Welcome to this English Fluency master class. Today, I'm sharing my best advice with
you to help you become fluent faster. Of course. I'm Jennifer from JForrest English. Now let's get started. First, in this master class, we're going to focus on your public speaking skills
because I know all of my students. Want to look? Very professional and feel
confident when they're speaking. So first let me share 10 bad speaking
habits that you should avoid. The first bad habit is using one. Word answer
s. Let's say you. Were at a conference and your boss asked you. How was the? Conference and you reply back and you say. Good. Great. Awesome. What do you notice? About these answers, they're all one word answers. Now it might seem a little. Comical that that's all you would say,
but I hear this from students all. The time I'll ask them about their
vacation and they were on a two week vacation in another part of
the world and all they say was. Good. Great. OK, not bad. Very. Short answers, thi
s doesn't
sound very professional and you definitely don't sound advanced in English. That an easy way to. Solve. This problem is to answer in a complete sentence. Repeat the question. The conference was good now. Still, this isn't. Enough information. You can then expand on that and
you can provide the reason why or you can provide one example
from the conference or the trip. The conference was good because I met a lot of new people in my field and
I have a lot of new contacts. This sounds
so much more
professional and advanced compared. To good. Our next bad habit is using weak words. Let's say your boss asks you if
you can have the report finished by the end of the day and you reply back and say. I think so. I'll try. These are all weak words because
they imply that you might not finish. Finish the job or finish the request. So instead of saying. I. Think I can change that to something
more confident, something stronger. I know I can finish the
report by the end of the day.
I promise I'll finish the
report by the end of the day. You can count on me to finish
the report by the end of the day. The next bad habit is using very basic. Words. Basic words like. Good. OK, fine. All of these are. Very beginner words and they don't sound
very professional and they don't make you. Look. Very confident either. So if you simply change that
to something more advanced, instead of saying the conference was
good, you say the conference was. Very. Beneficial. And then you can
move on and provide
more information like we talked about in the first Bad Habit, because often the
one word answers that you want to avoid. Are also very basic words. One bad habit you. Definitely want to. Avoid is speaking too quickly. So imagine right now, I'm telling you. About the rules. Of something, and I'm speaking very fast. Do you think you'll be able to understand
very well if that's how I spoke? Well, a lot of students actually think they speak
too slowly, but in my experience t
hat's not true. They actually speak too fast. And when you speak too fast, it's difficult
to understand, to follow your story. So just take a breath, put some
pauses into your words as well, and that will help you slow your pace. Now let's talk about. Word fillers. Word fillers are those words like. Well, you know, like these words
that don't have any meaning, but people add them to their speech when
they're trying to think about what to say next. So imagine you're in a meeting
and your bos
s asked you to. Tell everybody about how the project is. Going and you reply back and say
well the projects going pretty good, Well you know we just need to
obviously that doesn't seem very professional and you certainly won't feel
very confident when you have all those arms. Let's talk about eye contact. This can be a very. Difficult one, especially because culturally
people have different rules for eye contact. In North American culture, it's considered
polite and professional to make eye
contact with the person you're talking to, but you
don't maintain eye contact 100% of the time. You can absolutely look away, look down, look up, But you want to maintain eye
contact at least 50% of the time. Next, let's talk about intonation. Intonation is the natural raising and falling. Of your voice, our voices. Do this naturally. Now. If I'm way up high and then I come down low
and then I go way back up high and then I come down low, that's not very professional
and it won't make you l
ook very confident. But you also don't want to talk on
one specific note and maintain that. No, Right now I probably sound more boring to
you because I don't have intonation in my voice. That's the impact of not having
that natural rising and falling, and I hear this from students all the time. So you could do. Some vocal exercises and try to go up higher
and then come down lower and just try. To. Vary your intonation, which is the rising
and falling of your voice when you speak, to sound m
ore professional
and to appear more confident. Our next bad habit is on enthusiasm
and a lack of enthusiasm. What do I mean by this? Well, let's say you. Went to this conference and you want to
tell your boss and your colleagues that the conference was very beneficial and you learned
a lot and you made a lot of useful contacts. But if you deliver this, if you
communicate this without enthusiasm, they're not going to understand the message. The conference was great. I met a lot of people. It
was very beneficial. It was really interesting, A lack of enthusiasm. Your intonation goes down, your volume goes down. Just think of it as being very
tired or bored or not interested. So think about the enthusiasm
that you have in your voice now. Part of showing your enthusiasm and
part of being confident is also. Your. Body language. Notice how I said when you lack enthusiasm. It's like you're tired. When you're tired, you have a. Hard time keeping your body up, but
it doesn't look very p
rofessional and I probably don't look very confident right now. And same people, often they speak, they cover up
their body, which makes them appear very small. That doesn't seem very confident either. When you're confident, just
bring your shoulders back and take up about as much space as your shoulders go. Think of that as your box, your communications
box, and that's where you want to be. You want to make sure you stay upright
in this box when you're communicating, because that will make
you seem very confident. And then also that will help with
your intonation and your enthusiasm. Because when your body is all crunched down, it
actually impacts the intonation of your voice. And when you're upright more,
you can get more enthusiasm, more intonation from your voice as well. So remember shoulders back and pay
attention to your body language. Now finally, let's talk about hand gestures. So hand gestures is just simply using
your hands when you communicate. Now there are some t
hings you don't want to do,
like completely not having any hand gestures. So if I did the entire video like this,
maybe you could watch it for 30 seconds. But imagine watching it for 10 minutes
where you don't see my hands at all. Now if my hands are like this, most
likely my body is going to start to. To sag as. Well, and I'm not going to
have good body language, but when I bring my hands into it, I'm
more likely to keep my shoulders back. Remember I said you want to have a
communication
box because you also don't want your hands wailing and frailing
about and just being all over the place. As well, you want to keep your hand
gestures within this communications box. So just keep them very slight, very natural. You don't want to go. Too far away, just. Close to the body, but just keep
