This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 138.
Ana Luisa from Inglés Online gives you three tips to learn English without traveling abroad.
Welcome to the all ears english podcast, where you'll finally get real native english conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning english.
Now here are your hosts lindsay mcmahon, the english adventurer and former IELTS examiner, Jessica Beck, coming to you from Portland and Boston, USA.
USA.
How can you learn English if you're not in an English-speaking country?
How can you learn even when you're super busy?
In today's episode, you'll get answers to these questions and more with our expert, Ana Luisa.
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Hey, Lindsay, how's it going?
Hey, Jessica, it's going great.
I'm excited to pull in another guest voice today.
Are you ready for this?
Yes, I am.
I'm excited because you know we have so many amazing guests on here to help you learn English and get motivated in so many different ways, right?
And today's guest is more unique, I would say, because she helps people from a very specific part of the world.
Yeah, exactly.
So today's guest is based in Brazil.
Isn't that right?
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
So she does focus more on people who speak Portuguese, right?
Especially in Brazil, she focuses on them learning English.
But guys, her tips today are not just for Brasileiros, right?
They are for everyone learning English.
But I like how specific that her website is.
And I do encourage you guys, no matter where you are in the world, to check out her site, because there are a lot of great resources on there.
Yes, and I love how all of our guests on this show take a different angle on learning English.
We talked to Susanna Zareisky from episode 98 about music, using music to learn, and then Fluency MC in episode 54 also having kind of a music angle.
I love that.
I love it when people have opinions As to how languages should be learned.
It's so good.
It is.
It's awesome, guys.
So today we are going to share with you three of Ana Luisa's tips on how you can learn language from home.
Because we know that not everyone you know is just free with the money and the time to travel to any country.
But guys, you still want to learn English, right?
So Ana Luisa has three great tips for you today on how to do this from your couch, with your laptop, you know, in any time you have.
I love that.
So should we go into the first tip, Jessica?
Yes, let's do it.
So actually, this is funny, guys.
Her first tip is actually about what not to do.
So Ana Luisa says don't spend too much time reading in English to learn about it.
Now, this is a really specific tip that I love, that I can't wait to talk to you about Lindsay and to hear what Anna says.
Because she says this isn't the way to start at the beginning if you don't know the sounds yet.
So don't read too much at first.
Let's go to Anna to find out why.
Yeah, and the reason I say this is I get a lot of messages from people who work in technology especially, and they have been learning to understand English from manuals and technical documentation over the years and now they're actually able to understand a lot just reading texts in English.
But the thing is, they didn't have the audio to go with everything they were reading.
They never listened to the words they were learning through text.
Absolutely.
When you do that, you automatically read those words in your mind, using the only reference you have, which is the sounds of your native language.
All right.
That is so true.
This is so interesting.
I've never thought about this, right?
So have you found this in students, that if they are learning English from the start just through reading too much, they're not listening to enough?
Oh, yeah.
That it is detrimental to their English.
It's different.
Totally, Jessica.
It is so different.
You can tell when a student has kind of a more intimate connection with the language even from the beginning and when they're separated from it.
It's like there's a brick wall between them and the language.
If you think about how kids learn languages.
They don't go and try to read a guide on the language first.
They're just around it.
They're hearing the sounds.
They're absorbing the sounds.
They're not being hard on themselves and having to say the sounds.
They're just being surrounded by it.
So I think that's part of what Ana Luisa is recommending here.
Exactly.
Exactly, you guys.
You know, and I like adding this to the perspective we're talking about.
It's like, why are we learning a language in the first place, right?
Like, you're not learning a language just to be pen pals with somebody just to –
Right. speaking and sharing yourself with others verbally.
So if we're not doing any of that when we're learning a language, that's not going to accomplish our goals.
Exactly.
We cannot stay separate from the language, right?
We're not reading about, it's not like a history topic, right?
It's not a documentary, right? that we're trying to consume, right?
It's something we're trying to take in on a visceral level.
Right, exactly.
So guys, I mean, here is this first point, but boiled down.
If you are just reading in English and you don't know how any of these sounds are actually said by a native speaker, then as you read it and say it in your head, you are pronouncing everything from your first language sounds.
