hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
in this video we are going to talk about how you can improve your English alone
from home in just three steps just three things you need to do to work on and
improve your English so if you're new to my channel welcome if you're not new hi
it's been a while has this been a rough year for you too or just for me this has
been one of the most challenging years for me personally and so I took a little
break from YouTube so thank you for your patience I'm back now I'm ready to make
more content I'm feeling much better than I have in a long time and the crazy
thing is everything that I've gone through this year that has been really
challenging has nothing to do with what's going on with the whole world
right now with the crazy virus and lockdowns and quarantines oh my goodness
I was already going through my own stuff before any of that happened so when that
happened I was like oh great so when it rains it pours let's go anyways I'm sure
you are spending lots of time at home right now like many of us and hopefully
you're taking advantage of this time to really work on your English so that's
why I decided to come back to my youtube channel with this video in particular ok
so again three things you need to do to work on your English alone at home and
by doing these things you're really gonna see some dramatic improvements now
I want to say a couple things first I've talked about two of these things before
but I haven't really discussed the other one yet so I'm excited to get into that
and the other thing is a lot of people don't progress in their English because
they are only doing one or two of these things that I am about to list so as
you're watching this video I just want you to analyze your own situation and
what you can improve in your own habits to get the results that you want to have
the first thing that you need to do in order to improve your English and we all
know this is input right you need to be listening to English watching stuff in
English reading in English okay doing these
things and you can do it in so many different ways I mean you guys we have
Netflix we have YouTube we have podcasts everything you can't imagine it is
easier than ever to access the English language and to hear how native speakers
speak so you can focus on one dialect like if you're really trying to learn
American English which I'm assuming you are since you're here on my channel and
I am from California then you can find youtubers who talk about things that you
are interested in they don't have to be English teachers just whatever topics
you like actually if you haven't done this already you should make a list of
your interests okay your interest your goals whatever it is that excites you
whatever you're trying to achieve in life and then you should consume content
that has to do with those things okay so don't force yourself to you know do
anything that you feel you have to do I know some people will read classic
novels in English because they feel that somehow that's really gonna help them
and classic novels if you're really not interested in classic literature they
can be quite boring so stick to stuff that is interesting for you when you
consume the material then it will be effortless it won't feel like a chore
you should be excited when you turn on your favorite podcast or when you go to
your favorite YouTube channel be excited and settle down into a couch or a chair
and we're go for a walk while you listen to something and so the other thing I
want to say about this is if you don't have certain types of content a certain
channels certain podcasts or whatever it is that are your go to that you love
then you should really spend some time searching and digging and finding
content that you like it's really worth it sometimes it can take a whole week to
find a channel that you really love or a podcast that you really love but again
by doing the digging by taking the time to find the content that you love to
find the types of movies that you love or a series that you love by investing
the time in that it's really going to make it a lot easier when
you settle down to actually input the English consume the English in the
various formats because you'll know oh I love this show I'm gonna go right to
that okay so for those of you who already know what types of movies you
like and series and books etc I want you to go ahead and list them in the
comments that way the people who are still trying to find content that they
like they can see your suggestions and hopefully find something that will be
interesting to them so just write what it is that you like if it's a book genre
or the title of a book or a series movie etc and why you like it and why you
recommend it okay so that's input and again I think we're all clear on what
input is and why it's important the next one is output right input and output so
output is speaking and writing it's communicating in the language when you
have input you're putting a bunch of English into your brain but then it has
to come out and a lot of people do not practice their output they don't use
English so everything stays in their brain and then when it comes time to use
the language they feel like oh my gosh I can't speak the words don't come out and
this is the reason why you have to practice the speaking until it becomes
effortless and in the beginning it might feel like I can't do anything but if you
consistently do it it will get easier we actually did this earlier this year and
the fluency breakthrough challenge this is a challenge that I lead twice a year
we're gonna do it again in July if you're interested and I will leave a
link in the description for you to get more information about it but basically
this challenge is all about output in English it's about helping you speak
English communicate in English write in English create content in English so you
can finally stop consuming so much English and actually learn really
creative ways to use the language to talk with other people to have
conversations etc and for those of you who did participate in the fluency
breakthrough challenge this year and last year I really hope you guys are
continuing the methods and the strategies that you learned because you
saw how it worked in the challenge and you
had really great results so just keep doing all of that and you'll keep
improving your results okay so the last thing you need to do to improve your
English and you can do this alone at home you don't need a teacher for this
is you need to actually study now I don't really talk very much about study
that's why I wanted to talk about it in this video but sometimes it's not enough
to just consume English and then speak English and write English like put it in
put it out or take it and put it out sometimes that's not enough because you
could be making the same mistakes over and over and over again and never really
fixing them or you might plateau you might feel like you know what I listen
to English all the time I speak English all the time I use the
language but I really don't feel like I'm improving and that's why it's
important to study but what am I talking about when I say study I don't mean just
saying oh my gosh I need to improve my grammar let me purchase a grammar
workbook and I'm gonna do the workbook and you know then I'll improve no that's
not what I'm talking about what I'm talking about is you analyzing your own
weaknesses you have to know what your weaknesses are and you shouldn't need a
teacher to tell you what they are right because when you get to a certain level