them going and that will again help. You with your body language,
it will make you look a lot. More confident and you'll appear more
professional because all professional speakers use their ha
nds when they're speaking. And if you avoid these ten
bad speaking habits, I know. You're going to. Look instantly more professional and you're
going to feel more confident as well. So which bad habit? Do you think you need to improve the most? Share that in the comments below. Do. You get nervous right before you're
about to speak English in public. Maybe your hands start to shake,
or your heart starts racing, or you get that feeling in your stomach. Does that ever happen to you? Well, don'
t worry, because in
this video we're going to talk about how to not get nervous speaking
English and public in any situation. But before we begin with my 5 best
tips, I just want you to know one thing. It's totally normal that reaction that you get,
that physical reaction is absolutely normal. Did you know that public speaking is the number one fear in the entire world And
that's in your own native language? So you can imagine how much
more difficult it is when you're speaking in a foreign
language in front of people. So first of all, just know
there's nothing wrong with you. It's totally normal to have that reaction. Now let's talk about the five
tips that you can use to feel confident and not get nervous
when you're speaking in public. Tip #1, the first thing that
I want you to do is relax. Now, when I say I want you to relax,
I'm talking about your physical body. I want you to physically relax your body. Because when we're nervous, when
we're under stress, we also tight
en. We tighten up our body, but did you know
that it has been scientifically proven by the medical community that you cannot feel
stress if your body is physically relaxed? So just relax your back, relax your arms, relax
this area of your chest and stomach as well. So just relax, relax. But I want you to still maintain
good posture because it isn't very professional to be hunched over in a bad position. Although it is very relaxing
to do something like that. So you need to relax your body,
but still maintain
a professional position for when you're speaking. So that's tip #1. Tip #2 is to use positive visualization. Because let me guess. When you think about speaking in public,
not that you're actually speaking in public, but when you just think about speaking in public,
most likely a negative image comes to mind. You imagine the audience judging you
because you made a grammar mistake, or judging you because your accent is too thick. Or you imagine yourself forgetting all
your
words and not knowing what to say. You imagine yourself not being
able to answer the question. You imagine yourself feeling really nervous
and not confident and doing a bad job. Well guess what? Do you think having all of those negative images in your mind are going to help you
feel confident going into a situation? Isn't it just a normal reaction that
you would feel stress and nervousness? If you anticipate something negative
happening, that is your body doing its job. If you have a negat
ive image in your
mind and your body reacts negatively, everything is working properly. That is what your body is meant to do. So one thing that you can do is
to change those mental images. Change them to successful images. Imagine yourself opening your mouth and
having the words flow out confidently. Imagine the audience cheering for you
and telling you you did an amazing job. Imagine yourself standing in front of that
audience, feeling confident and feeling proud. Now, do you think you wo
uld have
a different feeling in your body if you had all of those positive
images instead of negative images? Well, of course the answer is yes, so you
need to work on your positive visualization. Tip #3 is to focus on your
audience and not yourself. Now when I use the word audience, I'm not talking about 100 person Ted
talk, although that may be the case. Your audience could be one person. Your. Boss Your coworker, your friend, a hiring manager. It could be just one person, but a lot
of s
tudents, when they go into a real situation and they're going to be speaking,
they're focused on themselves themselves. They're focused on their accent, their
English, their feelings, their emotions. But aren't you forgetting the reason
why you're public speaking anyway? You have a message to share, right? Maybe your message is simply updating
your boss on the status of the project. Maybe your message is explaining
to the hiring manager why you would be the perfect choice for the position.
Now, if you go into a situation and
you're only thinking about yourself and you're not thinking about your audience,
well, that's kind of selfish, isn't it? And when you think just about yourself, it's
going to be more likely that you have all of these hesitations and negative
thoughts and judgments and fears. But if you put all your focus on your audience, then you're not focusing on your English
skills or your fear, your anxiety. And if we don't put focus on something,
it will just not n
aturally minimize. So if we don't focus on our anxiety
and our nervousness, and we focus on the audience and the information
you want to share with that audience, your message, well then you're going to
just feel more relaxed, less nervous. And your audience is going to really
appreciate the attention that you're giving them, and it's going to make
them think that you really care. So it's going to help you feel less nervous and also help you impress your
audience at the same time. Tip #4 i
s to structure your ideas. Imagine you needed to go to a job
interview in a different part of town, a different part of your city
that you've never been to before, and you get in your car and you don't
have AGPS and you just start driving. Are you going to feel a little bit nervous,
A little bit nervous that you might get lost, a little bit nervous that you
might not get there in time, a little bit nervous that you have no idea where
you're going or how you're going to get there? Well, of
course you would feel
nervous in that situation if you were going somewhere new without AGPS, right? Well, if you go into a situation where
you're public speaking, in a meeting, in a job interview, giving a presentation, and
you have no idea how you're going to begin, how you're going to transition to your
next idea and how you're going to. End you're going to. Feel nervous, right? It's the same situation, trying to
get to a location without a GPS. Well, in this situation, when we're talkin
g about
public speaking structures, simple structures are going to help you get to your message in
a very easy way, in a very organized way. Just like a GPS helps you get to your
destination in a very easy to follow way. So a simple structure that you can use is you
need an introduction, a body and a conclusion. If you go into a job interview and you know how to start your answer and you
know how to end your answer. That's already going to make you feel a
lot more confident and feel less n
ervous. And if you know what to put in the body of
your answer as well, and you can do that in any situation, you can have a simple introduction,
body, conclusion for anything you're asked. Even in a social situation, when you're
telling your friend about what you did last night or your upcoming vacation,
in any situation you're communicating. You don't want to just open your mouth and
see what comes out, because most likely what comes out isn't going to be very good, and
