Why You Can UNDERSTAND English But You STRUGGLE TO SPEAK In English

i received a question from one of my

students and he said

teacher how come i can understand you

perfectly i understand everything you’re

saying but when i try to speak in

english i can’t speak at the same level

now i’ve received this question so many

times from students

around the world and maybe you’ve

experienced the same

problem had the same difficulty and the

same challenge

and to be very honest with you i

experienced the exact same thing when i

was studying korean

you know the feeling right when someone

is speaking

in the language that you’re learning you

feel so confident because you

understand what they’re saying again

when my teachers were speaking korean or

my friends would speak in korean

or even when i would watch a television

program in korean

i was so proud of myself because i could

understand

but then when someone would approach me

and ask me a question in korean

it was like everything went blank in my

mind

i couldn’t think of the words that i had

studied i couldn’t think of the words

that i had

understood when i watched those

television programs they

just didn’t seem to come to mind and

again

you may feel the exact same way so how

come you can understand

english but it’s hard to speak in

english

well today i’m going to tell you why and

i’m going to give you the solutions you

need

to finally speak just as good as you can

understand

i’m teacher tiffany let’s jump right in

[Music]

all right so there are five solutions to

this problem

the problem of not being able to speak

as good as you can here

the first one is equal ratio second

learn and use one new word third

summarize your day fourth take notes and

read them

and finally reading out loud and

shadowing

so let’s take a look at the first one

this one right here

here’s the fact your current situation

you are watching

listening to and enjoying hours of

english

programs but you are only using your

eyes

and your ears think about it you have

a cell phone you have a computer you

have a television

and you’re constantly watching programs

in english

so your eyes are getting lots of

practice and your ears are also getting

lots of practice

which is why you can understand so

much in english but again

that’s not helping with your speaking so

here’s

what you need to do use an equal

ratio you need to speak for the exact

amount of time that you listen to or

watch

an english program that’s right

the same amount of time you spend

watching a lesson

just like this lesson or watching a

movie is the exact amount of time

you need to practice speaking let’s

continue

you need to speak for the same amount in

order to

improve your speaking skills this will

help your speaking skills

match your ability to understand english

it kind of makes sense right the reason

why you can understand is because

you’ve constantly been putting new

information in english

into your brain now we just need to do

the same thing with

bringing that information out okay so

here’s what you need to do

first watch a 5 minute video 10 minute

video or

however long you want to watch a video

for i have it in parentheses because

you can choose how long the video is and

what you’re going to do

is you’re going to speak for five

minutes or however long the video is

you’re going to speak for that amount of

time about the video

now half of the time is going to be

summarizing what you saw

and the other half is going to be giving

your opinion

so for example let’s say you watch one

of my youtube video lessons you can pick

any video you’d like and let’s say the

lesson is 15 minutes long

that means you need to also speak for 15

minutes now

in the beginning it may seem a little

bit challenging but remember

half of that 15 minute period is going

to be spent

summarizing what you saw you could talk

about what i taught you you can talk

about my story time

you can summarize the lesson and take

your time it’s okay

now the other half of that time needs to

be giving your opinion

what did you think about my story what

did you think about the tips or

the tools that i gave you from the

lesson or in the lesson

again you have to practice speaking for

as much time as the video was that you

watched it’s going to be challenging

but you’re going to see your ability to

speak in english

improve drastically okay

now what about the second method the

second solution

you see here’s the situation you are

learning lots of new words

and expressions indirectly through

videos and lessons

but you aren’t using them so again you

know a lot of

words and expressions from watching my

videos

i like to tell you all stories because

in the stories

i usually use a lot of new expressions

and idioms

from natural conversations words that i

would use

if i was speaking to one of my friends

here in america now

when you hear the words that i use you

kind of

pick up on the meaning like ah maybe

teacher tiffany means

this and you kind of guess what the

meanings of those words and expressions

are

because you’re following along with the

story or the lesson that i’m teaching

now that’s great that’s why you can

understand

so much but what about speaking so

here’s the solution

here’s what you need to do you need to

learn and

use one new word notice i said

learn and use because what’s happening

is

you’re learning a lot of words currently

from this video and videos from other

amazing english teachers on youtube

but you’re not using them so here’s what

you need to do try to learn and use

one new word expression or

concept every single day

this is the key every single day a lot

of times as

students or as english learners what you

may do is you may spend one day and say

i’m going to learn

35 words today and you go hard you study

really diligently

but then it gets overwhelming and you do

it one day

and maybe the second day but then the

third day the fourth day the fifth day

the sixth day you stop

so what you need to do is have a plan

that you can remain consistent with

learn one new word or expression every

single day

now simple words are okay the key is

