Why English Learners Fail

Hey, what’s up, it’s Hadar and this is the Accent’s Way.

Today we are going to talk about ‘Why English Learners Fail’.

Okay, well, I don’t mean fail like

‘can’t learn English at all’

‘can’t read and write’

All that.

But by fail, I mean they fail to reach the next level.

They fail to get off the hamster wheel of learning, and studying and speaking, yet not seeing satisfying results.

The reason why English learners fail is because of their beliefs.

Their beliefs that lead them to either take the right action or not take action at all.

A belief is a thought that is rooted in your brain so deeply until it becomes a reality.

You can have empowering belief, for example

‘No matter what happens I will succeed.’

Or you can have a limiting belief

‘I’m a failure, I’ll never be able to do anything’.

Whatever that belief is, it is what leads us to either move forward or stay stuck in life.

And today I’m going to talk about the five limiting beliefs that prevent my students from mastering spoken English

and speaking English with clarity and confidence.

Belief number one:

In order to master spoken English I have to practice hours on end

and spend a lot of money and I just can’t afford it.

Well, is that really true?

Think of all the hours that you’ve put in during your studies in high school…

or afterwards.

Has that led you to where you want to be?

When you did invest a lot of hours learning something

is the time investment that you’ve put in equaled your success?

Or has it been like this, you’re investing more, and more, and more, and more time, but your success or your

achievements are still pretty low and mediocre.

And what about this?

Has that ever happened to you, where you watched a YouTube video, whether it was about English

or about something else that interests you, and it completely blew your mind.

And you learned so much about English, or about anything else, in those 3-4 minutes.

Right, so maybe it is possible to learn something in just a few minutes that may change

how you speak, how you hear things, how you sound?

So maybe it’s not about time equals progress.

Maybe it’s all about how committed you are to learning what you need to learn

and how good the content that you’re consuming is.

The next thing that might be preventing you from improving is the belief that

if you don’t live in an English-speaking country you will never be able to really master spoken English.

But do you really know that to be true?

I mean, how many people do you know that have lived in the US for example, for many, many years

and still struggle with their spoken English.

They’re still unclear. They still make mistakes. They haven’t mastered spoken English.

Or on the contrary, do you know of anyone, even one person, that has never

lived in an English-speaking country yet was able to master his or her English?

Like Anna, for example.

Anna is a student of mine and she’s also a youtuber with a successful YouTube channel called

‘English Fluency Journey’

Anna has always lived in Ukraine and has never left Ukraine, and yet she was able to master

her spoken English, to a degree where she is now influencing thousands of people

and she teaches English, how incredible is that?

And that is without ever living in an English-speaking country.

So here’s a proof why this belief is not a fact, it’s not reality.

And if it doesn’t apply to her it doesn’t apply to you too.

There are ways to immerse yourself in English

even if you don’t live in an English-speaking country, as long as you have access to technology.

Which if you’re watching me right now, you do!

So, all you need to do is: do the work and commit to it.

And you’ll find a way to immerse yourself in English and improve tremendously.

Another limiting belief that might be holding you back from really getting to the next level is

the belief that your spoken English will improve only when you perfect your grammar.

Really?

How many people do you know that have perfect grammar?

Maybe they are teachers or translators or just people who know how to read and write really, really well

but they still struggle with speaking English with clarity and with confidence.

Maybe they’re afraid to speak because they’re afraid of feeling like a fraud.

So perfect grammar is not the secret to mastering spoken English

to feeling the ultimate confidence in speaking.

Do you know of good speakers, people who have good spoken English, yet they still make grammar mistakes?

I know one.

I make mistakes. Sometimes I make grammar mistakes as I’m making my videos.

Sometimes when I’m teaching people, high-level, executives, and I make mistakes, and you know what?

That doesn’t bother me, because I’m still able to convey my message and usually they don’t even notice.

Even native speakers make mistakes.

So imperfect grammar is not a good enough reason to prevent you from being the speaker that you want to be.

And that perfectionism is just an excuse to not invest the work that you really need to invest

in order to speak the way you want to speak.

And what about this? I can’t improve my accent or spoken English because I can’t hear it.

I don’t notice the different sounds, therefore I will never be able to make it.

If someone were to sing your favorite song, and they would go off-key, you’d immediately pick it up.

Or if you were to sit in a busy restaurant and everyone would be like talking, and yelling, and laughing

and then someone would call your name from the end of the restaurant, the back of the restaurant…

Would you notice it?