that's going to m
ake you feel very nervous. But if you open your mouth and you
have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and you know how to transition
from the beginning, middle and end, then you're going to feel confident
and you're not going to feel nervous. And tip #5 is to practice, practice, practice. Now When you go into a job interview,
of course you should practice. Many people practice the day before the night
before as they're driving to the job interview, and obviously you're going to feel nervou
s. If you've only practiced once or
twice, you need to practice again. And again and again and again and again. If you feel a lot of nervousness, that's
probably just your body telling you that you haven't prepared and
you prepare by practicing. Now some nervousness is natural and will always
be there even if you do practice and prepare. So you're not looking for 0 nervousness,
but you are looking for a low level of nervousness where it doesn't impact your
message and you can practice any
situation. You can practice answering
questions you weren't expecting, and then when you're asked a
question you weren't expecting, you'll feel confident because of all
the practice you've done in the past. So if you want to feel confident, it's absolutely
going to come from practicing and preparing. Let's say you're in a meeting at work and you
have this amazing idea that you want to share, and you open your mouth and you start
speaking, and as you're speaking, you just. Can't think? Of t
hat word, you have a very
specific word in your head, and at that exact moment when you're
speaking, it's not coming to you. This is something that I hear
from students all the time, and it's one of the reasons that a lot
of students will avoid speaking because they're afraid that is going to happen,
Either because it's happened in the past, they've heard stories of it happening to other
people, or it's just a fear that they have. But here's what you need to know. It is normal. It is norma
l for you to be speaking and not
remember a word, not remember an entire idea. This. Is. Normal. Even if you practice what you wanted to say, and
you practice and you practice and you practice, and then you get to the point
where you're sharing your idea. Maybe it's in a job interview
or at work in a meeting, and you're speaking and you're
speaking, and then you forget. You forget the word that you just
spent hours and hours practicing. Why does that happen? Well, you just have to realize
that,
for one, your brain is not Google. OK? I think a lot of people have this
expectation that their brain's job is to give them the precise piece of
information the moment they want it. Now that would be amazing
if the brain could do that. And our brain is capable
of doing incredible things. But it it does not work the
same way that Google works. When you want some piece of information, Google
or Siri will give you that information instantly. Your brain is not like that. Your brain has
all that information, but
it doesn't have a filing system that it can just open a file and take that
piece and give it to you on demand. That is a limitation. So you need to understand that this is normal. You have to think about this
in your own native language. Are you telling me that you've never been speaking in your own native language and
forgotten what you wanted to say? Forgotten the name of a movie? The name of a restaurant? The name of a street? The name of a Co worker? And you kno
w their name, but just at
that exact moment you can't remember it? Are you saying that doesn't happen
to you in your native language? Well, of course. Not, of course. It happens to you in your native language, so why wouldn't it happen to you when you're
speaking in English as a second language? The best solution I can offer you is to have
strategies in place when you forget your words. So I want to tell you about one of my
students in my program, Speak to Impress. Now, this is a public spe
aking program, so my
students practice their public speaking and they learn strategies to help them share
their ideas effectively and impressively. So one of my students was talking
about her favorite Disney movie. Now as she was talking, she couldn't
remember the name of the Disney movie. A lot of times students will
just use a lot of word fillers. They'll get really stressed out, or they'll just
stop talking because they forget a specific word. But remember what I said. You need strategi
es. So this student was able to keep talking. So she forgot the name of the movie. She instantly started talking. Oh, I can't think of the name of the movie. Hmm. What's that name again? Anyway, it doesn't matter. So as I was saying, so she
talked for a little bit to give. Her. Brain some time to think of the information. The information was not
coming, so she had to move on. She had to keep going. And that's what my students learn. They learn to have these problems,
like forgetting their wor
ds, and they learn how to overcome them with
specific strategies so they can keep talking. So you just need to have some strategies in place to help you keep talking when that situation
happens, because that's a normal situation. It is going to happen. It's going to happen when you're in a meeting. It's going to happen when
you're at a job interview. It's going to happen when you're giving a
speech at a networking event or a conference. It's going to happen. When you're at a party, just
soc
ializing with friends, you cannot stop talking, You have to keep going. So you just need to have some
strategies to help you keep talking. So ultimately you can just relax
because that is a normal situation. But there is one thing you need to
understand, and that's that our brains. Don't. Work as effectively when we're under stress. So if you have a fear of public speaking and
before you go to speak, you're already nervous. Before you begin the presentation,
before you go to the job intervi
ew, your heart is raising your hands or shaking. You have that feeling in your stomach. At that moment, your body is under a lot of
stress and in that stressful environment, your brain doesn't think as clearly. Your brain is under stress at that moment
so is going to be more difficult for you to organize your thoughts and think
clearly and get the words out. Just think about how you feel when
you didn't get a good night's sleep. Let's say you had a terrible night's
sleep, you only slept two
to three hours, and your you're in a meeting in your
own native language and you're asked a question and you've only had
two to three hours of sleep. You're not going to be able
to articulate your ideas very clearly or effectively because
your brain isn't working properly. It's only had two to three hours of sleep. Now, that exact same thing is true
when your body is under stress. So it's really important that you learn
to control your fear of public speaking. It's very normal to have
a
fear of public speaking, but you need to take action to
minimize those negative emotions. I'm not going to tell you that
you're going to eliminate them 100%, but you can absolutely minimize them. You can minimize the
nervousness, the heart racing. The. Handshaking. You can reduce it and minimize
and minimize and minimize, and with enough practice you can
get it as close to 0 as possible. And when your body is not under
stress, your brain is going to work more effectively and it will be abl
e to give you
the information that you need when you need it. So first of all, understand that it is normal. Even when you're not under stress, your
brain does not operate like Google. But understand that when your body is under