that they must excuse me you must learn

and use them every day this will help

you get in the habit of learning new

words

that you can use when you speak in

english again

remember the goal is to improve your

speaking skills

so even if you know a word already if

you’re not using it

it’s kind of like you don’t know it

again you know it here

ah teacher tiffany just said that word i

know that word

but you need to learn how to use the

word in conversation when you are

speaking

so here’s how you need to do this

first write down at least you can do

more

at least one word expression or

concept you learned next

figure out a way to apply it to what’s

going on

in your day and finally use the word in

a conversation

or by talking to yourself so again

let’s say you learned the word

gargantuan

i know it’s a big word but hey stay with

me now

gargantuan just means extremely large

really big now i’ve used this word in a

previous lesson several months ago

so some of you may have remembered that

word when i said it

gargantuan oh i remember a teacher

tiffany taught that word in a previous

lesson

amazing your understanding your

listening skills

are amazing now how can you start using

gargantuan

in your daily life in your conversations

with other english learners or native

english speakers

well what you have to do again step 2 is

figure out a way to apply it to what’s

going on in your day

so for me for example gargantuan

well i watched a video about animals a

nature video

and in the video they had lots of whales

now whales are

very large animals right

so i can say ah today i watched a video

about a whale

the whale in the video was really big

it was a gargantuan whale

makes sense you see i immediately

connected what i did or what i

saw today with this word that i learned

but i had to say it out loud and that’s

again what’s important

when you learn the word when you figure

out how to apply it to your day

and then use the word in real life

in a real conversation and again if

you’re by yourself you can talk to

yourself

that’s okay your tongue just needs the

practice

so use it by saying it out loud and make

sure what you’re saying

is applicable or is related to what

happened

in your day okay make sense good

all right now the second thing that is

important so here’s the deal

you are just thinking about your day in

your own language

this means your brain is mainly

functioning

in one language and i get this question

all the time from students teacher how

can i stop

thinking in my mother tongue this is

really a difficult thing

again when i was studying korean i had

the same trouble

i would always think in english and then

when i was speaking try to translate

really quickly into korean

but korean and english are very opposite

they’re very different

they have different word orders so

actually this morning i was talking to

my friend

hey annie on the phone and

i was helping her with translation of

something and she speaks english as well

korean and english and she wrote it in

korean and then i had to translate it to

english

i had to read it multiple times in

korean because the word order

is so different in english so one word

may be in the middle in korean but in

english it should be at the front

so again that’s why it’s so important

for you to realize that hey

you can’t just only think in your own

language you have to figure out a way to

think

in english in order to improve your

speaking ability

so here we go summarize your

day at the end of the day even if you

are alone

summarize the three to five main things

you did that day

if you worked if you went to school if

you talked to your family if you cooked

think about the three to five main

things you did

during the day now you need to start

reviewing what you did each day

and organize your thoughts in english

remember that you need to speak out loud

so for example i told you that i spoke

to my friend this morning annie right

we spoke on the phone now if i’m

practicing korean

so i just said i spoke to my friend we

talked together

and we spoke about marriage life but

again

i had to process what we did in korean

because that’s the language i’m learning

right so for you think about what you

did you’re gonna think immediately in

your own language but that’s okay

then you have to force your brain to

convert what you’re thinking

into english and process everything in

english

about your day again the three to five

main things you did

so here we go here’s how you do it steps

set aside

15 minutes at the end of your day again

not a long period of time

i want to help you uh reach your goals

without having stress

so just start with 15 minutes whatever

time of the day you want to set aside

this 15 minutes is okay

again in the evening though but set

aside 15 minutes

at the end of your day then think about

the three

to five main things you did finally

start describing or explaining them out

loud in

english remember i said what it is

i said we talked about marriage life

again my friend is getting married so we

talked about

marriage life all right so if my friend

is getting married we’re gonna talk

about marriage

life i had to process that situation

in korean and then say it out loud

you notice that the more i say it the

faster it will come out right

because i’ve already processed it you

need to do the same thing about

your day alright the three to five main

things that happened to you during that

day

it will help you improve your speaking

ability

now let’s look at another one here’s the

situation

you are taking tons of notes in your

notebook you

probably have your notes out right now

just writing

if you are i’m very proud of you as your

teacher right now

that’s a good thing so you’re taking

tons of notes in your notebook

on your phone or on your computer the

problem is

that they stay there now

i am guilty of this as well when i was

studying korean when i was in university

sometimes it was easy to write tons of

notes

i would have tons of notes books full of

notes whether it be korean

new korean words or expressions or notes

from class