of English or any language when you can understand a native speaker like you're
here watching my video you understand me so that says that you're at a certain
level and when you're at this level you also have the ability to identify your
own weaknesses and your own struggles so for example let's talk about
pronunciation when you speak if you constantly encounter a sound that is
very difficult for you to make that is a sound that you should work on until it
becomes effortless when you're speaking if there is a certain grammar
construction that you struggle to make or you don't quite understand that is
something that you should study and what I highly recommend is that you have a
journal where you can write down what you are learning now depending on how
you like to learn you can have a journal where you write by hand you can have a
word document on your computer where you just type everything or you can actually
use some type of social media account like Instagram to log everything that
you're and keep track of it and what I
recommend is that you keep track of new words that you learn you keep track of
sentences that you really like if you read something in a book and you go wow
I really like that sentence I like the way that was constructed write it down
and refer back to it read it again so you can remember it and start
incorporating sentences like that into your own English if you hear a phrase in
a movie or an idiom or a saying or something like that that you really like
then write that down as well okay and if you're doing this on Instagram or
something if you take something from a movie you can take a picture of the
movie and then that can be the photo that you upload and in the description
you can write what you learned that way you're creating a visual diary for
yourself you're gonna see what it is that you learned where it came from and
you'll be able to read your own description to remember what was it that
you learned and why did you like it okay so I just want to end this video by
saying that I actually do all three of these things with my own English even
though I am a native speaker I listen to English every day I'm surrounded by
English I speak English okay but I also study English I've never stopped
studying and the kind of studying that I do it's not really grammar related
sometimes it is like if I say something and I go you know what I don't know if
that's correct I go and I look it up to see if it is correct or not but the kind
of studying that I really do is I study communication for example I might say
something and then depending on how a person reacts I might realize oh I
wonder if I could have said that better I wonder why that person reacted in that
way let's say they have a negative reaction and I really analyze the way
that I use the language so that I can get the results with it that I want to
get and have the influence that I want to have and have the relationships that
I want to have so I'm continuously studying English and working on
improving my own communication skills and I want you guys to know that it's a
lifelong process and I will compare this quickly to Spanish because you guys know
I am a Spanish speaker it's not my native language I learned
Spanish starting when I was 14 continuing into my adulthood where is my
Spanish compared to my English let's say my English is like way up here my
Spanish is actually quite a bit lower and I am a fluent Spanish speaker but
Spanish was never a priority for me the way that English was especially once I
became the English coach because what happened was I was living in Argentina
and I was using so much Spanish speaking Spanish every day reading Spanish
studying Spanish etc that my English started coming down I kid you not I was
struggling to communicate in English and when that started happening I was like
no way like I love the Spanish language but I really don't want to lose my
English and the way that it is especially because I work with English
learners and I have to make sure my English is sharp so I can help you guys
and so you can imitate me so once I noticed that started happening I
prioritize Spanish a little bit less prioritized English a little bit more so
now with Spanish it's kind of like a tool that I have in my toolbox and when
I need it I take it out but I never really need it for anything serious I
don't use Spanish for work well first of all now I'm living in California my
husband is a Spanish speaker but we communicate mostly in English so I just
use it when I'm with my husband's family or when I meet a Spanish speaker and
they don't speak English and so the Spanish that I have I'm fluent in
Spanish it's really good enough for me to achieve the things that I want to
achieve with the language so I reached my goals and I don't have to
continuously consume Spanish with input the output and the study because I've
reached the level that I want to reach with that and sometimes I think like oh
my goodness like I should really work on my Spanish I should make it even better
but then I realized like for what right there are only so many hours in a day
and I don't have time for everything so you have to figure out what your
priorities are and then go after them and for some of you watching this right
now you know maybe English is not your priority and maybe you feel guilty like
you don't study it enough or work hard enough but maybe it's because you just
don't need it in your life right now and maybe when you do need it
you're gonna start using it a lot more now that's not to say you shouldn't be
preparing because if English is going to be important for
your future then you should be motivated right now to be improving it because it
will be necessary in the future so I kind of jumped all over the place in
this video I hope everything made sense and you guys I really hope all of you
are healthy I hope that this whole situation ends kind of soon so we get
back to normal life but I also know that that might not happen for a while so
let's make the best of it while we're in the situation that we're in and I'm just
glad to be back and making videos for you guys again oh and did I say I'm in
my new office yes this is my new office totally undecorated right now I may not
even decorate it we'll see because you know priorities right now my priority is
making content it's helping you guys it's doing things it's not spending a
week decorating my office so anyways I have an office it was necessary I needed
to get away from the house and come to a place and work at least for now
and we'll see where life takes us so okay that's it you guys and I will see
you soon in another video bye again three things that you need to do to
improve your English so I want you as I'm making so as I am hmm and I was
gonna say something else what was it and hopefully for the people who don't
really know what they like wall just made a weird sound okay so and then
hopefully for the people who I don't even know if I'm gonna edit that out
okay let me let me regain myself okay so for those of you who already know the
type of content that you like I want you to go ahead and share it in the comments
whatever YouTube channel it is or whatever or I can talk today I can never
talk on these videos so for those of you who know what type of content you like
if you have a favorite type of I don't know okay so for those of you who
already know I go and I look it up to find out if it is correct sorry I'm
something I'll point out anyways mm-hmm think of something my mouth hang on you