitely

one of the top two or three over the

years of teaching and I spent eight

years as a private teacher and taught

more than 7,000 hours of private classes

after that time you definitely see which

problem students have and the most

common problems and mistakes that they

make prepositions definitely being one

of them

my approach to learning a language ie

in over the years I’ve tried different

methods and different ways of improving

and just watching my students and kind

of getting an overall average of how

that how the typical student learns my

approach is making it as easy and

natural as possible so students can

continue to enjoy learning so they don’t

get too frustrated and stop and also

realizing that most English learners

don’t love learning English a lot of

times it’s it’s it’s something they need

because this these days everybody needs

to connect to the world you need to be

to learn English and something that I

can bring to them being an American is

help them learn English so making it

more enjoyable less stressful and in

teaching them ways that they can improve

things like prepositions without having

to sit down at a desk and study for

hours which if specially prepositions if

you’re doing that with prepositions

you’re gonna you know shoot yourself

after a couple days because it’s very

frustrating

so I would say there’s there’s basically

two ways you can attack

or you can improve prepositions and the

first one would be doing it naturally

what I mean by naturally is is a lot of

input input is when you’re reading and

listening to English and there’s

obviously millions of different things

you can listen to there’s different

ideas of what you should listen to how

you should listen to online there’s so

many options of lessons but the basic

idea is listening and reading as much as

possible and you can go deeper with this

and finding content that sisters

interesting to you and that inspires you

and that helps you in your life and your

career so finding content that can help

you with that or just doing a lot is

much reading and listening as possible

it’s it’s the it’s the easiest way

because you’re not focusing on any one

thing you’re not really focusing on

prepositions but over time what happens

is you begin to recognize how English

sounds so you don’t need to think about

which preposition goes where but you

will know that if you use this

preposition I’m at the store it sounds

right I’m in the store okay I’m inside

the store I’m at the store okay I’m here

and so you use these different

prepositions you say that doesn’t sound

right

why do you notice this because they’re

listening to native speakers you have

learned to recognize the sounds of

English and and this takes time so on

one hand it’s the easiest and because

you’re just listening and reading on the

other hand it does take more time

because you need to get to the point

where you can recognize this and it’s

not something quick one big factor here

is repetition if you go to an

english-speaking country and you’re

there first of all talking about English

if you go to an english-speaking country

you have to want to learn English you

can’t just go there and then you know go

to the beach and you know hang out and

then not in an you know just

automatically learn so going to an

english-speaking country wanting to

learn English will

is the first step but then what happens

when you’re in an english-speaking

country is you hear the same things over

and over and over naturally without even

trying in the streets from your friends

from who you were around you’re just

gonna hear the same things over and over

that’s why people become fluent or

become the English speakers when they

have time in another country because

when you spend that extra time you can

take in a lot of material sure yeah

you’re taking it in just by just by

being there you have to notice it but

you do take it in by by being there so

you don’t have to go to an

english-speaking country to become an

excellent excellent speaker but you do

need to do is get that repetition so

wherever you are in the world if you

find cool audio lessons or cool podcasts

or whatever that may be listening to it

and repeating it over and over and over

let’s say you find a podcast episode and

you listen to it five times over the

week or ten times or however the more

you listen the better letting your brain

naturally hear these these things these

same things over and over and over will

make it connect with the sounds and know

which preposition to use without having

to think about why it’s correct so

that’s a natural approach yeah yeah

whenever you have to ask why why this

preposition why this preposition it

caught it it frustrates a lot of

students now the the students I love

English they always ask why why this why

this word why not here why this and then

the teacher has to explain for ten

minutes why this exists and that’s great

but a lot of students aren’t like that

and when you start asking why it just

gets confusing I never learned well both

like I speak Portuguese fluently I

rarely asked why I had to sometimes but

obviously with English as growing up his

baby I never in my whole entire life

asked why this preposition at once

Vanessa did you ever ask growing up why

this preposition definitely not right

and of course we’re native English

speakers but on the other hand as

children

we don’t take English classes it’s just

so much repetition and you’re hearing

the same things over and over and over

then I’m sure when you’re a baby you

make mistake not a baby but when you’re

you know two three four years old you

make mistakes with prepositions but you

know by the time you’re you know five

six seven we’re speaking naturally and

we’ve just heard the same things over

and over and over so summarizing that

first method naturally you can do it

easily it takes more time but you do

have to find content repeat it as much

as you can and use these lessons as

almost your English immersion so you’re

hearing the same things over and over

and over and then over time you will

speak without thinking about it and say

oh wow that sounds good

yeah I loved it whenever my students

have said something and it was beautiful

English and I told them hey you just

made this sentence that was complex you

use the right prepositions you said this

exactly like a native speaker and I know

you didn’t think about it you just said

it naturally that’s such a wonderful

moment

so if English learners follow the method

you’re talking about listening emerged

and were seeing yourself as much as

possible with English it’s just gonna

come out and it might take more time as

kids it takes us several years to be

able to speak instantly but it’s gonna

