Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and you’re listening to Episode 53 of the Listening Time podcast.

I want to thank you all for listening. And in particular, I want to thank my Listening Time Members, Super Members and Family Members. Thank you all for supporting this podcast and helping me do what I do. If you want to become a Listening Time Member, you can sign up at patreon.com/listeningtime That link is in the Episode Description below this episode.

And of course, if you become a member, you get access to all my extra content: extra episodes, my Listening Practice Seminars, and if you become a Listening Time Family Member, you have access to my advanced podcast episodes. So, make sure to sign up if you want those episodes. So, today, I’m going to talk about speaking English. I’m really excited to finally be talking about this subject. I know a lot of you are interested in hearing my advice on speaking English. So, I’m sure this episode will be useful for you.

Before we go on, I want to thank the sponsor of this episode. This episode has been sponsored by italki. italki is an awesome website that you can use to learn English and many other languages through online classes. Many of you have asked me about where you can practice speaking English if you don’t live in an English-speaking country. Well, italki is the perfect place to do this. On italki, you can take 1-on-1 online classes in 150 different languages. There are many different teachers on italki who are available at different times and who charge different prices, so you can choose teachers based on your availability and your budget. italki makes it easy, fun, and affordable to take English classes online. Classes can be personalized to fit your needs, and students of all levels can use italki to learn.

And on italki, you pay per lesson, so there’s no subscription or commitment, and if you’re not ready to pay for classes yet, you can still use the italki community for free, meaning you can still connect with English learners and native speakers all over the world. I’ve been a teacher and a student on italki for more than 5 years, and it’s been a fantastic tool for me to connect with English learners and teach students from all over the world, and it’s also helped me improve my skills in multiple languages. So, if you want to practice your English and improve your speaking skills, then italki is the perfect tool for you. italki offers coupons and awards from time to time, and remember that signing up is free! So, click on the link below this episode in the Episode Description to sign up for free today.

So, before we get into today’s episode, remember that you have the transcript available for this episode in the episode description. So, you can click on that if you need it. Also, remember to share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful. Alright, let’s get started.

Okay, so I’m going to give you three useful tips on speaking English. My first tip is to start speaking English when you feel ready. Don’t start before you’re ready. This is really important. Okay? Let me explain this. So, when you speak English, you want to feel comfortable in the environment. You want to feel at ease. In English, when we say “at ease”, this just means comfortable, relaxed, not stressed. So, you want to feel at ease when you start speaking a foreign language. You don’t want to feel really stressed and anxious and scared. You don’t want to feel like that. You want to feel comfortable, and you want it to be a fun experience.

So, I think that this makes sense to all of you, but there’s another element to this. And that is that research shows us that language learners learn more when they’re actually in a comfortable environment and they’re not really stressed and anxious. We actually learn more of the foreign language that we’re studying. We acquire more of that language when the conditions are very comfortable for us, okay? So this is actually very important for your language learning. If you feel tense and stressed and nervous all the time when you’re speaking, you’re actually not going to benefit that much from that practice. You want to benefit the most from your practice, so it’s important to feel comfortable and at ease when you’re speaking.

So, this means that you don’t want to try speaking too much too early. Okay? If you’re just a beginner and you’re just starting out with English and you have trouble understanding this podcast, you might not want to focus too much on speaking at this point. It’s better for you to really improve your understanding of the language and become comfortable with the language. So, this is a really important point. You want to be able to understand the other speaker who’s talking to you. So, of course, if you have a teacher, they’re probably going to speak a little bit slowly and clearly, and this will help you. So, that’s a great environment where you can actually understand most of what the other person is saying. But if your listening level is still very low, then you definitely want to improve that first before you focus on speaking. So, you want to have enough understanding, and you want to have enough words.

So, once you reach the level where you can start to understand more and you start to become more comfortable with the language, then it’s a good idea to start thinking about speaking and practicing that skill. So, if you can understand me pretty well on this podcast, and it’s pretty easy for you, then you’ll definitely want to start thinking about speaking if you haven’t done that yet. So, you should be able to start having conversations with native speakers and teachers, and that should be pretty rewarding for you. The word “rewarding” in English just means that it’s satisfying. It makes you feel good. This is “rewarding”.

