5 Tips For Overcoming Your Fear of Speaking English in Public

hi i’m vanessa from speak english with

vanessa calm how can you have more

courage to speak in public in front of

other people in english well today i

have a special guest our special guest

is jacob jacob is living in korea and

he’s learning korean and he has to get

over feeling afraid about speaking this

completely new language in front of

other people and possibly making

mistakes so he’s going to share with us

today five tips for getting over that

fear of speaking in front of other

people he has a lot of interesting

insight and i think it’s important to

hear another perspective it’s good to

hear what one person has to say and you

hear my perspective a lot but i want to

share with you what jacob has to say and

really learn from his experience and

hopefully you two will be able to speak

in front of other people and feel more

confident about it are you ready to meet

Jacob let’s go hello Vanessa members of

The Fearless fluency Club and everyone

else watching my name is Jacob from

Jacob teacher calm and today I’m going

to talk to you about something very

common that many people who are learning

the English language struggle with and

that is the fear of approaching and

conversing with native English speakers

on a regular basis when we’re learning a

new language we spend a lot of time

studying alone and when it actually

comes time to speak and interact with

native speakers of that language in the

real world it can be very intimidating

of course we want to practice with

native speakers we want to use the

language that we’ve been working so hard

at in real conversations but maybe

inside we’re afraid that we’ll say the

wrong thing or that we won’t be

understood or that we’ll make a fool of

ourselves whatever it is there are many

fears that hold us back in these

situations and it’s definitely

fear that you’re going to want to get

over quickly because having regular

conversations with native English

speakers is the fastest way to improve

as an English speaker yourself so I’m

going to give you five tips in this

video to overcome this fear now you’re

going to find this most helpful if

you’re someone who’s learning English in

an english-speaking country but wherever

you are in the world you’ll still be

able to find some value in the tips that

I give you before we get into the tips I

just want to give you some background

information about myself so I’m living

in Korea at the moment I’ve been living

here since August of 2015 and when I

first came to Korea I spent a lot of

time studying Korean I would study

Korean for maybe 2 or 3 hours a day and

there were so many opportunities for me

to practice my Korean with native

speakers but what I found was I was

scared inside I was scared of

approaching Koreans and having real

conversations and trying to use all of

the things that I was studying on my own

in real conversations and it was really

preventing me from progressing as a

Korean speaker now eventually with lots

of hard work I was able to overcome this

fear but it took a long time and the

five tips that I’m going to give you in

this video are things that I learned

during this time of my life okay so

let’s just get right into it my first

tip for you is to remember that you have

the perfect excuse and that is that

you’re not a native speaker of English

so if you say something that’s a little

embarrassing or something that is

accidentally a little inappropriate

native speakers are going to understand

that English is not your first language

and most of the time they’re going to be

a little more patient with you they’re

going to make more of an effort to

understand what it is you’re saying to

many people when they’re learning

English they worry that if they don’t

speak with perfect grammar or if they

don’t pronounce their words perfectly

that English speakers aren’t going to be

able to understand them and this is just

not true and it’s very unfortunate

because it prevents many people from

having the conversations that they need

to have to grow as an English speaker so

if you keep this in mind if you

number that it’s okay to screw up that

most of the time native English speakers

are going to be very understanding and

patient with you and that English isn’t

your first language so you’re going to

make mistakes it can be a lot easier and

it can feel a lot more comfortable

approaching native English speakers

now I should say most of the time

sometimes you’re just going to have bad

experiences speaking English you’re

going to maybe have a conversation with

someone who’s not very patient with you

who’s perhaps even being a little rude

and it’s not going to feel very good it

can feel very discouraging but the key

is to not let these bad experiences

which you’re going to have sometimes

affect how you approach your English

conversations in the future now this can

be very difficult to do a lot of the

time when we have bad experiences with

people when someone is maybe a little

rude to us it can be very easy to take

things personally and to feel like

there’s something wrong with you

but that’s just not the case in reality

the person you were talking to probably

they’re probably just in a bad mood they

probably have some things going on in

their life that is making them behave in

that way so try as hard as you can not