from our teacher teaching us certain

aspects of art or different things

but what happened after class the

notebook would be closed and put on my

desk the note will be closed or put in

my book bag

and that’s what may be happening to you

as well you’re taking tons of notes

which is amazing

a great habit to have but if those notes

just stay if they stay in your phone or

your notebook and you never actually use

them

your english speaking ability will never

improve so

here’s what you need to do take notes

and read them read them out loud you’ll

notice that there’s this overarching

theme of

out loud reading out loud making sure

you’re speaking and not just thinking

about things

so here we go you need to start

reviewing your english notes by reading

them out loud

this needs to become a routine because

it will help you remember

important words and also use them in

real life

so again during this video you’ve

probably been taking notes again whether

it be on your phone or in a notebook

now what you’re going to do is go back

over those notes

but read them out loud maybe you wrote a

teacher tiffany

said i need to take notes and read them

you wrote that now go back and read it

teacher

tiffany said i need to take notes and

read them out loud you need to let your

tongue

have practice this is how your speaking

will

improve now how do you do this here we

go i’m going to give you some steps

first write little notes throughout the

week

i have a little notebook that i keep

with me that when ideas pop in my head

or if i have

a little sketch that i want to do i take

that little notebook out it’s very small

and i just draw in it really quickly or

i write some quick notes

that’s what you need to do throughout

the week take notes maybe you watch a

television program

or maybe you see a youtube video like

this lesson and you learn something new

jot or write down a quick note it’s okay

write down the notes and collect these

notes throughout a week okay over a

seven day period

next what you’re going to do is pick a

day to review

those notes you can say hey sundays are

my review notes day

or days or you can say hey i’m going to

do it on monday or wednesday

you can pick the day just once a week

pick a day that you’re going to review

the notes

then what you’re going to do is you’re

going to read them out loud

three times it will get easier each time

now

you may say teacher why three times so

let me explain

the first time you read your notes you

may feel a little bit awkward like

teacher tiffany said write something and

read it out loud

right the first time you’re kind of like

okay but then the second time you read

it

teacher tiffany said write something

down and read it

out loud you’re a little more

comfortable by the third time your

tongue

is also gonna be hey i’m ready let’s do

it your tongue is ready

you already know what it says because

you’ve connected by looking at it and

actually saying it so now

uh teacher tiffany said write something

down and read it out loud

you’re giving your tongue practice and

by reading it three times

out loud your speaking is definitely

going to improve

remember the notes are your thoughts

things that you believed were

important so you wrote them down so when

you go back to read them

they’re not going to be pieces of

information that

are boring or this is not interesting no

you wrote the notes so they’re already

interesting to you

and since you wrote them your brain

already have a little connector

it’s just waiting for you to make the

connection between what’s here

to what’s coming out on your tongue

makes sense

all right now let’s look at another

situation okay here’s the situation

you are just watching videos

or reading english books

or articles while relaxing and not doing

anything else

think about it now again it’s very

important for you to be relaxed

when you’re learning anything especially

english

but if you think about it really hard a

lot of times you just kind of

watch a video when it ends you go to the

next video

huh that was good then you go to the

next video and you keep scrolling

so you’re watching which is good but

you’re never putting into practice

what you’ve learned so instead of

watching a video stopping and practicing

you’re just kind of going with the

motions watching more and more

so how can we fix this to help you

improve your speaking ability

you need to read out loud and shadow

so reading out loud and shadowing is

very important you need to start reading

the words

out loud and or shadowing what you hear

as you watch

various videos this will also help you

improve your pronunciation skills

so think about it you all notice that

for my videos i always include lots of

graphics you know i love design

that was my profession before i became

an english teacher i love to make pretty

things right

so since i have the words on the screen

that i’m saying

you can practice shadowing and reading

what i have on the screen

so in essence you could pause the video

and repeat

what i said so again you can go back and

say oh

teacher tiffany said you need to start

reading the words out loud

and keep going reading what’s on the

screen by simply

hitting pause so instead of just taking

information

in you can pause and start to be more

active

and giving yourself the opportunity to

improve your speaking skills

so what are the steps here we go select

a video or an audio file again you can

select the

youtube video you can select the podcast

episode speak english for tiffany

podcast

i think you’ll like it now the next

thing you’re gonna do is

decide on a specific time interval now

this is very important

i put down 5 seconds 10 seconds and 15

seconds

it all depends on your level so what’s

going to happen is for example

i’m still talking to you right now but

let’s say you chose

five seconds so yo watch for five

seconds

okay so we’re studying this lesson and i

want you to keep practicing

pause i said okay we’re studying this

lesson

and i want you to keep practicing when

you hit that pause button you repeat

what i just said

now for those who are a little bit more