If you have a lower level, but you really want to start having more contact with native speakers, and you really want this experience of interacting with native English speakers, then my advice for you would be to find a teacher who is a native English speaker, but who also speaks your language as well, who also speaks your native language. And so, if you have a teacher like this, you can start to have interactions with that person, and they can speak to you slowly in English, and you can actually respond to them in your native language. You won’t be forced to speak English before you’re ready, because that person can understand your language. And so, you can speak in your language and they can respond in English.

And you can get more listening practice that way because they’ll be speaking to you in English, but you’ll also be getting that interaction with a native speaker, and it will feel rewarding, and it will help you improve and get more used to the language. So, you can also talk to a native speaker if you have a lower level, but it would be better if that person also spoke your language as well. So, that’s my advice for you if you really want to have interactions with native speakers, but you don’t have a good enough level to feel comfortable with speaking English. That’s something you can do.

So, remember, don’t force it. Don’t try to speak a lot before you’re ready. Speak when you feel ready. Before that, you can just respond in your native language and the teacher can speak to you in English, but don’t try to force your sentences out if you just don’t feel comfortable yet. The time will come when you feel ready to start saying more things in English. So, you don’t need to worry about that. Just keep on practicing. Keep on listening. Do a lot of listening practice, and eventually, you’ll start to understand the other person very well, and you’ll feel more comfortable to start speaking.

Alright, so my second piece of advice when it comes to speaking English is this: don’t ask for error correction in the moment. Okay? A lot of people want the teacher or the other person to correct them every single time they make a mistake and to interrupt them and tell them what mistake they made right there in the moment. I don’t agree with this approach, and I’ll tell you why. So, number one: this doesn’t allow you to speak normally and finish your thoughts and finish your sentences. This is really distracting when you’re trying to have a conversation with another person if they keep interrupting your sentences and correcting you every time you make a mistake. You’re going to lose your train of thought. In English, the expression “lose your train of thought”… this means that you can’t remember what you were saying, and so you can’t finish the thought that you were describing.

So, if the other person tries to correct you and interrupt you constantly as you’re speaking, you’re going to lose your train of thought, and it’s not going to be fun. It’s actually going to be pretty stressful for most people, because you’re going to be anticipating getting corrected. In English, when we say the word “anticipate”, we’re saying that you’re expecting something to happen. You’re waiting for it to happen. So, if you’re anticipating being corrected, you’re not going to feel comfortable while you’re speaking. It’s going to be a stressful experience, and you’re not going to speak the way you normally would. You’re going to try to change the way that you speak and think harder about every word that you say, and it’s not a very pleasant experience when you do this. So, that’s the first reason why I don’t think that it’s good for you to ask for error correction in the moment.

And another reason why this isn’t good is because teachers can’t correct all your mistakes. It’s impossible. And most English learners underestimate how many mistakes they make when they’re speaking English. In English, when we say that you “underestimate” something, this means that you think that something is less than what it really is. So, if you underestimate how many mistakes you make, this means that you think you make 10 mistakes, but you really make 20 mistakes, for example. So, most English learners don’t realize how many mistakes they’re actually making when they speak, and this is okay. It’s perfectly normal to make a lot of mistakes when you speak. There’s absolutely no problem with that… when you’re practicing and you’re trying to converse with another person. That’s perfectly normal.

However, if you expect the teacher to correct every one of your mistakes, they’re going to be interrupting you almost every single sentence, and it’s impossible to do that, and it’s impossible for a teacher to correct every one of your mistakes because there will always be a mistake with pronunciation, or accent, or structure, or grammar, or whatever. You’re going to be making a lot of mistakes. And the problem with expecting a teacher to correct every one of your mistakes is that they’re not going to do it. And for example, if you say a sentence, and the teacher doesn’t correct that sentence, your brain is going to assume that what you said is correct because the teacher didn’t correct you. And many times, you actually made a mistake in that sentence, but the teacher wasn’t able to correct that mistake. And because they didn’t do that, you think “Oh, that sentence was correct.” And this reinforces that bad habit in your brain. Your brain is going to think, “Okay, that structure was correct. I can keep using that structure” when in reality, it wasn’t correct, and the teacher just didn’t give you that correction in the moment. So, this can actually lead to some bad habits if you’re not careful.

