English Tips Motivation Confidence and Speaking in English
[Rachel] Hello and welcome to this special video on
Rachel’s English.
In this video, I have a special guest, Ibrahim
from zAmericanEnglish, the youtube channel.
Ibrahim is a brilliant English teacher from
Egypt with more than 12 years of experience
in teaching English in many different countries.
He’s interested in languages. Ibrahim speaks English, Arabic, Chinese and
Cantonese.
On his channel, zAmericanEnglish, he’s making
learning English fun for the first time in
the middle east.
Hundreds of thousands of people are enjoying
his youtube videos which leads his channel
to be the fastest growing channel in the middle
east.
Today, Ibrahim and I are going to answer five
very important questions every English learner
needs to know the answer to.
We’re going to tell you how to be more confident,
how to get more motivated, how to speed up
your learning progress, how to have a strong
grammar understanding and how to start thinking
in English today.
Let’s start with the first question.
Question 1:
Ibrahim, a lot of students want to learn English
fast.
Do you get this question from your students
as well?
What’s your advice to them in order to really
speed up their learning process?
[Ibrahim] A lot of people might have some recipes that
promise fast learning.
But the recipe you get from this video is
not found anywhere else.
In order to do something faster than others,
you must avoid other’s mistakes.
If you know the mistakes that slow down other
learners and you manage to avoid them, your
progress will be a lot faster than you ever
thought was possible.
I will briefly give you 4 solutions that Rachel
and I could explain more in future videos.
Number 1- Be organized
Have your own word bank notebook, grammar
bank notebook, Forget about all the PDFs and
write with your own hands.
Set a specific time for your daily study and
stick to it.
More details on how to be organized with your
study will come later.
Number 2- Set realistic goals
It will be wonderful if you can learn English
in a month but unless you’re a super human,
you’ll probably will not be able to learn
English in a month.
If your goal is unrealistic, you will give
up before reaching it, period.
Number 3- Eyes on the goal, feet on the ground.
What do I mean by that?
You should always keep your eyes on your goal.
No matter what life brings on to you.
Never lose sight of your goal but please,
take your goal step by step and realize in
order to reach your next step, you must first
enjoy the current one.
Number 4- Believe in yourself
Here’s what you need to tell yourself if you
ever get discouraged or feel less confident
in your own abilities, one sentence with great
powers, repeat this sentence to yourself.
Say to yourself: If others can do it, I can
too.
Which leads to a very important question that
I usually see students ask.
Question 2
Rachel, What do you tell your students who
feel less motivated to continue with the same
excitement they had when they first started?
[Rachel]
The biggest problem that faces anyone I know
with reaching any goal is motivation, and
it’s important not to neglect this.
If you feel that your fluency goals are out
of reach, or you feel discouraged about where
you are, it can be really hard to motivate
yourself.
My most successful students are the ones who
make small steps everyday.
Try this for one week: record yourself speaking
English.
It can be short, just 15 seconds.
Talk about what you did that day or you ate
for dinner, it doesn’t matter.
Don’t plan it ahead.
Then go back and listen to it.
What’s one thing that you know you could have
done better?
Was there was a word that you needed to know?
If so, look it up!
Learn it.
If there was a word you didn’t pronounce well
that was tricky for you, go to the internet.
Go to forvo or yougish, listen to native speakers
saying the word over and over and imitate
it, say it out loud 10 or 20 times.
It will get more comfortable.
This doesn’t take much time, and each day,
you’re learning something concrete.
That can really help with motivation.
Another question I often get asked is:
Question 3
I sometimes get confused as which grammar
tense to use.
Ibrahim, what’s the solution for this problem?
[Ibrahim]
This is a very important question that drives
many students crazy.
There is nothing I need you to know before
I tell you the answer.
RELAX.
You are not stupid.
They call it a foreign language for a reason.
It is foreign to you and you’re trying to
make sense of it.
There is nothing in the world that people
figure out without having a problem or two
so you shouldn’t let that get in the way.
Here is what you should do to overcome this
problem.
1- Put all the major grammar points in a simple
chart.
You can categorize them under 3 categories
either past, present or future.
This can work as your starting point.
After that, you can focus your effort on understanding
the difference between the tenses under the
same category.
Let’s take an example.
You have made a chart and you put past, present,
future.
Number 1 you should do is understanding the
difference between past, present and future.
After that, come to the present for example
you will see something as simple present or
progressive present.
They’re both under the present category.
Now, what you’ll have to do is try to really
understand the difference between the simple
and the proressive present.
What makes a sentence in simple present, what
makes the sentence in progressive present.
Once you understood that, then it will be
time for you to just play with it and make
sentences.
Don’t be afraid to try it out.
Only through trial and error will you get
better and form a more solid understanding
of the grammar point.
Step 2- After doing that, you will have a
good grasp on your weakness points.
Congratulations.
Now you know what exactly you need to focus
your energy on.
Study those points hard, use them in sentences,
write stories using them.
Work on them with all your might tell they
become solid in your brain.
Only then will you gain more confidence in
your own ability.
Speaking of confidence, here’s a question
that I think all of you would love to get
an answer for.
Question 4
Rachel, How do you help your students gain
more confidence in speaking English?
[Rachel] Many of my students struggle with feeling
confident in speaking English.
And I have this trick: Develop an American
version of yourself.
I noticed that actors are very skilled at
developing different accents.
Why?
They’re developing a character at the same
time.
They’re not just working with speech alone,
they’re working with their whole body, the
physicality of the character.
I noticed that when my students developed
an American character of themselves, an American
persona, that they started to have more fun
with it, look more relaxed and natural, and
confident when speaking.
Because part of learning a language is allowing
yourself to be playful.
You’re dealing with sounds and positions of
the mouth that are totally foreign to you.
Some people want to back away from anything
that feels strange.
With your American persona, you can invite
yourself out of your comfort zone, allowing
yourself to be a more accurate imitator of
Americans.
And when you can do this, when you can really
imitate Americans well, nothing is going to
stop you from sounding natural and confident
when speaking.
Which leads to the next and final question
Question 5
Ibrahim, How do you help your students think
in English?
[Ibrahim]
This is by far the most important question
in any language learning.
Books have been written for the sole purpose
of answering this question.
You are probably tired of all the big scientific
words on how your brain works and how you
can program it to form thoughts in a different
language.
You are absolutely right, It shouldn’t be
that hard to explain.
Here is what I believe the fastest way to
do it speaking from experience.
I think in four different languages and trust
me when I say it is not as hard as you think
it is.
Here’s what you should do starting today and
you will see results in no time:
Number 1- Make a brand new English notebook
and make it English only.
Nothing from your native language should ever
go there.
Number 2- Make this your wordbank meaning
every single word that you know, keep it there.
Number 3- Under each word in your notebook,
you will make a sentence using this word.
And if the word has multiple meanings, so
make multiple sentences.
Number 4- Review a page or two of this notebook
daily.
Number 5- Read English books, watch movies
without subtitles and most importantly: talk,
talk and talk.
And if you have nobody to talk to, no worries,
you will always have yourself.
Talk to yourself a lot.
And if those around you call you crazy, so
be it.
Be crazy.
When you have reached your goal, those around
you who once called you crazy, will suddenly
have a new name for you.
They’ll call you a genius.
[Rachel]
Thanks Ibrahim, and thank you for watching.
Don’t forget to like and share this video
with others.
If you’d like to see more videos like this
one, let me know in the comments below and
tell me what question you need us to discuss
in future videos.
Be sure to check out Ibrahim’s channel, you’ll
find the link in the description below.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.