stress, because you're having a negative reaction to public speaking, your brain is not
going to work as effectively as if you were calm. One strategy that I can offer you to overcome your
fear of public speaking is to use your breath. So take big breaths in the big
breaths
in hold, and then a big exhale out. So take it in for three to five seconds, hold it for two to three seconds, and
then exhale for five to 10 seconds. And when you take those big
breaths in and big breaths out, your heart rate is going to slow
down because your body is in stress. You need to get your body
back into a calm environment, and you can do that with your breathing. So before you go to the job interview, just sit in your car or go to the bathroom
and just do some breathin
g exercises. Or let's say it's a few days before the
job interview and you're thinking about it and you get nervous just thinking about it, and
your heart starts to race at that exact moment, do some breathing exercises
the second you have that fear. Obviously you can't do that in the middle
of the job interview while you're speaking. You can't do that, right? I think that's obvious. I don't need to tell you that. So you have to do this as a preventative
before you go into the event, and th
at that will just help your body stay in that calm,
relaxed state so you can think clearer. Another reason why you forget
your words when you speak is because you're thinking too much about your words. You're obsessing over your English, and you're
thinking too much about individual words. And you're forgetting the
purpose of communications. The purpose of communications is to share an idea. You should not be thinking about the
individual words that you're going to use. You should be thinki
ng about your overall
message that you want to communicate, and then focus on your message. Because there are many, many, many different ways
that you can communicate a message in English. But I find that students,
when they're public speaking, they forget that they're not in a classroom. When you're at work and you're in a
meeting and you're sharing your ideas, you're not in a classroom. In a classroom, you might be required
to practice specific verb tenses or to practice a specific phrasa
l
verb that you've been studying. And when you share a practice example in
a classroom setting, you have to practice that specific phrasal verb when you're in the
workplace environment and you're communicating. And let's say you want to share an idea, and
you want to share it with that phrasal verb, but you can't remember that phrasal verb. If that's what's happening, then you've
forgotten the purpose of communications. You've forgotten why you're there. You're there to share an idea. Wheth
er you share that idea with a
specific phrasal verb or a different word, a synonym of that phrasal verb, does not matter. But in the classroom, it matters. In the real world, it does not matter. You should not be thinking about individual words, individual verb tenses, individual
phrasal verbs, individual expressions. That is not your goal. Your goal is to communicate a message. So if you focus on the message, then you won't worry about what words
you use to communicate that message. So the o
nly thing you need to do as a solution
is you just need to focus on your message. Focus on your message and remember that there are 1020 a hundred different ways
to say the exact same thing. So you may have wanted to
use a specific phrasal verb. Who cares? There are many other ways you can
communicate the exact same idea. And remember, you're not in English class. Your boss, the person interviewing you, doesn't
care about your phrasal verb vocabulary. They care about your ideas. They care a
bout the value that
you can bring to the organization. They care about the solutions that you. That's what they care about. They don't care about your English. So stay focused on your ideas and remember. You're. Not in English class, so now you
know why you forget your words and you also have some very simple strategies,
strategies that you can use starting today to overcome this problem so you can share
your ideas effectively and impressively. Now let's move on and I'm. Going to share 7 hab
its of
highly confident students. And if you simply follow these habits,
then you'll feel more confident as well. Let's get started with habit number one. Habit number one, highly confident
students are OK with mistakes. I have to be honest with you if you're afraid of making mistakes or if you get upset
when you make mistakes in English. If you think making mistakes is something to be
avoided, you shouldn't be learning a language. Because learning a language, learning anything,
in fact, i
s all about making mistakes. Making mistakes is how you learn and confidence. Students understand that they're OK
with going to a job interview and explaining their background and making a mistake. They don't view that as a
completely negative thing. They understand that they
will make mistakes in English. They likely even make minor
mistakes in their native language, and they will make mistakes
in everything that they do. So the very first thing that you need
to do to truly become confide
nt is get comfortable with making mistakes,
because you will make a lot of them. Now, next year, in five years, 10
years, you will always make mistakes. Habit #2 Highly confident students
take risks and try new things. A confident student will raise their
hand in a meeting and share their idea. Even if they're not 100% sure it's a
good idea or they're not 100% sure, they can communicate it perfectly. Because remember, tip #1, highly confident
students are OK with making mistakes. A lot of
students will wait to try
public speaking, or will wait to join a social group in English or a
new activity in English until they've improved their English because they think
their English needs to be perfect again. Habit number one. But confidence students? They're OK with just getting out
there, going for the job interview, joining a new team, joining
a new course or an activity. And it's by trying all these new things, by
taking risks that they gain the experience. Because confidence is
really about seeing,
proving to yourself that you can do something, and you can only prove to yourself that
you can do it if you've actually done it. So get out there, take new
risks and try new things. That's what confidence students do. Habit #3. Highly confident students don't criticize or judge others because they understand
that learning is a process. They understand that perfect does not exist. They understand they have their own mistakes,
their own areas that they're trying to impro
ve, and they would never want
to criticize someone else. But I see this with some of my
students, and it really upsets me. Sometimes a student will write something in
a YouTube comment and another student will criticize that person because they made a grammar
mistake, or they said it in an awkward way. Or I hear students criticize other
students because of their accents. That shows the insecurity of the student. If they're criticizing someone else
because they're making English mistakes, t
hey make their own mistakes. So it just shows that they are
very insecure about their own mistakes and they're projecting that onto others. Confident people. They don't criticize and they don't judge
because they understand that perfect doesn't exist and they respect others for trying,
for taking risks and trying new things. Habit #4. Highly confident students are always
learning and always improving. A lot of students, they have this