be interesting if you’re using that

interesting material either fully you

can find something that’s great your

podcasts YouTube and really immerse

yourself no matter where you live right

yeah it feels great when you get to the

point of being able to speak without

thinking too much about it and one thing

that happens in schools do this to

students and the traditional ways of

learning is they want to make you think

so much about the correct forms and you

spend more time thinking about how to

say something than actually practicing

and using the language so that’s not

what I want to happen that’s that that’s

an approach for people that love English

or that love going to school that’s

there but there’s other ways to learn

and I’ve proven I threw myself so many

students that I’ve had that have proven

that you can become a great English

speaker

learning naturally and living your life

through English and so that’s the first

approach the second approach the other

way you can attack prepositions let’s

say you are going to take a ILS test or

the TOEFL test or something like that

and hopefully you have to have at least

a couple months to prepare for this

usually you need more time than this

because these are tough because they’ll

test you on prepositions the biggest

thing about prepositions and I guess the

easiest way that you can look at this as

prepositions are attached to words so

these are prepositional combinations so

prepositional phrases certain words

certain verbs a lot of times come with

certain prepositions so you’ll find

lists you’ll find books and you’ll

realize that you have to learn these

combinations and in the beginning it’s

hard and this is the harder approach

however it’s kind of the only way to

learn them quickly and if you had a list

of prepositions and then figured out

what words go over those prepositions or

where to use those are asking why at why

on that doesn’t work because there’s so

many exceptions to the rules and so many

times purposes just don’t make sense

like there’s literally no sense but

learning combinations of these words

with this preposition in like I said a

lot of times these are verbs and come

from go to things like this like

learning these prepositional phrases

apply to a job or apply for a job things

like this learning these combinations

together is a way that you can really

study them deeply and how are you going

to do that find resources study these

lists make sentences with them a way to

really speed up this process is to learn

prepositional combinations and then

produce language with them speaking with

your teacher or writing things with them

there’s a great website called laying 8e

calm laying lang-8

it’s a free website you go there you can

write sentences and then other people

around the world correct your sentences

in time where you made mistakes and the

only thing that you have to do is

correct other people sentences so you

speak Portuguese people will be

practicing their Portuguese go on there

and fix their sentences and you put your

sentences up there practicing with your

prepositions and they can make

corrections on that so it’s a great way

to to produce the language and to test

out into practice with prepositions yeah

that’s a huge thing is using it

producing and creating language is if

you just intake and take in information

all day listen to things but you hardly

ever write or speak you’ll have that

passive knowledge but when it comes time

to meet a native speaker or talk to your

clients in English that’s gonna be

really challenging scary nervous yeah

you have to get the practice for sure

yeah yeah and there’s a lot of ways

people can do that I know there’s a lot

of resources out there for using English

but the key is you gotta do it sure yeah

you have to do it in and I think one of

the biggest things that I do in my

teaching in overtime is helping people

build confidence just confidence is what

blocks a lot of them they ain’t English

learners it blocks them from becoming

good English speakers the information

could be here and a lot of these times

these people they study well so an

example somebody that’s done a lot of

English reading and really understands

just about anything you’ll say anything

they read but speaking is a problem the

information is here but there’s that

block that confidence block and if I can

help them become more confident through

different challenges and realizing you

know it’s really not about perfection

it’s about connecting with people and

about being able to express yourself and

have them being comfortable with that

then you’ll see big big changes there

you know a lot of that comes down to the

stood that they’ve used to study English

in the past like you’re saying about

prepositions a lot of people feel real

stressed out about the rules and all the

exceptions but that’s probably because

in school we were told red X this is

wrong you can’t say this you have a bad

grade and stress is just related to

learning language when in reality when

you actually talk with someone in

English if you say something wrong or

they don’t understand you and they have

to say oh what did you say you don’t get

a big X in life it’s just connecting

with someone else so that method of

learning needs to be changed like you’re

talking about learn phrases don’t stress

about the rules the different things

that you have to learn specifically you

just think about the whole picture the

phrases right yeah right and how you you

know communication is connecting with

somebody and getting your point across

and that’s what we want right yes so I

guess summarizing that that this whole

prepositional thing like in my course

how I teach prepositions is through

helping it students recognize these

combinations and knowing that they

exists and then giving them materials

and audios that show that these in

inside these audios there are these

prepositional phrases combinations but

you don’t have to focus on them what you

just do is you listen to them a lot and

you repeat and repeat and you start

paying attention and you start looking

for them while you’re doing your

enjoyable fun English practice oh yeah

so let’s say you take a month of okay

prepositions is something I want to work

on so then for that month you’re not

gonna get a book with 4,000 prepositions

prepositions who has time for that and

also if you learned them and this is an

important point even if you learn them

in a book like the lists when it comes

time to speaking it will be very hard to

use them correctly I think there’s two

there’s a separation between learning

something in a book and then speaking

with it correctly maybe - as you’ve

noticed Vanessa you can teach something

