PLP 12 – Fast English Fluency
Click here to download this episode! (18 MB)
Learn how to develop fast English fluency in episode 12 of the Power Learning Podcast!
In Episode 12, we finish month 9 of the fluency journey of our Master English Conversation Scholarship Contest winners, and discuss how to develop fast English fluency. However, from now until the end of their year on the program, they won’t be joining us on Podcast episodes. (Although I will continue to track their progress and receive their recordings each month). When their year of lessons finishes, they’ll come back to talk about their experience on the program and reveal their new, fluent selves. :)
In this episode of the Power Learning Podcast, I discuss how to see rapid improvement in your fluency by finding the perfect mentors and teachers for your current ability level. By finding these ideal people, you’ll learn exactly what you need to do to move to the next level, and experience speaking success much faster.
Enjoy this Power Learning Podcast episode, and let us know what you think in the comments!
Power Learning Podcast 12 – Fast English Fluency – full transcript below…
Well hello, and welcome to episode 12 of the Englishanyone.com Power Learning Podcast. I’m Drew Badger, the co-founder of Englishanyone.com. I’m an author and English-speaking confidence expert, and I don’t like shrimp. But I really like lobster. And I find that very interesting, anyway. Today let’s get into our continuing saga of the four winners from the Master English Conversation Scholarship Contest. Uh, as we have been doing for the past few months they will not be joining me this month. Even though I am receiving their recordings as usual, they will come back at the end of the year to talk about how they’ve been learning and how they’ve felt on the program, uh, they’re success and, and everything else that I’m really excited to hear about from them. But even though we will not be hearing from them today, I’d really like to talk about ways, like all ways that we can continue to help them improve and to help you improve as well. So just like we’ve been doing we’re moving from the more general, so tips about how to think and how to learn generally, to more specific tactical kinds of things that you can do to improve. And today will be no different. So we’re moving, again getting more and more specific about our tips, but especially for speaking.
So the last part of the year here we are all talking about speaking, because that’s really the most important thing. You need to be doing lots of practice, getting out and meeting people that help you improve. And so that’s what we’ll be talking about today. Everyone essentially has a goal, an ultimate goal they’d like to reach, and it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. I mean we are talking about English specifically in this podcast, and for Englishanyone.com, but it’s the same thing for any interest, or activity, or hobby you’re doing. And uh, along with having goals and specific things that you want to accomplish there are also people that can help you at various levels of your success. So you’ve got the people just above you, the people a little bit further than that, and the people all the way up at the top that are already successful. And these are the visible heroes and the idols in any group. So if you’re a beginning rock band, you’re just starting to form your group, most of those bands have an idol. They’ve got an influence of some kind that’s a, a really popular famous band. Maybe they will never meet that band or those people, but they look to them for inspiration and ideas about how to improve. And it’s the same thing for learning English.
So today I want to talk about the principle of the next rung. So on a ladder, just like a flight of stairs, you’ve got the horizontal bars between the two vertical ones. And these are called rungs, so a rung it’s just the place where you put your feet so you can uh, just like stairs, step up to the next level. Now it’s important to talk about this, because every person basically has two things that they really need to do to achieve success in anything. The first one is have an ultimate goal, the place where you’d really like to be the ultimate thing you want. Uh, and again this may change, and you may adapt this goal. But basically in the back of your mind you always have a specific thing that you’re after, and the more specific you can make that, the more clear you can make in your mind uh, the easier you will be pulled and drawn to that thing. The other thing you need to focus on is what needs to be done today. What a lot of people do is get stuck because they’re thinking about their ultimate goal, and then how far away from it they are. Now this is a very common thing. Everybody, I, I myself experience this. Uh, so I have my own dreams about business and improving uh, the lives of so many more English speakers. But I’m still very far away from that right now. Uh, and I can get discouraged about that sometimes, or I can decide to think, okay. I have my specific goal and I know what I want to do in the future. But I know I can’t get there without taking all of these little steps in between. So even if some little thing I’m doing, I’m just you know, trying to uh, learn some new thing about business or in the case of language learning I’m trying to learn uh, a new way of speaking Japanese or something like that.
Those are the things that I really need to focus on, even though they’re not as sexy, or as cool, or as fun as the ultimate goal and where I envision myself for the future. So we’ve got this interplay, this connection between the place where you are now and the kind of very next thing that you need to do, and the place all the way up at the top. Now along with the different things that you need to be doing, again the next thing that you need to do, and the ultimate thing you want to do, there are also people that reflect these two positions. Now the first one, as I mentioned before, these are the obvious heroes that you have, the people that are all the way up at the top. And just like looking at the ultimate goal you have, and you, you see how far away you are from it, you can look at your heroes and also look at them and think wow how can I ever do that? Maybe you’re just learning right now. You can understand what I’m saying, but you don’t feel like you’re a confident speaker, and you don’t really know exactly how you’ll do it. Now you can look at the people that are great speakers, and you can be envious of them and jealous. Or you can kind of ask them for help. Now to reach the next rung on the ladder, again R-U-N-G. These are those just like steps on a ladder, to reach the next rung on the ladder you need to not focus your energy so much on the ultimate goal, although it’s important to remember it. You really need to be spending most of your energy, maybe 90 to 95 percent of your energy focusing on the next step.