idea that they can get to a certain level and then they'
re done learning
a language or done learning anything. But that's just not how it works. Imagine your doctor graduated from medical
school and never learned anything new. Would you want that person to be your doctor? Of course not. Everyone keeps learning and
keeps trying to improve. You're never going to get to a point where
you're just done learning the English language. There's always something new to learn,
a new skill to develop and improve, and highly confident students, they
recogni
ze that and they embrace it. They love learning new things. They love improving themselves. They understand that learning is a process,
a process, and they enjoy the process. It's not about getting to this final
destination where they're fluent. It's about every day, every
week, every month, every year, proving just a little bit in seeing that progress. Habit #5. Confident students prepare a lot. Sometimes people think well when
you're confident you can just go into a situation without doing
any
preparation, without doing any work. That is not true at all. The most confident people are taking
the time to prepare and prepare. Prepare before a job interview, prepare before a
presentation, prepare before recording a video. Like I'm doing now. I prepared for this for hours because I under
understand that is in the preparation that I'm able to improve, I'm able to do a better job
and I'm able to become even more confident because I've prepared O for you going
into a language exam,
a job interview, even going into a social situation
where you'll be introducing yourself. It's all about preparing and
that is what confident people do. Habit number six of highly confident
students is they invest in themselves. They invest in themselves by learning new things. They invest in themselves by spending the time. They invest in themselves by spending the money. They understand that in order to get the result
they need to invest, they're investing their time, their energy, their
focus, of course,
their financial resources as well. And they're doing this because
they have the confidence. They have the confidence Confidence to say yes, I worth investing $500 in my
development is worth $500. And they also have the confidence to know
that I am going to earn more money in the future because of this investment
or because of the time I spend now. I have the confidence in myself that I
can earn more based on this investment. Highly confident students. They look for opport
unities to
constantly invest in themselves. And finally, habit #7 of highly confident students
is they understand that confidence is a skill. Confidence is a skill and you
can absolutely develop it. How do you develop confidence? Well, all of these habits will help. And if you want to develop confidence, the best
thing you can do is just recognize it's a skill. It's not something that you're just born with. I didn't wake up confident
recording YouTube videos. My confidence came from all of
the
points that I previously mentioned. A baby is not confident walking, but every
adult, you and I, we're confident walking now. We've developed the confidence in all our areas
of our lives and a language is no different. You can develop confidence. Students are not born being confident
learning English or speaking English. They developed that and you can develop it too. So now you have 7 habits, 7 habits
of highly confident students. And if you follow these habits well, then
you will be
acting like a confident student. You will be acting like a confident
English speaker and then you will become a confident English speaker,
confident with the English language. So which habit do you think
you need to work on the most? Put that in the comments and remember, confident people are okay with admitting
that they don't know everything. They don't feel insecure by saying I
need to work on this specific skill. So if you're want to be a confident person,
then put what skill you want
to work on, what habit you want to work
on the most in the comments. Now this master class is to help you
become fluent as quickly as possible. So next I have some very useful tips for you that will help you learn English
faster, help you save time. So let's get started. Number one, create a study schedule. This is extremely important. Your study schedule should identify the specific
day or ideally the specific days of the week that you're going to study, and it should also identify
the sta
rt time and the end time of that session. So for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 6:00 to 6:30, and then maybe
Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 to 9:45. Ideally, your goal should be five days a
week for 30 minutes each day as a pro tip. I want you to choose the day
and time extremely carefully. Make sure the time. Time you put in your calendar is realistic and
you can actually spend the time on your studies. And when it's in your calendar,
treat it like an appointment. You wouldn't miss
an appointment,
so don't miss this time. Your study time Tip 2 Set a clear
goal for each study session. The worst thing you can do is sit down at your scheduled time and then say to
yourself, what should I study. Or just randomly watch YouTube videos or
randomly look through an English textbook. That's going to waste a lot of time. Before you begin your study session, you
should know exactly what you're going to do. With that time. For example, before you sit down, you know that
you're go
ing to complete the practice exercises for week two of your lesson in the Finely Fluent
Academy, which is my premium training program, and my students get a study schedule that
I've created for them when they join. So as a pro tip, make sure
you take 5 minutes before your scheduled study time,
or ideally the day before. Just take a few minutes and plan exactly what
you're going to do in that scheduled time. Tip #3, you want to maximize your study time. 30 minutes is not created equally. Som
e people will have 30 minutes and they
will accomplish nothing with that time. Another person will have 30
minutes and accomplish a lot. So how you use that time matters. You can maximize your 30 minutes by,
first of all, removing all distractions. You need to turn off all social media
when you're focusing on your study time. You need to turn off all notifications. Lock your pets in another room so they don't come
and distract you and take your attention away. Have your water, your tea, wha
tever
supplies you need for that session already in the room so you don't have to leave. And get a glass of water which will take time
away from studying and also make sure you. Set a timer. So if your study session is for 30 minutes,
set a timer, because even just wondering what time it is, how much time has passed takes
your attention away and you're losing time. Now as a pro tip, make sure you leave your. Phone in an. Entirely different room. Assuming you're not using your phone to
study
, that will definitely eliminate the distraction and that temp mutation to pick up
your phone during your scheduled study time, which will of course waste a lot of time. Tip #4, Improve multiple skills at once. A lot of students study using wordless, and
they have an individual word and a definition, but that is only improving one skill. If you follow my YouTube channel, you
know I love sharing videos where we learn English with the news because you're
learning so many different skills at on
ce. You're improving your reading,
your listening, your vocabulary, your grammar, your pronunciation, your speaking. You're doing all of that at once, so you're maximizing your time