for an hour and they get it

but then when they relax and okay let’s

just have a conversation they’ll make

the same mistake and it’s it’s not the

same I don’t think it’s it’s it’s a

different type when you’re just relaxing

and speaking and and just trying to

connect with somebody it’s very

different than when you’re trying to get

something right on a piece of paper

sure so just paying attention to

prepositions for a month and listening

and learning how these ones go with

these words and these verbs go with

these prepositions and just in just

bringing your awareness bringing your

attention to that can really help in the

preposition course that I have that’s

that’s how I present this prepositional

learning first great great let’s let’s

talk about that course because I think

that’s gonna be a great resource for

English learners who are watching this

if you’re watching this share it with

your friends who might also want to

improve their prepositions and overall

fluency can you tell us a little bit

about your your course it’s not just

prepositions but that’s a wonderful

piece of it can you tell us about it

yes sir sir so like I said after many

years of teaching and 7,000 plus hours

of teaching which is crazy but the four

areas that I found or give the most

challenges to to them to the majority of

English learners are one prepositions

two phrasal verbs go pick up drop off

and bring up these types of things

pronunciation sounding more natural when

you’re speaking so people can understand

you and also you can actually understand

them better and the last one is the

present perfect tense I have been I have

seen I have been reading a lot so those

four areas I call the four p’s in this

course attacks those four problems and

of course I can’t teach you how to use

those perfectly in a month but I can

teach you how to learn them and how to

to spend time on each area so you can

improve on each area over time so with

example prepositions you’re going to

look for this

you’re gonna do this when you’re

listening and reading to your fun

content and then phrasal verbs would be

the same these are how phrasal verbs

work these are what you’re gonna do this

is what you’re gonna do when you find

them and you’re gonna start putting

bringing your awareness to them when

you’re listening to your content and

you’re reading things and so tacking the

four pieces the name of the course

teaching you how to think about and how

to learn and also how to relieve some of

your stress and frustration about these

areas to to make them not so scary to

make them not such a big deal so I think

that’s our goal to as English teachers

is to be more of a guide we’re giving

the tools to people to learn English in

a natural way because we can’t be their

brains you can’t cut out my brain and

put it in there is you have to just give

the tools to learn prepositions phrasal

verbs these things you mentioned so

you’re giving them what they need to

improve and that’s gonna be really

valuable yeah I kind of base it may be

on my style I get I like there’s so much

content online I I get word or or not

even board but distracted by something

else all the time so for a day I’m

reading this and then oh this is great

I’m gonna do this every day and then the

next day oh no way but there’s this oh

but then there’s this and there’s all

this different contents online videos

and websites and books and courses and

PDFs and it’s very hard for me to stick

with one thing so if I can teach

students well you don’t have to stick

with one thing you can choose whatever

you want however think about these

certain English aspects while you’re

doing that and look for these certain

things and take this information and

break it down and put it into this

worksheet which will improve your

English but don’t focus too much on that

English depart first on what you want to

use to entertain yourself or to learn or

to do whatever whatever you’re doing at

that particular moment I love that

spirit of collaboration like what we’re

doing now you’re an English teacher I’m

an English

teacher were showing people exactly what

you said that it’s good it’s valuable to

use more than one source if you just

learned with one person like if you just

talked with your mom when you were a

child and you never talked to anyone

else

your Lakewood would probably be a little

strange you might sound kind of like a

robot just this one person so you gotta

introduce yourself to multiple English

speakers and teachers though you’re

telling people hey it’s okay if you want

to learn from this person and this

person and this person great but make

sure that you’re gonna use these tools

and these techniques to get the most out

of what your need which is great I’m

glad that you’ve compiled that organized

resource sometimes we just need

organization in our game at work

excellent and thanks so much for

describing just the process of learning

prepositions in a natural way hopefully

without stress and this resource in your

course is gonna be excellent for

learning those in a more organized way

yes you’re kind of a stress relieving

source resources excellent excellent

well I will leave all of the links to

your website your podcast your course in

the description below I’ll put them on

the screen that way everyone can check

them out and thanks so much for doing

this interview this mini lesson for the

world that’s great and I have to say

Vanessa you are such a nice girl such a

wonderful smile I think if I was

learning English I would have to have

classes because um thank you

I hope so I try to bring some joy and

happiness my middle name is joy there

you go perfect I think it’s important

because a lot of people have had like we

talked about that stress when learning

English so gotta overcome that and have

fun so thanks so much Kevin I really

appreciate it thanks Vanessa wonderful

talking to you yes yeah see you again

the next time Kevin bye thanks so much

for watching this interview with Kevin

from feel-good English to learn more

what

Kevin you can click on the links here on

the screen or in the description below

this video I’m so glad that you joined

me today to hear two native speakers

talking together to help you improve

thanks so much

and see you later bye if you enjoyed

this video be sure to download my free

ebook where you can learn five steps to

becoming a confident English speaker you

can share it on Facebook upgrade to the

listening audio version and don’t forget

to check your email to get the free

ebook let’s see what it is alright here

is the free e-book you can download

yours today just click on the link and

it will be in your email within a few

seconds thanks so much for learning with

me bye