And when you, instead of focusing all your energy on the idols that maybe you’ll never meet, I really want you to work on meeting. Focus on meeting the other people that can help you reach the very next rung on the ladder. And the principle of the next rung means that if you can continually meet people that are just a level above you, and learn from them, and pull yourself up to that level, and continue to do that faster and faster you will ultimately reach your ultimate goal. Now instead of thinking about an ultimate goal and how far away you are, remember how close you are to the next level. So I’ll talk about a few good reasons why this is so important right now. So the first reason why it’s much better to focus on the people just above you to learn as opposed to the people that are way, way ahead of you, the idols that maybe you ultimately want to become uh, the first reason is that there are too many steps in between where you are now and where they are. Now you can look at somebody and you can see the success that they have. They’re a great speaker or a successful businessperson, or great at sports. But what you don’t see on a day-to-day basis, because you don’t really know them very well is all of the steps they took to get there. So all of the rungs that they themselves had to climb to reach these heights, or reach the level of success that they have. So when you look at these people and you try to copy what they do, you don’t really have the whole picture. And that’s to be expected.
So instead of focusing your attention on what they’re doing, because they’re, you know, they’re really just so many more steps ahead of you that there are just a lot of hidden steps that you don’t really know. A lot of small intricate things that maybe they’ve done that you can’t really know unless you’re actually moving up to those levels before you get to that ultimate level. So the opposite thing you’d be doing again I focusing on finding people that are just a level above you. Now these could be other native speakers, but they can also be people that are learning the language just like you are. But you have to be careful about who you spend your time with, because the people that are at the same level with you, they will give you kind of emotional support. But they will not be able to teach you so much. So again it’s important to spend time around people just like a regular teacher and students in a classroom, both of those groups, the students and the teacher both are important. The students will give you a base of support for success and failure and kind of enjoying the journey. But the teacher will be the one you really do a lot of learning from. Now within the class you’ve still got some students, maybe they’re not as good as you, and others that are uh, much better than you. And the students that are much better than you are the ones you really need to be focusing on uh, meeting and spending time with. The second reason why you should be spending your time focusing on the people at your level is because again the people at the top are going to be much more difficult to contact.
They’re really busy, they’ve got their own things that they’re doing and they’re also, if they’re smart, really focusing on trying to meet people that are even better than they are. So everybody is working on that. Uh, but because they are kind of so far up uh, it’s going to be really difficult to contact them. So me like trying to mail people uh, oh YouTube uh, if they’re really, really famous or really popular sometimes I won’t hear back, and that’s how it happens. Uh, but if they’re not, if they’re at kind of the same uh, level as me or a little bit above me they’re much easier to contact. And because uh, they understand where I’m coming from. The third thing that is really important to remember is that the people at the top are not going to be as interested in helping you personally. So they’ll be certainly interested in helping you and seeing that you succeed, but having a lot of time to work with people personally uh, that’s a very valuable thing. Especially for successful people, so again focus on the people that are at the rung just above you. Now these could be people in your classroom if you’re in a classroom studying, or they could be in a group even that’s also learning. But look for people that are really taking action uh, but they’re not too far away. And you’ll know that they’re not too far away because they’re actually willing to help. Now people closer on the rung, the kind of next level rung up from you, they will understand your situation. And so that’s why it’s really important to contact these people. The people at the very top, all of these really super successful people, maybe they achieved success many, many years ago when conditions were different.
Uh, or they don’t remember exactly how they did something, it’s more difficult to get specific tactical advice from these people at the top. So again I’m just giving more and more reasons why idols are important, but they’re really not who you should be focusing your attention on if you want to get fluent faster. So the people above you that are trying to learn as well uh, they are also very hungry. We use this uh, expression in English to be hungry about something. So to be very hungry and you are excited to do something, these are the people again that you really need to connect with. Uh, and then they will be the ones that really give you the best advice for your situation. So look for the people in your classes. Uh, look for other people, maybe they’re in English learning forums as well where they’re also learning and studying things. Or they could be other native speakers that just do the kinds of things that you do uh, like let’s say you like gardening. And they also enjoy gardening, and you can kind of learn from them. But find people that are hungry, they’re just a level above you, that can help pull you up. And then you can help kind of you know, share things with them, and have a much better relationship with those people. Those are the real mentors that you need.
And the faster you get at connecting with those people, learning from them, and then connecting with the people higher than them that will be the thing that really pulls you to success much faster than having an ultimate goal and just focusing on that. To help you meet more native speakers I’ve also created a guide, I just released it maybe a few weeks ago. So if you’re now new to the program, and you’re even new to Englishanyone.com, and you want to learn how to meet more native speakers, especially people that can help you get to the next rung, go to Englishanyone.com. And you can find Power Learning, that’s my free English learning program. And it now contains my guide to meeting native speakers. Now you can go out and use that to meet lots of people. It takes you step by step through how to meet people, what to say, where to go. Uh, and you can use those people uh, and work with them to get you to the next level in your English speaking success. Well uh, you can find that at Englishanyone.com as I said. And if you’re watching this video on YouTube you can click on the link right here in the video. And it will take you right there to download it absolutely free. Well I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the power learning podcast. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. If you’re in, you know, YouTube or right now you’re on Englishanyone.com listening to this, click on the comments down below. How can you help others who maybe uh, at a, at maybe uh, a lower rung than you, but how can you also find others that are at uh, higher rungs that you can learn from.
So feel free to meet and introduce yourselves to each other in the comments below. Uh, say hello, and uh, don’t just say something like let’s meet on Skype. I really want to see something like what can you help people do? Or what would you really like to learn? So tell me, tell others what you’re struggling with, and other people can also join in the comments and talk more about that. Well have an excellent day, focus on your ultimate goal and have your, your real cool you know, posters of idols on your wall. But focus all of your energy or at least 95 percent of it on the next rung on the ladder. Have an excellent day, and I will see you next time. Bye bye.
Related English Language Learning Articles:
How to Improve Your English Listening Skills (For FAST Fluency!)
