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Hello and welcome to the English -likeinator podcast. The Listening Resorts for Intermediate to Advanced Level English Learners.
My name is Anna and today we are talking about how to get unstuck.
Today's episode is for all of you who have been learning English for awhile, but you around an intermediate level.
So if that's you then keep listening.
Now you know you're not a beginner anymore and you've worked hard, you understand most things.
People might even say to you, wow, your English is so good and yet you don't feel fluent, not really.
Maybe you're starting to wonder, why isn't my English improving even though I'm putting in the time I'm doing what I've always done but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere so is that you if it is and I see you I've taught hundreds of students in exactly that space and I've designed something just for you but more on that later for now let's get honest about this invisible wall or you might call it a glass sealing between kind of the B1 and B2 level, if we're looking at the CEFR grading.
So B1 and B2 are the intermediate levels, B1 is the lower, B2 is the upper intermediate, and you might feel like you're somewhere in between like there's a wall, a wall that you can feel even though you can't see it and it's stopping you from moving forward. So let's talk about that and how to actually finally break through it.
Now let's start with the three signs that would show you that you're stuck in that B1 plateau.
If you're not familiar with the word plateau, it's the stagnation, the pause in progress.
Often, when we learn something and you skill, we might see rapid change, rapid improvement, but then, after a while, the speed of improvement slows down and suddenly you don't feel like you're moving forward anymore.
You're stuck, you're frozen at a particular point, and this is really common when learning any skill, we have periods of fast growth, fast improvement, and then we'll have a plateau.
Now you don't want to stay in a plateau for too long, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
But that's what a plateau is, it's a pause, it's a stagnation, it's not moving forward after there has been a period of growth and improvement.
So three that your stuck at the B1 plateau even if your grammar knowledge is strong or you feel like you have lots of vocabulary, you still feel like you're now stuck at this plateau.
So the first sign would be lots of pausing in the middle of sentences, even though you know the words, you can't bring them to the front of your mind.
You can't let them escape your mouth when they need to.
I have this times. So you start to speak and then your brain just freezes and you're thinking, wait, oh, what's the right word, is it gone or went?
I can't remember, I have gone or, no, I went, oh, I don't know.
And by the time you figure it out, the moment has passed and everything just feels a bit awkward. Now, I completely sympathise with that, because it's happened to me, just losing the words and then having to pause mid sentence, it's not fun and if it's happening often, then that's really going to knock your confidence.
The second sign that you're in a plateau is avoiding high pressure situations.
So maybe you're fine in a relaxed setting.
Maybe you're chatting with a friend over coffee and you're speaking English and it's fine.
But if someone asks you a question in a meeting or you have to speak on the phone with somebody you don't know, maybe you have to call the council or speak to an estate agent, then suddenly you panic, oh no I'm going to have to use English, and this is really important and I might mess up.
So you say as little as possible in those situations or maybe you even ask somebody else to help you in that situation.
Perhaps you even avoid it altogether?
Step away, say, no, I'm not doing it, I can't.
Sorry. Well, that's not good for you.
It's not good for your confidence.
It's not good in work.
You don't want to be avoiding answering questions and meetings if you want to progress your career.
So that's the second sign, something that we do want to avoid.
The third sign is that your understanding English, but you're struggling to express your real personality.
You feel like you can't let people know who you really are.
Even though you're functional, you can do everything you need to do to get by everyday in English, but people don't really know who you are.
Or how you really feel about things.
you can follow conversations, you listen to my podcast, you understand youtube videos, no problem but when you try to speak it comes out, very simple, quite basic it maybe even feels flat, you feel like a smaller version of who you really are when you're speaking in English.
Okay so, you're pausing mid sentence, you may be avoiding those high pressure situations and you're struggling to express your real personality.
Does any of this sound familiar because if it does don't worry you're not alone there are lots of people in this stage we're going to call it the in -between stage so you're just in this particular stage of learning and it's completely normal but staying there for too long that's when your motivation drops out That's when your confidence shrinks and progress can slow down to a crawl and we don't want that to happen.
So the stage you're in is completely normal, but what we want to do is recognize it and push you out of that stage as quickly as possible.
Let's first talk about why this happens, why do we hit this plateau when we're learning.
When there are three reasons, big reasons why people get stuck and it's because number one, self study leads to knowledge but not to fluency.
So you can study using books.
You can use all the books in the world but it won't give you that real -life fluency because it's not about knowing.
Fluency is about doing.
Now, when I was beginning my journey as a gymnast, I used to watch so many gymnastic competitions and routines on the television.
I would watch the coaches coaching the youngsters, the body shapes were supposed to be to achieve the tricks.
I understood how to execute the tricks.
But I hadn't built that strength myself, I hadn't built that muscle memory and the confidence to throw my body into the air and do those very scary things like a backwards somersault or jumping off a high beam backwards while turning myself upside down.
What I needed to do was not know how to do it.
I needed to do it. And so self -study helps you to understand the language, but it doesn't help you to use the language.
You've got to use it more.
You have to build muscle memory, you have to build the ability to connect spontaneously so without preparing and you need overall to build confidence.
The second reason people get stuck at this level is because they're not getting feedback so without feedback you end up repeating the same mistakes and when repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Those mistakes become habits and bad habits can block fluency.
Now I am not ashamed to say that I am continuing to learn about my own language and it wasn't so long ago that I learned that momentum and momentum are not interchangeable words.