And the longer you do that, the harder that is to fix.
This pronunciation will become a fossilized error in your mind and it's really difficult to correct that and go back right and take those first language sounds out.
So that is why we need to get started with audio, with listening as soon as possible.
Yeah.
And just, I want to follow up here, Jessica, what does the word fossilized mean?
That's a good bonus for our listeners today, just in case they don't know what that means before we go into the clip.
Yeah, for sure.
So a fossilized error.
Fossilized means it is a fixed like amber glue cement in your head and It is really difficult to break that up and to do something new.
So it could be pronunciation errors.
It could be grammar errors, right?
So these are the things that are really hard to get past if they are part of your English for too long.
Sure.
I mean, I hear this from students all the time saying they keep making the same mistakes over and, over and over again.
We hear that from you guys.
We know you're struggling with this.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Okay, guys.
So let's get into Ana's second piece of advice here for you guys about learning English the best way from home.
So the second tip is also about listening.
There's one thing I noticed over the years and that is most people know the importance of listening.
Like, if you ask people around, they'll say no yeah yeah, listening is really important and one of the most common pieces of advice around is surround yourself with english news shows, tv shows and such, and what i'm going to suggest is start with english you understand, or at least focus most of your time on english that you already understand.
People often think that once you understand something, you're done with it.
But that's just not how it works with a foreign language most of the time.
Because if you learn about let's say, if you learn about how to ask questions with a simple pass in class, And your teacher gave you five examples and it makes sense to you while you were in class
And then you listen to the conversation from that lesson, which includes asking questions in the past.
And you got it.
Let's say you got it.
So you listen to it a couple of times.
And what a lot of people do is, okay, I'm done with this.
What's next?
All right.
So guys, just so I could sum up what she said right there, because it is very interesting advice.
What she's saying is that it takes a lot of time to actually... acquire language points.
And what that means is you take it in, you understand it, and then you can use it spontaneously.
That's what acquiring language points means.
And that could be vocab, grammar, pronunciation, right?
Yes.
There are many more contexts with grammar rules and vocabulary than you learn in class.
When you learn a word in class, you see it in just one sentence.
You see it in one, maybe a reading passage or whatever.
But this point or this word is used in so many different ways in the real world.
So that's why so much input is needed before we actually know and can use this vocab word or this grammar point.
Yeah, I love that, Jessica.
So much input, right?
That's why it's important the way we structure what we're studying.
I mean, she also says that you should level up a little bit, right?
Listen to a level of English that is just one step above where you are now.
What about that idea?
This is great advice, guys, because you don't want to bite off more than you can chew.
So that's a great idiom, guys.
Yeah, that's a great one.
You're taking on a big thing that is not realistic for you to achieve.
So if you are pre-intermediate level, intermediate level, don't start reading Shakespeare.
Don't get the most difficult English that you can, the fastest speaker.
You need to choose something that you can understand and connect to most of it.
But you're still going to learn a little bit, because it's always going to challenge you, because there's going to be some stuff you don't know.
Yes, definitely.
And do we have any recommendations for where to find good stuff?
You know that we're actually interested in.
It is hard, right?
Yeah, it can be hard.
These are two resources that have real English that is made at different levels.
So there's listening quizzes.
There's videos.
You can get vocab and grammar points at both of these sites.
And also, guys...
If you do want stuff that's not made for students, that is made for natives, you can still do that.
Just make sure, if you're watching something, that you can maybe slow the speed down and you can turn on the subtitles right.
If you're listening to something, read a transcript at the same time, because you do need help understanding and you need to experience understanding.
Yes.
I love it.
So good.
So do we have one last tip then from Anna?
Are we going to get one last piece of advice?
Yes.
Yes.
All right.
Let's go to Anna for her third tip.
Okay.
Okay, so here's my third tip.
It is.
If you feel a little anxious about not having enough time for English because you're really busy, or you have this crazy routine.
Try to start small.
Instead of saying okay, from now on, I'll dedicate one hour to English every day.
And Don't get me wrong.
Some people do that.
They make the decision and stick to it and they're successful.
