Mary Pouline- Sapience Author, Founder, Sapience Publications

Episode 4

Hi there. Mary Pouline here, I am glad to meet you in the 3rd episode of E1T1.

Enemy No. 1: Fear

When it comes to learning English, fear is your enemy No. 1. You need to face this enemy head-on and demolish it. Let’s look at it. Fear of what? Is it fear of what others may think? Will they laugh at me? Will they ridicule me, if I make a mistake? Let not fear to hold you back. The fact is that no sensible person will ever laugh at you for trying to learn a language; they will only admire you for your efforts – just like you would admire someone trying to learn music or sport or computer.

Well, even if someone were to ridicule you today, be sure tomorrow they’ll applaud you. If you are afraid of making mistakes, you’ll never learn a language. Practicing your new language in real-world situations is extremely important in gaining the confidence to speak it. As you try to achieve this confidence, you’ll probably get it wrong a few times. It’s perfectly normal. Accept that. And that’s all right too. You can’t improve at speaking a language unless you try and practice with a fluent speaker who can give you real-time feedback. That’s the best way to improve.

E1T1 Fun:

Here are some ways of getting rid of your fear and gaining fluency:

  1. Spend ten minutes with your language partner discussing the news of the day or some issues in the neighbourhood that both of you are aware of.
  2. Make a phone call to a friend who is fluent in English. Keep the conversation going for at least three minutes. Do not be afraid of making mistakes.
  3. Prepare a one-minute speech in English on any topic you like and rehearse it with your language partner.

Take away:

You can’t get better at speaking a language unless you try, and practice with a fluent speaker who can give you real-time feedback.

Easy and Interesting Ideas for English improvement You need to be hungry

People generally say, to learn something new, you need to be incredibly motivated. Not exactly; we’ll put it this way. To enjoy your food, you need to be hungry. Right! Yes. A similar attitude is needed for language development. We call it starving stimuli or a burning desire. So, what do I mean? You see, having a deep, burning desire to achieve something is a sign that you have the potential to do it. Yes, you are capable of speaking English.

Otherwise, the natural aspiration would not be there in you. It must be a desire that comes from within, not merely motivated by external factors only. The desire is not  just a “nice-to-have” feeling but a “must-have” urge; in that case, your chances of attaining your goal, that is, command over English, would increase exponentially.

Have an accountability calendar

The next step is creating a plan of action that will help you move forward. Doing so systematically needs a little bit of introspection, a bit of looking inside yourself, examining yourself, as they say. In the Each One Teach One activity, we shall see some ways of doing it. Then, you need to have an accountability calendar to keep track of your daily progress. Always remember, true ambition is a disciplined, eager desire. If you focus on the hardship of doing the work, you can’t attain the fortune of success.

Doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable is the key to converting a dream into a defined goal. Mind you, a wishy-washy approach will not work here. Trust me, if you keep going at it, with all your heart, you’ll speak and write English in a way that will amaze everyone around you. And that, sooner than you imagine.

 E1T1 Fun:

Ask yourself the following questions to fire up your desire.

  1. Why should I speak English well?
  2. What is stopping me from speaking English?
  3. Is it because there isn’t a burning desire in me to do it? Let me be honest.
  4. Do I know diligence is the mother of good luck?
  5. When was the last day I spent 30 minutes at a stretch working on my English skills?
  6. Did I bring English into my daily routine?

 Dear friends, you can ask other similar questions to know more about yourself. You can help your language partner to answer these questions as well. You can even convert the introspection session as your E1T1 task of the day to fine-tune your performance. Do these suggestions make sense to you? Give them a try and see remarkable changes in your English learning curve. All the best!

Take away:

Doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable is the key to converting a dream into a defined goal.

All the best. Stay Blessed. Thank you.