by focusing on multiple skills. Tip #5 Learn words in context. So again, you use a vocabulary list
and you learn an expression off track and you see the definition for that
expression off track, not making progress. But when you learn a word in context,
it means you have a full sentence. That's a natural sentenc
e, the way a
native speaker would use that expression. For example, yesterday our meeting went off track
when John brought up the consultants report. So here you see the word being used in context, you understand the meaning a lot more
and you also understand the grammar. You understand that you need to
go off track and then you see, OK, yesterday I need the past simple went off track. And you learn a lot more when you
see grammar or vocabulary in context. Tip number six. Repetition, repeti
tion, Repetition. It's so important I repeated it three times. According to scientists, we forgot about
50% of new information in one hour, which means one hour from now
you'll forget half of these tips. And scientists say that we forget 70%
of new information within 24 hours. So you won't remember very much from this lesson
tomorrow unless you repeat, repeat, repeat. Our brains were designed to remember
information only if it's repeated, because that tells our brain
the information is imp
ortant. So if you want to remember what you're
learning, you need to repeat, repeat, repeat. And as a pro tip, it's more beneficial
to have a quick review multiple times a day rather than once a week and having a longer
review because we need that constant repetition. Tip 7. You need to recall information, which means your
brain provides that information without seeing it. So we do this when we quiz ourselves
or when we complete practice exercises. You're recalling that information,
so let
's try that right now. We didn't make a lot of progress at the meeting. The meeting? How would you complete that sentence? Based on the expression I taught you just a
few minutes ago, the meeting went off track. The meeting went off track. So right there you just recalled that definition, which will make it a lot more likely
you'll remember it the next time. And as a pro tip, you can complete just the quizzes in my lessons frequently
to help you recall information. Tip #8 is quality over quan
tity. According to scientists, we can
remember about 5 to 9 new words per day. That's about the maximum
capacity that our brain has. So it's not very beneficial to review
a word list of 300 positive adjectives because you're not going to
remember very many of them. It's more beneficial just to learn the top 8 or 9 adjectives that you can use in a
meeting to sound professional at work. As a pro tip, you can take my videos which
teaches you many many words, more than 5 to 9 in each lesson, b
ut you can divide that lesson
into smaller pieces and just focus on a few. Words. 5 to 9 Ideally, learn them,
practice them, repeat them, recall them and then move on with the lesson. Tip #9 Practice different skills. Students are obsessed with
practicing their speaking skills. Of course speaking is important, but there are
many other skills you need to improve as well. So practice writing right example sentences. Of course, practice speaking. Say it out loud. You can focus on your pronuncia
tion by recording
yourself and then comparing the pronunciation. And you can improve your listening skills by
hearing your new vocabulary in a natural context. So do all these different exercises
to improve different language skills. And as a pro tip, make sure you add these
different areas to your study schedule so you remember one day practice speaking,
another day practice writing, another day practice pronunciation, and finally tip #10, my
personal favorite, which is to reward yourself
. When you reward yourself, it creates positive
reinforcement, which means you feel positive. And if you feel positive, you're
more likely to do the action, so you're more likely to spend 30 minutes
and really concentrate on that time. If you reward yourself now, the
reward should just be something small. Very small. But it needs to immediately make you feel good. So here are some ways I reward
myself after spending a focused time. I listen to a song I really like. I sing and I dance. I spe
nd time with my pets. I check the YouTube comments and I
reply to them because I love doing that. I might watch some cat videos on YouTube
for 5 minutes, not an hour, but 5 minutes. You could eat a piece of chocolate or
something very small that you like. Or you could go for a walk or a
bike ride and do something physical. Remember, it can be very small, but it
has to make you feel good immediately. And as a pro tip, reward yourself
immediately after the behavior, because that will create
the positive reinforcement. Now, all of these tips work, but
they'll only work if you do the work. So put I'm committed, I'm committed. Put that in the comments so I
know you're ready to do the work. Amazing job. Now let's review 7 free ways to
help you improve your fluency. Of course, these videos will help you. So this is your 8th way, but I have seven other resources that I want to share
with you, so let's get started. Number one, watch clips on YouTube. You've probably heard that you sh
ould use
TV shows and movies to improve your English. What I'm recommending is you use
a clip of ATV show or a movie, and you can find these for
free right here on YouTube. What's a Clip? A clip is a shorter segment of
a full TV show or a full movie. So a clip could be 30 seconds,
3 minutes, or 13 minutes. Why should you use clips? Because it's more effective. If you watch a 30 minute TV show or a two
hour movie, you're going to be exposed to a lot of English, but you probably won't rememb
er
anything specific from that TV show or movie. If you study a 32nd clip or a three minute clip, you can improve your
vocabulary and learn a lot of. Grammatical structures. Plus, because it's only 30 seconds or three
minutes, you can watch it again and again, and that repetition will help
with your long term memory. #2 Watch Ted talks. What's a Ted talk? A Ted talk is a presentation
on an educational topic, and these presentations are
a maximum of 18 minutes. So when you watch a Ted talk,
you're going to see a professional speaker share
a presentation in English, which will give you a lot of tips and advice
on how to improve your public speaking as well. Plus, these presentations are
more formal, more academic, so you'll be exposed to more advanced vocabulary
and advanced grammatical structures as well. And because they are on specific topics, you can find Ted talks that are
very interesting and you'll learn. At the same time, you'll
enjoy watching the Ted talk, and that w
ill make it educational for your
own purposes and for improving your English. And as a pro tip, join the
discussion in the comments, because in the comments everyone
is going to discuss that Ted talk. Talk about what they liked about it,
their opinion on that and you can read the the discussion comments and also participate
and add your perspective as well #3 read blogs. Blogs are short articles on specific topics. So if you have a hobby and you're a photographer, you can find a photography
blog and you
can read short articles about photography. Now. You can find a blog for
professional reasons as well. So if you're in marketing, you can find a
marketing blog or a graphic design blog. Or, if you're a pilot, you can
even find a blog for pilots. Reading is one of the best ways to improve your
vocabulary, and that's how blogs will help you. And because they're all very short
and they're on topics that you are really interested about, you'll