So, my advice is that if you’re taking a class with a teacher, you can tell them that the way that you want them to correct your mistakes is to give you a report at the end of the class with some of the main mistakes, some of the biggest mistakes, that they heard you make. And they can give you this report with those mistakes and then also the corrections to those mistakes. And then, maybe you can spend the last five minutes of your class going over your errors and seeing the corrections. And in this way, you have a dedicated time period at the end of the class where you’re just focusing on your mistakes. You’re just focusing on those grammar mistakes or the pronunciation mistakes that you made, and you’re not worried about anything else. The conversation is over, and you’re just looking at those errors. In my experience, I’ve found that this is more effective than giving error correction in the moment.

So, as a teacher, this is how I give error correction. I always give a report at the end of the conversation, and we take a look at some of the grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, and pronunciation mistakes that the student made. And at that time, we’re done with the conversation, so the student is just focused on learning from their mistakes at that point. But during the conversation, I try not to correct them too much because I want them to speak their mind and say things naturally, and I want the conversation to be enjoyable for them. Because remember, as I told you in the first tip, if you’re having fun while you’re learning a language, you actually learn much more in that environment. So, this is really important.

So, for example, if you find a teacher on italki, you can tell them this in your first class. You can say “I don’t want you to correct all of my errors in the moment. I would appreciate it if you could just write down some of my errors that you hear, and we can go over those errors at the end of the class.” In English, when we use the phrase “go over” in this context, it just means review. So, if you go over your errors, it means that you review your errors. So, you can tell your teacher in the first class that you want them to go over your errors in the last part of the class.

So, of course, they’re not going to be able to write down all of your mistakes, but they can probably write down some of the biggest mistakes that they heard, or some of the mistakes that you made more than once and then go over those handful of mistakes at the end. In English, when we say “a handful” of something, it just means some of that thing… not a lot or a ton of it, but some. So, a handful of mistakes means some mistakes. Okay?

I have had students that have asked me to give them error correction in the moment every time they make a mistake, and I always warn them and tell them that they’re not going to like it, and it’s not going to be a fun class. In English, when we say that we “warn” someone about something, it means that you tell them that something bad or negative might happen. So, I warn them that they’re not going to like this technique, this method of error correction. But sometimes, they insist and want me to do this. And what happens is, by the end of the class, the conversation has become really unenjoyable for both of us.

And I remember one student that I had who wanted me to correct every mistake he made, and I tried to do this, and by the end of the conversation, he looked exhausted, and he looked really irritated. And he told me, “This was horrible.” He said, “I can’t believe how many times you corrected me.” And I told him, “I told you. I warned you about this. This is not a good method of doing error correction.” And this student never took another class with me again. He was so disappointed with that class because he wanted error correction in the moment, and in reality, this can really become a disaster if the student makes a lot of mistakes because they won’t be able to finish a single sentence. So, this is why I strongly advise that you don’t do error correction in the moment.

However, I think it is good for the teacher to correct really big mistakes in the moment. And I also do this. If there’s a really big mistake, or there’s a really natural way to correct a certain mistake in the moment, I always do this. However, for the vast majority of the mistakes that students make, I don’t correct them in the moment. I try not to interrupt them a lot while they’re speaking so that they can actually say what they want to say and enjoy the conversation.

So, the last piece of advice that I have for you is that grammar doesn’t lead to fluency. And I know that some people might not agree with me on this, and some English teachers might not agree with me on this, but I’m saying this from my own experience. I’ll say it again. Knowing grammar rules doesn’t make you fluent. Okay? So, let me explain this. A lot of people have the misconception that when they learn a foreign language, they need to learn all the rules of that language, and then they’ll be able to speak that language. It’s a pretty logical assumption, because that’s how we would approach math, for example, or physics. We learn all the rules and the formulas and then we can solve problems like that.

However, it doesn’t work the same way with language. Language is not math, okay? It works a lot differently in our brains. So, when you speak your native language, whatever language you speak, you don’t think of the rules when you’re speaking, right? You don’t have to think of the structure of the sentence before you say a sentence. You just say things that you know are correct because you’ve heard them thousands of times and you’ve said them thousands of times. You don’t need to think about the structure. You just speak. This is fluency.

