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English Speaking Success
Don't Waste Your Time Learning English Like This
Don't Waste Your Time Learning English Like This
English Speaking Success
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19:27 · Mar 15, 2025
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How
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English
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0:00
- How can you really learn to speak English confidently?
0:04
Let me help you speed up the process by telling you in 10 minutes
0:08
what I learned in 10 years. (upbeat pop-rock music) Hello,
0:22
it's Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy and the YouTube channel English Speaking Success,
0:27
here to help you become a more confident English speaker.
0:31
Now then, I've spent over 10 years...
0:35
Oh, actually, no, over 20 years.
0:38
I should change the title.
0:40
Over 20 years-learning languages like French, Chinese, Spanish.
0:45
And I feel like I'm a confident speaker of those languages.
0:50
However, what most people don't know is that I've also tried to learn Italian,
0:56
Malay, and Japanese.
0:58
And I was less successful.
1:01
Why was I successful in some of them and unsuccessful in others?
1:07
What is it that worked and that didn't work?
1:10
And how can I help you become a more confident speaker of English?
1:14
In this video, I'm gonna tell you five things
1:18
that work and will help you learn English more effectively.
1:23
These are five things.
1:24
They're based on linguistic research but also on my personal experience.
1:29
So it's kind of mixing a bit of science and a bit of anecdote.
1:33
I'll tell you five things that work and the opposite that doesn't work.
1:38
And all of this will help you become that confident English speaker.
1:43
Ready?
1:44
Let's dive in.
1:49
Right, number one: to effectively learn English and become confident, you must be focused.
1:55
In English, we say to "put the blinkers on"
1:57
or to "have your blinkers on."
1:59
If you've ever watched horse racing,
2:01
you see the horses have these things on their eyes, right?
2:04
So they cannot see.
2:06
These are blinkers.
2:07
So to put your blinkers on is to be very focused
2:11
and only see one thing,
2:14
because otherwise, you're gonna get distracted, and you're not gonna study, okay?
2:18
You're gonna be really, really focused.
2:20
My experience in Italy...
2:22
Did you know I actually lived in Italy and taught the Italian police?
2:28
I was working for the Italian police as their English teacher.
2:32
There are some interesting stories there, maybe for another day.
2:36
The thing is, through those months I was there,
2:39
I was there for two months, I picked up some Italian, right?
2:43
Getting by in the coffees and in the shops and restaurants.
2:47
And for about a week or two when I got home,
2:49
I carried on practicing.
2:51
But then I didn't have time.
2:53
I was too busy, and it just didn't happen.
2:56
I wasn't focused.
2:58
It wasn't a priority.
3:00
And this is an important lesson I learned.
3:02
You have to make things a priority; otherwise, something else will come up,
3:08
and you won't do it.
3:10
"Oh, I've got my English class.
3:11
No, but I've got this to do and that to do;
3:13
I haven't got time." (chuckles) The biggest lesson I learned
3:17
then was never to say,
3:19
"I don't have time," 'cause what
3:21
that really means is "I choose not to do this."
3:27
And I learned to change that.
3:29
Whenever I said, "No, I don't have time for this," no, no, no,
3:33
"I choose not to do this."
3:36
That's the reality, 'cause you have time.
3:38
If you don't do your English class in that hour, you'll do something else,
3:43
right?
3:43
You're not gonna stop breathing for an hour.
3:45
You'll do something else.
3:47
You choose not to do the English study always, right?
3:52
So be clear about being focused, making it a priority, and saying,
3:57
"I choose to do it,"
3:59
or "I choose not to,"
4:00
but it's your choice always.
4:08
Number two: be persistent.
4:10
What a lovely word.
4:14
Persistent.
4:15
Persistent.
4:15
And it means to continue or to keep going.
4:18
I often tell my students that learning English is not a sprint.
4:22
It's not 100 meters; it's a marathon.
4:25
And you need to keep going, right?
4:27
Be persistent.
4:29
The thing is, if you go on social media,
4:34
a lot of influencers will tell you, "No,
4:38
you can get fluent in three months.
4:41
You can learn English with these five words in 10 minutes."
4:45
The thing is, right, us people on social media,
4:51
we've always got one eye on the views and one eye on the education.