to take things personally it’s not that

you’re a terrible English speaker it’s

not that you’re a terrible person just

let the bad experiences go try not to

focus on them and keep moving forward

that’s the most important things that

you can do tip number three is to get

into the habit of asking yourself the

following question what is the worst

possible thing that could happen now I

want you to imagine that you’re in a

coffee shop let’s say and you see

someone who you want to try and have an

English conversation look you want to

practice your English but you feel this

fear inside of you and it’s preventing

you from going over and approaching that

person I want you to get into the habit

of asking yourself in these moments what

is the worst possible thing that could

happen if I went and approached that

person and had a conversation with them

what is the worst possible thing that

could happen and really in almost every

situation the war

possible thing that could happen is that

you feel a little embarrassed that the

conversation doesn’t go so well and you

just don’t really feel good about it the

next question that you should ask

yourself then is if that did happen if

the worst possible thing did happen

could I deal with it could I be okay and

of course the answer is yes of course

you can deal with a little bit of

embarrassment so if you’re practicing

asking yourself these questions and if

you really kind of realize that if the

worst possible thing did happen you’d

still be okay it’s going to shrink that

fear that you have inside of you okay so

let’s imagine that you worked up the

courage inside and you went to go speak

with that native English speaker and

practice your English and let’s imagine

that the conversation went terribly

let’s imagine that the worst possible

thing happened that you made a total

fool of yourself that you feel very

embarrassed now what do you do well my

fourth tip for you and this is probably

the most important tip on this list is

to laugh at yourself I want to share

with you a story again from my personal

life my girlfriend is Korean and her

English is not perfect and I remember

early in our relationship at one point I

had my arm around her and she was

looking at my arm and I remember she

said oh my god you have so much fur and

naturally I burst out laughing it was

very funny for me to hear the Korean

word for fur is pull and it’s used to

refer to hair that’s on animals as well

as body hair that’s on humans so she was

just directly translating from korean to

english to a native english speaker of

course though in english this sounds

hilarious it sounds so strange and I

explained why I was laughing to her and

once she understood she started laughing

a lot to the point is that she makes

mistakes like that all the time and I

make mistakes in Korean too all of the

time I regularly really make a fool of

myself and say very silly sounding

things and this is going to happen to

you you’re it’s part of learning the

language it’s a necessary part of

learning the language it’s how you learn

so if you’re able to laugh at yourself

when you make these big mistakes and

when you say something

sounds a little silly you’re going to

have a much easier time my last tip for

you today is a very practical one it’s

something that you can start using

immediately if you live in an

english-speaking country and the last

tip is to talk to people who have to

talk to you it can be very very scary to

approach strangers on the street and

many times people don’t want to be

approached on the street but if you’re

living in an english-speaking country

then you have many opportunities

throughout the day to practice your

English with people whose job it is to

talk to you I’m talking about when you

order coffee or when you’re ordering the

meal at a restaurant or even when you’re

shopping for clothes all of these are

perfect opportunities to really practice

your English with native English

speakers and a lot of the time the

people who are working at these jobs the

people who are working at coffee shops

are working at the mall

they’re very bored there’s been working

at their job for maybe eight hours that

day and they’d be happy to talk to you a

lot of the time so you’re probably doing

them a favor by going over and trying to

practice your English with them so that

is everything that I wanted to tell you

today I hope you found these tips

helpful if you’re someone who’s

struggling with the fear of approaching

people and having the type of

conversations that you really need to

have in order to improve as an English

speaker my name is Jacob from Jacob

teacher comm and I will send it back to

you Vanessa

bye bye thanks so much Jacob for sharing

your personal experience your

girlfriend’s experience and this idea

that we need to get over our fear of

speaking in front of other people it’s

certainly not an easy thing but I think

that you have shown it’s possible even

if you make mistakes even when you make

mistakes smile be nice to yourself and

keep going

beautiful advice thanks so much and I

hope that you’ll join us again in the

future

bye everyone see you later the next step

is to download my free ebook five steps

to becoming a confident English speaker

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thanks so much for learning with me bye