You know. The three things you need to do to boost and keep your
confidence in English are one, keep a positive attitude about English, two practice
using English every day and three read more let's discuss. Welcome to another Happy
English podcast, coming to you from New York City, and here's your English
teacher, Michael. All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone.
It's Michael here from Happy English and I help people speak English better. And
this is Happy English Podcast, Episode six ninety three. Confidence you got this.
In this podcast English Lesson, I'm going to show you three reasons you
don't feel confident using English and three things you can do to get more confident.
First of all, you got to stop saying that you don't have confidence
using English. Everything that you say your brain hears and believes to be true,
and then those thoughts can affect or influence what happens. Think about that
for a minute. Psychologists call that a self fulfilling prophecy. Let's say,
for example, you have a job interview. If you walk into that interview
thinking, oh, I'm going to get nervous, Oh I'm going to mess
up. Guess what's going to happen. You're probably going to get nervous and
mess up because you told your brain that you decided you were going to get
nervous and mess up, and your brain said, oh, okay, if
that's what you want, I'll help you do that. Your brain is a
good listener, isn't it. Regardless of whether you give your brain negative messages
or positive messages, your brain is always available to help you out to reach
your goals. When you believe something strongly, it can influence your behavior and
actions in a way that makes that belief come true, whether it's positive or
negative. That's the self fulfilling prophecy. So think positive when it comes to
using English. If you believe you can succeed in learning English, and you
approach your learning with determination, you're going to be more likely to put in
the effort that you need to improve, which can lead to better language skills.
And guess what a higher level of confidence this idea has to do with
practice. Recently, I've noticed that some English learners tell me that they study
a lot, but that they are not improving as much as they thought they
would. The more you study, the more you improve, right, Maybe
not. That's because studying is more of a passive activity compared to actually using
it. Practicing and using your English is one of the most effective ways to
improve your confidence. Confidence often comes from familiarity and experience. I'll say that
again. Confidence often comes from familiarity and experience. Here's how it works.
Did you know Practice builds proficiency. If you want to be better at kicking
soccer ball or playing a song on the piano, you need practice. You
need to develop that muscle memory so that you can become proficient at kicking a
soccer ball or playing the piano. And it's the same with English. The
more you practice speaking and the more you use English, the more proficient you
will become. And as you get better at it, your confidence will grow.
One way to practice English is with shadowing. And I've got just the
thing to help you do that. It's the All Ears English Podcast. This
award winning podcast is downloaded eight million times a month. Wow. And there
you can hang out with my friends Lindsey, Michelle and Aubrey and try shadowing
their lovely voices. They have fun, un energetic and natural English conversations about
a variety of topics. Recently, in episode twenty eighty five, they talk
about grammar and politeness, and in episode twenty eighty two, they show you
how to respond with personality in English. With four new episodes a week,
there's always something good cooking there, so you totally won't want to miss one
episode of the All Years English podcast. All you have to do is open
your search bar, type in All Ears English and hit follow. And if
you find yourself in a situation where there's nobody around you that you can practice
speaking with, then you're going to have to be creative and practice with yourself.
That could be by reading something out loud, narrating your day with your
voice, or chat out using text messaging with someone. And if none of
those are an option for you, then set yourself up with a free account
with chat gpt, tell chat gpt that you would like it to be your
English conversation partner, and start having conversations with your new AI partner. And
here's the third point. Have you ever found yourself in front of a basketball
net and you throw the ball but it doesn't go in the basket. Have
you ever tried to cook something and it burned? Have you ever tried to
go somewhere new and gotten lost? Mistakes like these are part of life,
right If you get lost, are you never going to go out of your
house again. If you burn something in the kitchen, are you never going
to cook again? Mistakes are also part of the learning process. When you're
trying to conquer a second language, you need to look at mistakes as opportunities
for growth. Remember, your last mistake is your best teacher, and when
you can learn from your mistakes, you'll become more confident in your ability to
use English. And speaking of practice and building up your skills, one of
the things that you definitely need to build up in order to improve your confidence
is your vocabulary. Have you ever found yourself in an English conversation getting stuck
because you didn't have the vocabulary to either understand what someone else has said or
to express yourself the way you want to. I can tell you from my
own experience with my second language that it's happened to me, and it happens
all the time. That's why these days I am driven to improve my vocationebulary
in my second language, which is Japanese. Having a limited vocabulary can make
you feel less confident when you want to express yourself. How do you increase
your vocabulary? You got to read, my friend, you gotta read Oh,
but Michael, I'm not interested in reading, and I don't like reading,
and I don't even read in my own native language. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I've heard that all before, and I've even heard myself say
that. But the reality is you need to read more, and that's how
you're going to build your vocabulary. Reading is a super essential part of keeping
your English vocabulary alive. Reading is the best review of all the vocabulary you've
ever learned, whether that's words you often use or words that you hardly ever
use. Plus, reading is a great way to pick up new vocabulary in
context, because, as you know, context is king and context is the
best teacher for vocabulary. So let's sum up the three things you need to
do to boost your confidence in English and to keep yourself confident in English are
keep a positive attitude about English, practice using English every day and not just
studying it, And read more read read. Keep in mind, if you'd
like to get more practice using your English, why don't you join my podcast
Learner's Study Group. There you can build your confidence while you make new international
friends. Join me for live group coaching every week. Plus get the pdf
transcript an audio download for every Happy English podcast in the past and in the
future, and each episode has exercises where you can practice this English point with
speaking and writing checked by me. To learn more, just visit Myhappy English
dot com and choose podcast lesson six ninety three. Remember, learning another language
is not easy, but it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you
on your journeys. This podcast is brought to you by Happy English. Please
visit Myhappy English dot com show your support for Happy English by leaving us a
review. Get English, Get Happy, Happy English.