Because your brain puts the focus or your brain processes the familiar things.

Your name.

The song.

You’re aware of those things, you are able to hear those things because your brain processes them.

These are familiar things.

When you’re saying to yourself

‘I can’t hear it.’

then your brain shuts down and you really cannot hear it.

Your brain will not register anything, because that’s it. You close that door.

However, if you’re open to listening, to understanding, to paying attention to things that don’t exist

in your language, that’s when you start hearing it.

This is why in my programs, in my online course working with students I always coach them

to hear those sounds first.

They need to be able to perceive them before they can make them and will learn how to hear them

through listening exercises and physical exercises of pronouncing these sounds until it registers.

And you know it takes time to change all those habits, but it’s possible.

The most important thing is that you’re open to it and that you are really working at hearing those differences.

So don’t use this excuse of

‘I just can’t hear it’

to get you off the hook from doing the work in order to improve your spoken English.

And in order to master your spoken English, it has to go through pronunciation.

You have to know the sounds, you have to hear them, you have to know how to use them…

You have to know where to put the stress, cause then you have the power of speech.

And I think for me that was an essential step in mastering my spoken English, my confidence

and my fluency.

The last thing is saying to yourself the phrase ‘English is so hard’.

Nod your head if you’ve ever said that.

Well…

Yes, maybe English is tricky, and funny, and strange, and so many irregular verbs

and the pronunciation doesn’t match the spelling, but…

If you keep thinking of it as hard, your brain will not be willing to learn.

You would always give it the excuse for not working hard to really figure it out.

Okay.

When you say to yourself

‘I can’t do it’

‘It’s too hard’

then your brain will not be receptive.

You will not have that exciting feeling that gives you the motivation to learn and to take action.

When you feel depressed about the language when you feel that it’s impossible

‘Because it’s so hard’

it generates negative emotions, it generates this frustration and stress

and from that state, who wants to take action? Who wants to open books?

Or open YouTube and start learning and speaking out loud. Who wants to start recording themselves?

Not me… not from a place of depression, but when I reframe it and I say

‘English is exciting’

‘English will get me places’

‘If I change my English, I change my circumstances.’

That’s when it becomes exciting, and from that place, being excited, and happy, and motivated…

That’s the place where you take action and you take the right action.

And again, this is why in my programs the mindset and the understanding of your state of being

is crucial for learning effectively.

And not wasting hours and hours learning things that won’t get you results.

So to wrap it up let’s go over all the five beliefs that we talked about.

One, ‘I don’t live in an English-speaking country. Therefore, I can’t improve.’

Two, ‘In order to improve my English I will need to invest many, many hours and lots of money.’

Three, ‘I can’t hear it therefore, I can’t say it.’

Four, ‘In order to improve my spoken English I first need to perfect my grammar.’

And five, ‘English is so hard.’

Which one of those are you guilty of?

What thoughts have crossed your mind in the past few years trying to learn and to improve?

And what is the one thing you are going to take from this video?

Let me know in the comments below. Also, I wanted to invite you to my online program Accent Makeover.

I open doors to this program twice a year, and we are about to start in just a few days.

Accent Makeover is a transformational program that is aimed at taking you from point A, where you are now

to point B, where you want to be.

With a step by step guide, with support, and feedback, and guidance.

Telling you what exactly you need to do every single day…

And what to focus on, so you don’t waste your time learning things that are unnecessary for you.

In this program, I will teach you how to coach yourself, how to start detecting your mistakes

and how to change that, because we believe that instead of giving you fish, in that feedback

that you’re looking for, we will teach you how to fish.

How to know whether or not you’re pronouncing something correctly and then…

You will always have it, even when you’re not in the program.

My students say it’s a transformational program, and the best part about it is that once you join

you get lifetime access, so you are always my student, you’re always a part of the family.

So if you like my videos I think you should definitely come and check out.

And I will help you how to get from the speaker that you are today, stuck on that hamster wheel

to the speaker that you want to be, that speaks English, with confidence, with clarity…

And without the self-doubt that you might be experiencing now every time you speak English.

So if you’re serious about seeing results this year still in 2019, then come check out

theaccentsway.com/course

I’m gonna put a link below and I’m inviting you to join and if you’re watching it after the course has started

get yourself on the wait list and I will notify you when the next round starts.

In the meantime have a beautiful, beautiful day and I will see you next week in the next video.