4:56
And there's always a balance.
4:58
And so a lot of influencers will try, and convince you that it's easy.
5:04
You can do it in three months; you can become fluent.
5:08
It's not true.
5:09
It takes time.
5:11
If you go to the Cambridge English website,
5:14
it'll tell you to move up a band, like a B1 to a B2.
5:19
It will typically take, what?
5:21
200 hours of guided study and learning.
5:26
And the higher up you go, the more time it takes.
5:29
So very often, schools
5:30
and courses will run for one year
5:33
or nine months to move up a level,
5:36
taking into account, you know, spaced repetition and all of that.
5:40
Nine months for a level, that's more realistic.
5:43
It does take time.
5:45
So you must be persistent.
5:47
And the trick here is if you enjoy your study, you're gonna be persistent.
5:55
You're gonna carry on.
5:57
So do that.
5:58
Enjoy your study.
6:00
Find materials you enjoy, that you like, that are engaging,
6:04
and that's gonna help you a lot.
6:06
Let's move on.
6:10
Okay, number three is find your mojo. (laughs) Mojo.
6:16
What I mean really is mojo, motivation, right?
6:20
Find your motivation.
6:22
Because you need to be motivated to learn another language like English.
6:29
One way to harness your motivation, I mean, to get motivated,
6:33
is to have specific and unrealistic goals, and ones that you can measure,
6:39
I think.
6:40
SMART goals, right?
6:41
But specific and realistic.
6:45
And I look at the comments in my video chat, and sometimes students say,
6:49
"Well, I'm a beginner now, and I want to be fluent in English."
6:54
Okay, it's a nice ambition: "I'm a beginner now;
6:57
I want to be fluent in English."
6:59
It's not very specific.
7:01
What do you mean by "fluent," and when?
7:03
How long?
7:04
And it's too big, I think, and it's too far away, like the stars.
7:10
Make it more specific and realistic.
7:12
A much better goal would be, "I'm a beginner now,
7:16
and I want to be able to speak
7:18
and communicate my ideas on some common topics in the next six months."
7:28
Something like that is much more specific.
7:30
You could even say which topics.
7:33
And a teacher will come and say, "That's great.
7:35
We'll take you from an A2 to B1 in six months."
7:39
That's basically it.
7:41
And it's something you can measure, especially if you identify the topics.
7:45
That's something, it's more specific, it's realistic, and it's measurable as well.
7:51
So all of that can really, really help.
7:53
Now, the thing with motivation is you need to feed your motivation.
7:57
It's like your dog or your cat if you have one.
8:00
If you don't feed your pet, they will become lazy and tired.
8:06
They'll have no energy, and ultimately, I'm afraid they'll die.
8:10
Like your motivation, it'll disappear.
8:12
So you must feed your motivation, right?
8:15
What do you give your motivation?
8:17
The best thing you can do is remind yourself why you are doing this.
8:23
"Why am I learning English?"
8:26
And maybe it's, well, because you want to travel and speak to other people.
8:30
If you are studying IELTS, actually, your goal is not IELTS, right?
8:35
Your goal is the reason why 'cause I want to study abroad.
8:39
I want to actually work
8:41
and live abroad or take my family abroad
8:44
and have a better life.
8:46
That's the why.
8:47
And so in those difficult moments when your motivation is (sighs) down,
8:53
remember the why.
8:56
Another thing you can do, and I did this when learning Spanish.
9:00
I was living in Spain.
9:01
I was there for about a year.
9:04
I was there for a long time.
9:05
But after a year, I decided to join some classes, and my roommate said,
9:11
"What?
9:12
Why are you doing classes?
9:14
I mean, we live in Madrid;
9:15
just go on the street and talk to people."
9:18
And I said, "Yeah, I know I do,
9:20
but I always say the same things, and, you know,
9:24
and I don't really know many people."
9:26
When I went to the class, oh, it was just my level went up,
9:31
because I was learning much wider, not language, vocabulary, grammar,
9:37
but I was also connecting with people.
9:39
I was making friends;
9:41
I was talking to people in the same boat as me.
9:45
We weren't in a boat, idiomatically, we were in the same situation.