really want to read them as well. So
you'll learn about interesting topics
and you'll improve your vocabulary. Learn advanced grammatical structures
and you'll see your new word being used in context, which is so important for learning. And just like with the 10 talks,
blogs often have comment section, so you can join the comments and you can
comment on topics that are of interest to you, but you're practicing your English
at the same time #4 listen to music. This one you can just listen to any music. All of the streaming ser
vices now have
playlists, so you can go onto Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and just find a playlist and have it in the background so you can
use this as more passive practice. You don't have to specifically listen to. The words listen to the lyrics. Just have it on in the background while
you're checking your e-mail or doing the dishes or driving, and your brain is learning,
even if you're not paying attention to it. Your brain is learning pronunciation. Your brain is learning sentence struc
ture. Your brain is improving listening skills. Your brain is learning a lot passively. So music is great. For more of a passive way to learn #5. Write in English. Writing is such a great way
to improve your English. Because you're using your vocabulary, you're using your grammar, you're using advanced
sentence structure, so it's active practice. You're using everything that you've
learned in the previous tips. Most students don't know what to write about, so here's something you can
write a
bout every single day. Summarize your day. You can imagine you're writing to a
friend, your sibling, your parents, your spouse, a coworker, your boss,
and just tell them about your day. You don't have to send it to them just so. Set aside 5 minutes or 20 minutes
a day and just summarize your day. You can answer these questions. What did I do? Why did I do it? Did I like it? What did I learn? What would I do differently? And every day you can simply summarize your day. So now you have a reason
to practice
your writing every single day. Number six, Find a speaking partner. Students always tell me they want
to improve their speaking skills. But guess what? Thousands of other students
who also want to practice their speaking skills are watching this video. Right now. All you need to do is look
in the comments section and you have hundreds of potential speaking partners. So right now put in the comments I want a speaking
partner and then people will reply to you. You can reply to ot
her people and then you can
coordinate a specific day and time to meet. You can do this every single week. There are many many free
resources online where you can find a speaking partner
like my language exchange. I personally used this when I was learning
French and I did find speaking partners easily. So you can find a speaking partner
as well #7 teach what you've learned. This is my personal favorite because the best way. To. Fully understand a concept. To fully consider yourself an expe
rt
in a concept is if you can teach it. If you can teach someone else
how to use the present perfect, well then you, my friend, have
mastered the present perfect. But you don't have to be an expert
on a topic in order to teach it. You can teach your friend, your brother,
sister, parents, Co worker, a stranger. You can teach them one word, that's OK, but
teaching them that one word reinforces it for you. And if you're thinking right now,
I don't have anyone I could teach. Well, guess what?
You can teach yourself. Remember, tip #5 was to write in English. Why not write an explanation of what you
learned today in the way of teaching? For example, you could write. Today I watched. A really great YouTube video by Jay. For his English. Jennifer shared seven different
ways to improve my English. Her first tip was to learn from TV
clips rather than the whole show. A clip is a smaller section of a full TV show. Notice how you're summarizing tip #1, and you're
including the definition
of what a clip is, which will make it so much more likely
that you will remember what a clip is, and you will also remember all the
tips that I shared in this lesson. So you can absolutely teach yourself every
single day by summarizing what you learned. Now I've saved the best for last, because now I'm going to share a
very effective study plan for you. This study plan is absolutely free,
and it only takes 20 minutes a day. And I promise you, if you follow this
study plan every single day
, you are going to drastically transform your English in
the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and beyond. So let's review the study plan now. Step one, you're going to find three to
five blogs that you find interesting. Once a blog, blogs are educational websites that provide short articles on
specific topics or themes. How can you find blogs to use? Well, first, simply identify your
personal and professional interests. So let's say in your personal life
you're interested in gardening and pia
no, and in your professional life you're an
accountant and you're interested in leadership. So now you have 4 topics for blogs. All you need is to go on to Google and
search gardening blogs, blogs about piano, blogs for accountants, leadership blogs, and you can review the options and bookmark
your favorite one from each category. Step 2, you're going to read one to three
paragraphs of a specific blog article. Now, in those paragraphs, your goal
is to find three to five words that you want
to learn and add to your vocabulary. If you find 3 to 5 words in the first
paragraph, well, then you can stop reading. But if you've read 3 paragraphs and you
still don't have three to five words, then keep reading until you find
the words you want to learn. You're probably wondering
how you should choose words. You want to choose words that are commonly
used and that are relevant to your daily life. This will make sure you're learning
words that will actually benefit you, because you can
start using them in your speech. Step three, learn the meaning of your new
words and learn how it's used in a sentence. This is why we're using blogs, because you don't want to just take one
single word and understand what it means. Because in English, one word
can have multiple meanings, but when you see that word in context in
a sentence, it has one specific meaning. So you're going to learn that
specific meaning of the word. So let's say I find an article in a leadership
blog and I'm re
ading it, and there is this one word that I don't know discreet, and it seems
like a common word that I could use in my speech. So I want to learn it first. I'm going to look this word up in the dictionary
and I'm going to see what the definition is, what type of word it's used, and I'm going to
review the example sentences of that word being used to make sure you really understand how
this word is being used in a specific context. You can also ask ChatGPT. So you can go on ChatGPT and you c
an type
in what does discrete mean in this sentence and then paste in the specific sentence
from the blog and ChatGPT will give you a detailed explanation of what that
word means in the specific context. You can even ask follow up questions
if you're not sure about the meaning. Remember I said that you should
choose three to five words right now? You might think that's not enough words, Jennifer. I want to improve my English as quickly as
possible, but this is a daily study routine, meanin
g you're going to repeat these steps
every single day, ideally five days a week. So if you learn 5 words a day, five days