advanced maybe you choose the 10 second

interval

that means you can remember what is said

over a 10

second period and you can repeat it

again you can choose the interval

but whatever you watch whatever you are

listening to

you need to pick an interval and start

and stop start and stop

so again the last part stop the file

based on the intervals and repeat

what you hear this is so important

this is how you practice or shadow and

practice reading

out loud as you’re learning things from

videos or from audio

podcasts now i hope this really helped

you because i know how frustrating it

can be

to be able to understand english but not

actually speak i experienced the same

thing when i was learning korean

and i wish someone had given me a lesson

like this

so put into practice what you learned

today i will talk to you next week have

an amazing week

remember if you want to keep studying

with me join my academy

join our family by going to let’s jump

right in dot com i’ll see you next week

but as

always remember to speak english

you still there you know what time it is

it’s story time

hey i said a story time like i slowed it

down right there yeah

all right guys so today’s story is

actually about a time

i was nervous to give a speech now

i’m sure all of you know something very

um

you know something about me i’m not a

shy person i’ve never really been shy to

speak

up front or in public public speaking

has never been

a fear of mine and i’ve been told many

times that it’s a blessing to not be

scared to speak up front

so one time at my church this is before

i went to korea

uh no no i went to korea for a year and

i came home to visit and my pastor said

tiff

we’d love for you to give us a sermon

would you mind speaking i said okay

i don’t mind like i’ll definitely do

that so i had about maybe a month to a

month and a half to prepare the sermon

so i’m a christian and i love god so

much

and i believe that whenever you get up

front to speak for him you need to make

sure you’re prepared so

i studied the bible a lot and i made

sure that the topic i was going to speak

about

i knew it like the back of my hand i

knew it really well

so i prepared a lot and i was practicing

the morning of so it was the sabbath

morning

saturday for those sabbath morning and i

was at home and i was practicing

before going to church and all of a

sudden

my stomach just started turning in

knots i mean it was hurting really bad

and i i didn’t know what was going on

like i prepared everything and there was

nothing wrong i hadn’t

anything wrong the night before um

i couldn’t think of why my stomach was

hurting but it was getting worse

and worse and worse to the point that i

had to stop practicing and i had to run

to the bathroom and i was in the

bathroom for a long time i was still

home

but i mean i was in the bathroom for a

long time you guys can imagine

my stomach was killing me and i couldn’t

figure out what was causing

me this problem so finally i came out

the bathroom and when i came back to my

room

and i was sitting looking at my script

that i was going to use for my sermon

i heard you know i was like wait a

minute

i think i’m nervous and i i had never

been nervous speaking up front before

but

i was like wait a minute i don’t think

i’m nervous but my body is showing me

that

yes what i’m about to speak about is not

an easy topic

and i’m more nervous than i realize

now again my stomach was still turning a

little bit but i was like i have to

preach like the pastor asked me this

topic is very important i have to preach

so my family i would go to church and

i’m sitting up front you know they have

the people singing up front and they

have like reading the scripture and

they’re going through the regular

program

and it’s my turn to go up front to give

the sermon now praise god the sermon

went well

god is good um i wasn’t nervous as soon

as i got

on the stage i wasn’t nervous at all and

i delivered the sermon

uh people said they enjoyed it and i

also enjoyed giving it

after the sermon i was standing at the

door and normally when church ends

people walk out and they kind of

shake the hand of the person who spoke

and give the person a hug so since i was

the speaker for that day people were

coming out and giving me a hug and

saying oh tiff we appreciate the sermon

etc etc but some people came up to me

and said tiff you don’t know

how much i needed that sermon

i had a friend text me tiff that sermon

today really touched my heart

and i got that response from so many

people and i realized man

if i had let my nervousness or my

stomach hurting so bad

hinder me from giving this message what

would have happened

the people that needed to hear the

message that was given would not have

heard the message

and that situation taught me that

sometimes you’re going to be in a

situation where you feel nervous

you’re not sure of the words you’re

going to say and maybe you may feel a

little bit

uncomfortable the thing is you have to

work through that nervousness

and still speak because you may not

realize that someone else needs to hear

what you have to say now i know we

talked today about speaking in english

and why it’s more difficult than

understanding

but i believe in you i believe the very

fact that you’re able to understand what

i’m saying right now is

proof that you are just as intelligent

as another person

which means you can speak in english so

when you feel your stomach kind of

turning in knots

or if you get a little nervous when you

come up to a native english

speaker and you have to speak in english

hopefully my story will help you out

work through the nerves press forward

and remember that the words you have to

say

are just as important as the words

someone else has to say

guys i hope you enjoyed this story if

you have a story about being nervous

please share it in the comment section

again if you want to keep studying with

me and also join our family

don’t forget to go to let’s jump right

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sharing this video

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week