They are completely different words, they have completely different meanings.
I used to say momento in place of momentum all the time.
So if you're not familiar with these words, momentum is the force that moves you forward. If you build momentum, you're getting faster and faster and faster.
So my podcast, for example, when I first 30 people listened to that first episode.
And then after a week, 100 people were listening to each episode.
Now, a few years down the line, thousands of people listened to my episodes.
So, over time, my podcast has built momentum.
It's built that forward movement, it's gaining increasing building.
A momento is something that you have or keep to remind you of an experience.
So if you're travelling, you might decide to get a postcard or to get a fridge magnet or key ring from every place you visit as a momento, something to remember your experience by.
So I used to confuse these two words and I used to talk building the Mento.
Because nobody told me it was wrong.
If you aren't corrected then you continue to make those mistakes and then it's really hard to break those habits later on so at this point at the intermediate stage you really do need feedback from somebody to help you to correct course and really to build your fluency.
Now the third reason we get stuck, the third reason we enter that in -between stage and struggle to move past it is because we lack structure in our learning.
Let's be honest, self -study is hard. It's very easy to jump between a podcast, an app, an YouTube video but without a clear path you end up feeling very busy but not better.
You don't feel like you're actually improving even though you're busy doing all those things.
What you need is structured, supportive guidance, and a structured course can make all the difference, or coaching can make all the difference.
When I was learning gymnastics for the first year and a half, I would just turn up the training sessions that were unstructured and I could ask for help but I had to tell the coach what I wanted to learn and they would give me a few little exercises and leave me to it or I'd look at my peers and say, oh, I like what you're doing how do I learn that?
And they would give me some tips.
But I was on my own, really, learning and for a year and a half I made progress But I plateaued.
Then I was asked to enter a competition, and I was given a very strict set of guidelines of what I needed to do in the competition.
I had to do these different routines that must include certain moves.
And so now I had structure.
And because I agreed to enter competition.
A coach was given to me, to guide me and train me in order to be ready for this competition.
So I had structure, and I had guidance and support.
And my goodness me, I improved so much faster at that point, having been stuck at a certain level for so long.
And not really progressing because I wasn't really pushing myself or really trying hard. I was staying within my comfort zone, but as soon as I had a goal, some structure, and someone guiding and pushing me, I improved so fast. It was incredible, addictive almost. As soon as I finished that competition, I was like, raring to go, when's the next competition?
I need a new goal, I want to carry on this type of I started training with a proper coach, everything changed.
I had that support, I had the structure, and I had someone who could say, Hey, here's where you're going wrong and here's how to fix it.
And that's exactly what my students' experience when they join my B2 course.
Now I mentioned that I've taught thousands of students who are at the in -between phase.
So many people come to me having been stuck at an intermediate level for years.
Many of them live in English speaking countries.
They're surrounded by the language and yet they are stuck.
And so I built the B2 course to provide not just the structure, but also the guidance and the support to help them break through the barrier.
They go from feeling uncertain and frustrated to feeling confident and expressive.
I had a student once who came to me, feeling so broken, so anxious about communicating with people in English, even though he'd been living in the UK for years.
He was completely isolated.
He had no job. He had no partner.
He didn't have any friends.
His mother had recently passed away and he was just completely alone.
He didn't know what to do.
His anxiety was crippling but now, after we worked together, now he has a job.
He's regained his confidence.
He met the love of his life.
He got married. He now has lots of friends.
He has a social life.
He basically built his life and all of it came from learning how to feel confident in English.
English was the blocker.
Even though he could function, even though he'd been here for years, he'd hit that wall and he stayed so long in that plateau that it crippled him.
But now, having broken through that plateau, his life is unrecognizable.
He's completely different.
And that's what I want for you too.
So if you're tired of being stuck, if You know that you're capable of more.
If you're ready to finally break through that invisible wall, then I'd love to invite you to join my community and my B2 course, so we can help you to achieve your goals.
Now, you have access to the course materials for life, so there's no pressure there, but to really encourage you to break out of this plateau.
You have the Conversation Club for 12 weeks, and this is where you get.
a weekly English masterclass so we'll cover things like grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation You can interact with the teacher, get feedback But you'll also be able to access up to five conversation classes a week so this is your opportunity to practice speaking not just knowing the language but using the language you're also going to get feedback on your work you'll have clear steps so that you never feel lost. It's practical, it's personal, and it works.
And in three months time, you are going to be out of the other side.
You'll be looking back at the glass -w orthon -thinking.
Ah! That was easy to get through.
All I needed was a little guidance and a bit of structure.
Now, I am doing a promotion on the B2 course, So if you sign up before Sunday night, you can benefit from a 25 % discount on the price, but not only that, I'm going to give you $50 if you complete the course within 12 weeks.
The course only takes eight weeks to complete, but if you can do it within three months, then I'll give you $50 because I really want you to succeed.
I want you to move forward and achieve an advanced level of English.
This isn't about pressure, it's about timing.
If you're ready, then I want to help you to finally move forward. You don't need another app but you don't need to study harder.
You just need a path and you need a guide.
I'll leave a link to join the B2 course down on a hope that you'll take that step and move forward. Doors closed on Sunday if you want to join us now's the time you've come this far, you can keep going.
I'd be honored to guide you the rest of the way.
That's all from me for today.
Until next time, take very good care and good bye.