9:49
And it was great to connect with others.
9:52
And when my motivation was lagging, we could cheer each other up and say,
9:57
you know, "Keep going."
9:58
Connect to others.
9:59
It was invaluable.
10:01
The best thing I ever did,
10:02
even though I was living in Spain at the time, joined a Spanish course.
10:08
And finally, I think a nice thing to do is to reward yourself.
10:11
When you reach a goal or part of a goal,
10:15
just give yourself a pat on the back.
10:17
I can't reach.
10:19
But reward yourself.
10:21
Say, "Great, I've done it.
10:22
I've done a month of study, I've studied every day.
10:25
I've learned to speak about this, this, and this."
10:28
Great!
10:30
Go to the cinema, go and buy yourself a book.
10:33
Give yourself a little reward.
10:35
Keep the motivation going.
10:37
Feed your motivation.
10:40
Let me feed you with some more ideas.
10:42
Moving on to number four.
10:48
Number four is big goal, small steps.
10:52
Now, this is related to the motivation.
10:56
So having a big goal is great.
10:58
Breaking it down into small steps is really important.
11:02
What you're gonna do step by step.
11:04
If you've ever been walking in the mountains, if you like rambling, right?
11:09
Sometimes you go out rambling, you say, "Right,
11:12
we're gonna go in a big circle for 10 kilometers."
11:17
And you go, "Whew, it's gonna take ages."
11:21
That isn't great.
11:23
What's much better is to say, "Well, okay, we'll do a circle,
11:26
but first we go to that peak, then we'll go to that lake,
11:30
then we'll go down the valley to the village, and then we'll come round."
11:35
And there are steps, small steps.
11:37
And you think, "Oh, yeah, that's doable."
11:40
Little things you'll achieve on the way.
11:42
That's great.
11:43
So when I arrived in China many years ago,
11:48
I knew that I wanted to speak Chinese,
11:53
and I really wanted to speak to a very high level.
11:55
I was a bit like, "I'm a beginner;
11:57
I wanna be fluent in Chinese." (laughs)
12:00
But I also realized that's not gonna work.
12:02
So I broke it down.
12:03
I thought, "Right, what am I gonna do the first year I'm here?"
12:07
I want to be able to communicate with family and friends.
12:11
That was key.
12:13
Second, I wanted to be able to have daily conversations with people on the
12:17
street in the shops.
12:19
Thirdly, I actually wanted to be able to work in Chinese,
12:23
to function in Chinese.
12:26
So I broke that down into three goals, each one a year.
12:32
And the first one I remember, every day for about eight months,
12:37
I went for an hour
12:38
or an hour and a half to class before work.
12:42
Eight o'clock in the morning, boom, to class, an hour and a half,
12:46
and then go to work, and did that for eight months.
12:49
And that took me up to like an A2 level.
12:53
And I was able to talk to family and friends, very simple, like,
12:57
"Pass me the sugar" and "I like this."
13:00
Things like that.
13:01
The key was big goal, small steps.
13:06
You see, the small steps help you focus on the present moment.
13:12
On the now.
13:14
When you've got big goals, you start thinking, "Oh, God, it's so much;
13:18
it's too much.
13:19
It's overwhelming."
13:20
The more you think, the less you are present;
13:24
you are lost in your thoughts.
13:26
To avoid that, to be present, small steps.
13:30
Because the small step helps you focus in the present moment,
13:35
and it works much, much better.
13:37
So if you've got your goal of getting,
13:40
let's say a band 7 in IELTS, think about small steps.
13:44
First three months, the next three months, the next three months.
13:47
What are you gonna do?
13:49
How you gonna reach it?
13:50
Big goal, small steps.
13:53
Let's move on.
13:58
Number five: practice lots.
14:00
You see, the big mistake a lot of students make, and I did,
14:05
as well, although I'm gonna blame my teacher (laughs) at school with French,
14:10
is we studied too much.
14:12
We just studied, and by study, I mean reading and reading, learning the rules,
14:17
learning the grammar, reading, reading, a bit of listening.
14:20
It was all passive.
14:23
It was study.
14:25
We weren't actually practicing; we weren't speaking, writing very little, right?