a week, that's 25 words in one week. Now, maybe you still might think that's not
enough, but in one year, that's 1300 words. That's a lot of words. Step four, you're going to learn the
pronunciation of your new words with Youglish. What's Youglish? Youglish is a free website where you can search
for a specific word or a specific phrase and you can get results of native s
peakers using
that word or phrase in natural context. So you'll hear the pronunciation, but you'll also hear many different accents
and styles of speech, which is so beneficial. And your goal is to listen to five to 10
different Youglish examples for each word. So you'll hear 5 to 10 different
accents and different styles of speech, which will really help you
with your listening skills. Now, as a pro tip, you can also review the example
sentences to learn sentence structure, grammar, conce
pts, so you're not just using Uglish
for pronunciation and your listening skills. You can also learn grammar and
sentence structure at the same time. Step five. You're going to repeat the
Uglish sentences out loud, and you're doing this so you
can practice your pronunciation. So you'll listen to the sentence
on you Glish, you'll hit pause, and you'll say what you just heard out
loud, and you'll try to imitate the speaker. This is called shadowing or simply imitation, and it's a very effect
ive way
to improve your pronunciation. Repeat the sentence out loud until you
feel comfortable with the pronunciation, and do it a minimum of three times. Step 6, Write three example
sentences for each word. Writing is such a powerful way to make sure you
permanently Remember Remember your new words. Now, when you write, you should pay
attention to your sentence structure, your grammar, and your writing skills as well. And as a bonus tip, you should write
each sentence using different sent
ence structures, different verb tenses,
or different grammatical structures. So you can ask a question
for one of your examples. You can write a negative sentence. You can write a sentence using the
present simple or the present perfect. So you're practicing your grammar and
sentence structure at the same time. Step seven, you're going to form
realistic sentences out loud. You've already practiced
your speaking with Youglish. You've improved your pronunciation. You've imitated the native s
peakers, but now it's your turn to practice speaking
without seeing the sentences written down. So you're going to form realistic sentences. What do I mean by realistic sentences? I mean how will you actually use
the new word in your personal life? How can you use the new word
in your professional life? So imagine you're talking to
your friend, your sibling, your spouse, and you want
to use the word discreet. What would you say to them? Maybe you would say I went to
three discreet stores t
oday, but I couldn't find the shoes I wanted. Now, remember, you're not writing. This down you're. Saying it out loud to practice your speaking. Now that was an example in your personal life. Let's say you're in a meeting at work. How would you realistically use this word? Maybe you would say after
interviewing 5 discrete companies, I can confident say that Jay
Forest English is the best. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Let me summarize all seven
steps of your new
study routine. And this is available as a PDF download as
well, so you can look in the description. To download it, first read one
to three paragraphs from a blog. Then choose three to five new words. Next, learn your new words
with the dictionary or ChatGPT. Learn correct pronunciation with Youglish. Practice your pronunciation by
shadowing the Youglish examples. Write three example sentences using
different sentence structures for each word and finally form
realistic sentences out loud.
Now let me share my best tips and advice so you
can get fast results with your new study routine. First of all, I already said this, but
this was designed for you to do every day for a minimum of three days
a week, ideally five days a week. You have five days a week. You can do this, right put I can do it. Put I can do it, I can do it in
the comments, but I can do it. So I know you're committed and my best
tip for you is to choose the specific time you're going to spend on your new study
r
outine and and put the time in your calendar. If you see it in your calendar and
you treat it like an appointment, like a doctor's appointment or a meeting at
work, then you're more likely to follow through. And finally, this study routine was designed
for you to do at one time in one session. But you should absolutely practice your
new words throughout the day as well. And it would be a really great
practice to do a weekly review as well. So you can spend 5 days on the
study routine and t
hen a sixth day where you just review all
the words that you've learned. Because remember, that's 25 new words. Now you have a step by step
English study plan for 2024. I know this will help you get results fast so you can finally become a fluent and
confident English speaker in 2024. Now if you want me to make more videos
where I share tips and advice to help you become fluent faster than put study
plan, put study plan in the comments. So I know you like this video and you want
me to make
more videos just like this. Put study plan in the comments. Amazing job with this master class. Now do you want me to share more tips and advice
with you to help you become fluent faster? If you do, then put let's go put let's go
in the comments so I know that you're ready for more videos just like this and
you can get this free speaking guide to help you speak English fluently
and confidently in six easy steps. You can click here to download
it or look for the link in the description and
you can keep improving
your English with this lesson right now.
Comments
🥳Want to sound like a native English speaker in only 90 days? Join the FINALLY FLUENT ACADEMY and have ME as your personal English coach ➡https://jforrestenglish.com/ffa 🎁 Download your FREE SPEAKING GUIDE here ➡ https://jforrestenglish.com/free-guide/
Thank you very much for your lessons you're the best online English teacher❤❤❤
Hi Jennifer, you really are a great English teacher. I love this video. Keep up the great work! 🌼
God bless you, and your lovely family. Thanks for all your effort and commitment. You're by far, one of the best teachers I’ve ever seen. Please, keep helping ❤
Hello, Jennifer! Congratulations with all winter holidays🌲 Thank you so much for your job all entire year. Best wishes in next year! Greetings from East Side of Russia 🙂☀
Thank you very much❤
Thank you so much for your advice and engaging lecture ! I like your lesson . let's give it a go!
Hi Jennifer! Study plan, let's go! Thank you so much for your fantastic tips, they are very useful!!!
Those are the awesome things that I have learned from teacher Forrest, because I didn't know before. Thank you so much for your video clip.
I really interested in your lessons! Thank you for sharing and teaching. I could say, Ican do it I can do it! Happy studying!
Thank you so much for sharing !
I would like to say that Ms. J Forrest is a great teacher, I understand most of her classes 😀👋👋Thanks a lot!!
Quite useful video. I enjoyed a lot . Thank you for sharing
Sure, I will make it thank to you.
Introduction Body Conclusion It's very important in any talk Thanks Ma'am
Long but good.Thank you so much.I can do it❤
Good morning and thank you so much, Jennifer. I'll download your new lesson and listen all day.
VERY HELPFUL!❤
Thank u for the great video.
Good time dear Jennifer,very interesting topic,thanks 🎉