Yeah, that's true.
I'm amazed at those people really.
But I'm just speaking from my own experience here.
If you're like me and you get sidetracked easily, just set a realistic goal for yourself.
Let's say, for example, listening to last week's English lessons for 15 minutes a day this week, or maybe reading English for 15 minutes a day.
Okay.
I love it.
And this goes back to talking about we, you don't bite off more than you can chew, right?
You have to have achievable goals.
Yes, for sure.
For sure.
And I love that expression for our listeners, guys, write that down.
Don't bite off more than you can chew because we're all guilty of this, right?
This feeling, Jessica, have you done this lately?
You know, bitten off more than you can chew.
Yeah.
You know what?
Oddly enough, yes.
Last week, I decided to go full out and play basketball with a bunch of fifth graders.
And I totally hurt my knee because I am not 10 years old and my body is not super flexible.
So...
I got injured.
That's hilarious.
But that's what happens, right?
We all do it.
Oh, no question.
But with language, we don't want you to do that.
So just a good 15 minutes.
You know, 15 minutes a day.
There's so much we can do in 15 minutes.
You can listen to this podcast.
We structure these episodes to be about 15 minutes a day, guys.
You can read one article.
What else can you do in just 15 minutes?
Yeah.
You can listen to one chapter of an audio book while you're cooking or doing laundry or going for a walk, right?
You can even choose a sitcom, right?
Sitcoms are 20, 30 minutes.
You can watch half of it in the morning while you eat breakfast, and the other half while you ride the quick wins to gain confidence, to have realistic expectations for yourself.
Because guys, you're not going to all of a sudden, you know, study English, be fluent tomorrow.
Like that's not our goal.
And I think that's what our students sometimes expect from themselves.
Like, okay, I'm going to learn English all year and then I'll be perfect.
And that's not...
We can't look at it like that.
Just take it like one day at a time.
Let's do 20 minutes tomorrow.
For sure.
Yeah.
Having the quick win is so important for our minds.
We need to have that quick win, to feel that confidence, to actually want to come back to that episode right.
That we finished and that we were halfway through from the morning commute.
We want to have to want to come back to it.
So just to sum up, guys, we want you to focus on audio.
All the great tips we've gotten from Ana Luisa today, focus on audio and not just reading.
Do it in a visceral way.
You're taking in the audio.
You're not studying the language like it's again, like I said, a history topic, that's already happened and you can't touch it.
You can't interact with it.
No, this is language, right?
I love it.
That's the first tip.
What would be the second one?
I just want to highlight that I love the beauty of this image, right?
That language is a living dynamic creature, almost that you guys want to interact with, not stay away from.
I love it.
And so the second tip guys, is to listen as much as you can and make sure that most of that English you're listening to is English that you can understand at this time.
Save the really tough Oscar-winning movies for the end, right?
Okay?
Right now, let's watch a sitcom.
Let's listen to a podcast that you can slow down, right?
So listen as much as you can, guys, and make sure that it's motivating that you can understand it.
What is the third tip?
Yes, the third tip Jessica is, as Ana Luisa said, make sure you start small and you learn in little chunks.
Like we said, 15 minutes a day, just little chunks.
Get that quick win because science says that once you accomplish something, it becomes more fun for you to come back to it.
It becomes a positive thing in your head.
You have that sense of accomplishment.
You know, there are actual studies that I've seen this idea of the endowed progress effect, right?
Totally.
That sounds fancy.
I like to drop fancy terms sometimes.
I know.
I love it too.
But yeah, that's so true.
We all like doing things well and we all like winning.
Of course we do, guys.
So we want you to feel good about yourself, especially while learning English.
So guys, if you are a Portuguese speaker, please check out Ana Luisa's website. inglesonline.com.br.
And you can come back to the blog post if you want that link.
This is episode 138.
Come back to allearsenglish.com.
Awesome.
And I want to say thank you to Ana Luisa for coming on the show.
It's been so great to get her tips and advice, Jessica.
Yes.
Awesome.
Yeah.
She was really great.
All right.
Have a great day.
Good stuff.
Talk to you soon.
Bye.
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See you next time.