14:32
And that's what happened with French.
14:34
And so, you know, I got to the age of 18,
14:36
having studied French for 10 years, and I couldn't speak.
14:41
That's ridiculous.
14:42
So it's so important: practice lots.
14:46
Wherever you are now, and as you are studying, whether it's with videos,
14:50
my videos, or with a book, as you study, practice at the same time.
14:55
You can practice speaking out, practice making phrases, changing phrases.
14:59
You can use the Speaking Success System that you can learn from my videos.
15:05
You can practice in the real world;
15:07
you can practice online with classmates or students or teachers.
15:12
Online is the real world, as well, right?
15:14
Or face-to-face; it doesn't matter.
15:18
But as you are studying, practice as much as you study,
15:23
and that will help you become a more effective learner
15:27
and a more confident speaker of English.
15:34
Next.
15:35
Right, point number six.
15:37
"Hang on, Keith, you said five."
15:40
I did, I know.
15:41
All right, you can call this a bonus if you like,
15:44
or point number six.
15:45
And that is review.
15:47
And I couldn't leave you without telling you how important it is to review
15:52
to become an effective learner
15:54
and speaker of English.
15:57
Review because, well, there's a lot of science and theory behind this.
16:01
Do you remember?
16:02
Teachers will probably know Ebbinghaus, Hermann Ebbinghaus, and his learning curve, or, well,
16:04
his memory curve.
16:04
Some call it a forgetting curve.
16:04
That after a certain number of hours, a lot of people say 24 hours,
16:04
you will forget 70% of what you've studied if you don't review.
16:04
And then several days later, you need to review again,
16:04
or your learning goes down.
16:04
There's a lot of mythology around this.
16:04
And even, you know, Ebbinghaus, he was the researcher,
16:04
and he was the person undergoing the research.
16:04
He was the candidate, if you like.
16:04
So I think there's a lot of flaws.
16:04
But the general idea
16:04
that if you don't review within a day
16:04
and within a week,
16:04
you are gonna forget a large amount.
16:04
There's also spaced repetition theory, right?
16:04
This is what most of the apps, like Duolingo, work with,
16:04
that you learn some words and then the next day they come back again.
16:04
A few days later, they come back again.
16:04
That spaced repetition.
16:04
And it does work.
16:04
It's very, very important.
16:04
So I think it's essential to review.
16:04
What I do with my classes learning French or Spanish now is,
16:04
after the class, I review after a few hours the notes I've taken.
16:04
And then a day or two later, I don't review the notes,
16:04
but I listen or watch something on the same topic.
16:04
So if I've been watching something about weather, I'll listen to the weather report,
16:04
or I'll watch a film about weather,
16:04
or I'll do something on a similar topic so there's a recycling of language.
16:04
Reviewing and recycling, basically.
16:04
Hugely important, very valuable, and quite easy to do.
16:04
Just find time.
16:04
Remember, don't say "I don't have time."
16:04
It's, "I don't choose to do it," or "I choose to do it."
16:04
The choice is in your hands.
16:04
Okay.
16:04
So there you have it,
16:04
five or six different ways to help you become a more confident speaker.
16:04
Now, I realize I am mixing research and anecdote here, right?
16:04
And, you know, that's what I did to build my online course,
16:04
IELTS Speaking GOLD course.
16:04
It's a mixture.
16:04
I mean, it's based on research I did in my master's degree on digital
16:04
education,
16:04
which I did very, very late in life, but also anecdote,
16:04
my own learning experience.
16:04
In fact, the Speaking Success System is based on my own experience of learning
16:04
languages.
16:04
You can watch a video about
16:04
that actually straight after this one
16:04
if you like.
16:04
You can find out about the course,
16:04
more details on how that might be able to help you,
16:04
in the links below, in the description, and the comments.
16:04
That's it for today.
16:04
Listen, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me.
16:04
If you've liked it, you know what to do.
16:04
If you've subscribed, you know what to do.
16:04
And listen, I can't wait to see you in the next video.
16:04
Keep going, be focused, persistent, motivated, and all the rest of it.
16:04
Take care, my friend.
16:04
Bye-bye. (upbeat pop-rock music)
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