In my opinion, being fluent means that you can speak the language without stopping again and again, and you can have a normal conversation at normal speed. Being fluent doesn’t mean that you speak a language perfectly. You can still make a lot of mistakes and still be fluent. “Fluent” simply means that you are speaking fluidly. That means that you’re not stopping. You’re just speaking at normal speed in a normal way.

So, grammar doesn’t lead to fluency because if you know a lot about English grammar, and you know a lot of different rules, and you try to apply these rules in your conversation, imagine how slow you’re going to speak. You’re going to speak really slowly. It’s going to take you forever to say what you want to say because you’re going to think of the structure of the sentence and the grammar and then try to put the words together in the right order. And this is not fluency. Okay? Fluency is saying things at normal speed without having to think about the grammar, just like when you speak your native language.

So, let me just talk from experience here. My students who have the highest level of English fluency, my students who are the most fluent in English, usually know the least amount of grammar. I know that sounds pretty crazy, but it’s true. In my experience, the students that I’ve had who have a very high level of fluency usually know very little grammar. They maybe know the basics, but that’s it. And on the other hand, I’ve had students that know a lot of grammar, students that have taken many classes and read grammar books, and know all the terminology and a lot of rules, and they are not even close to being fluent, right? It’s actually much harder to talk to these people than it is to talk to people who don’t know any grammar but who can speak fluidly.

So, the students that know a lot of grammar and who try to apply this grammar in all their sentences, they usually speak really slowly, and they have to pause again and again and again. In English, the word “pause” just means stop. So, these students have to pause over and over again because they’re thinking of what they want to say. So, this is not fluency. You can’t think of the rules in the moment. We just don’t have enough time to do that. You simply don’t have enough time when you’re speaking with someone to think of the grammar rules. Okay?

So, how do we become fluent? What is fluency? Well, like I said, when you’re fluent, you’re just saying words and sentences that you know are correct. If I say to you, “Hi, how are you?” And you respond, “I’m good, how are you?” You didn’t have to think of the grammar of that sentence. You just said it because you’ve heard that millions of times, and you’re just repeating what you’ve heard. You know it’s correct, and you say it fluidly because you don’t have to think of the grammar. This is the goal that we’re trying to achieve when we’re trying to become fluent. We want to be able to say sentences without having to think about the grammar of everything that we’re saying. Okay?

So, of course, this is not easy. It’s not going to be an easy journey to becoming fluent and just knowing that what you’re saying is correct because you’ve heard it many times. Of course, this takes a long time. This takes many, many hours of practice, specifically listening and reading and eventually speaking, but this is attainable. This is a level that you can eventually reach but you need to think correctly about it. Don’t think that your knowledge of grammar will make you fluent. This is simply not the case. Alright?

So, I think that learning grammar at the beginning of your language-learning journey is a good thing. And it’s really helpful because it helps you get a feel for the language and see how it works. But later on, when you reach a higher level, like an intermediate level, for example, grammar should not be the main focus, You should focus on doing a lot of listening practice, a lot of reading, and then a lot of speaking. This is how you should go about this. You should focus more on this than you should on grammar, okay? Later on, grammar can become a helpful tool for you because it can help you become more confident that what you’re saying is correct. Like, if you know the rule, then you can analyze your own sentence, and you can see why it’s correct or incorrect. So, it can be a helpful tool, but it’s not the key to fluency. Okay?

Alright, why don’t we stop there for today? I hope these tips were helpful for you, and I hope you’ll be able to apply them to your own speaking practice. So, remember that you can sign up at italki. The link is in the Episode Description below this episode. So, if you want to find a teacher who can help you, or if you just want to join the italki community and start talking to other English learners and native speakers, then make sure to click on that link and sign up today and start to use this tool. It will really help you. So, remember that that link is in the Description underneath this episode.

And of course, remember to become a Listening Time Member or Super Member or Family Member if you want extra content, if you want my personalized training, and if you want advanced episodes, then make sure you become a Family Member. That link is also in the Description below. So, thank you all for listening to this episode, and I hope you’ll come back for Episode 54 of the Listening Time podcast.