#427 - How I Went From ZERO to FLUENT in English ALONE — 5 Speaking Exercises
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Most people don't know this, but when I started teaching English more than 10 years ago, the experience that I had speaking was pretty much all by myself alone. So when I say that it is possible for you to develop natural speech like this at home alone, I really mean it because that's literally what I did. And today I'm going to show you how. You'll learn the exact exercises that I use to improve my speaking skills. There's five of them. And in this very lesson, you'll also have the chance to practice them with me and my co-host and friend, Senya.

So let's roll. Ah yeah, Real Life First global citizens. This is Izzy from Real Life English, where it is our mission to guide you beyond the classroom to speak English confidently and naturally, to connect to the world and to actually use your English as a doorway to your greatest life. Hey Xenia, so let's start the lesson already with a little bit of an explanation of what we will do.

So we're covering these five exercises that I did when I was still improving my English to get to the point where I would consider myself fluent. And these really worked. I mean, when I finished by the time I stopped doing these because today these days I work in English, so I already using my English all the time. But at that point, I didn't have anyone to speak with. It was really hard to actually use my English with other people.

And I was a little bit of a loner as well as a teenager, you know. So I used these and they worked. So what we're going to do today is we're going to cover these five exercises in three steps each time we cover one of them. So first I'll explain what I did, then I'll demonstrate and then I'll give you, the audience and you as well, Ksenia, the chance to try it, to practice it. Yeah, we'll do it the easy way today. All right. So let's start with the first one, which is singing.

Now, I know this is, you know, I've done this before in this podcast. I like to sing, right? Do you like to sing? You know, I sing when nobody hears it. So it would be outside of my comfort zone if you asked me to sing today. But yeah, I sing privately. I've heard you singing, so I know you sing very well. Well, yeah, because I practiced, see? And the thing is, you're going to be by yourself doing this.

later right so it's not like uh no one's going to be watching you and the great thing about this is that you can develop more clear articulation uh your muscles articulation and it's really fun way to use your voice so here's what i did what i would do back then i'll choose a song that i really liked you know something that i it's got to be a song that um you just feel energized by

And I'll just choose a part from it to sing. And as a bonus, you can record yourself. I would do that too. And it's great for picking up on the things that you're saying wrong or, you know, all the details. And then you can improve on that. So let me show you here with one of my favorite songs of all time from Jack Johnson, Upside Down. All right, let's do this. ♪ I wanna turn the whole thing upside down ♪ ♪ I'll find the things they say just can't be found ♪

I'll share this love I find with everyone We'll sing and dance to mother nature songs I don't want this feeling to go away

I think I've mentioned it already on this podcast as one of my favorite songs. You said upbeat, by the way. What is that? What is the meaning of that expression? It's something that is high tempo, very energetic. You know, you want to dance to this music. Now, upbeat, the word upbeat reminds me of the title of the song, Upside Down. Upside Down. Yeah. Yeah. Because what is upside down, by the way? You know? Like...

When you turn things upside down, let's imagine like our head is at the top and if you turn it upside down, I know a human being or a child. So the top will be at the bottom. The upper part is at the bottom, right? Yeah. And the lower goes up. So yeah, it's like inverted. So anyway, so why is singing so great? It can master individual sounds so easily because it's also, everything is so enunciated.

And you can focus on the phonemes, you know, and it really wakes up your muscles of articulation. You see, like I'm speaking more clearly now, maybe, I don't know if you could, at least I'm feeling it because I just sang. So, and you get all this energy. So there's some examples of sounds from the song that I think it's great if you pay attention to, like I said,

I'll find the things they say just can't be found. Found. I'll find the things they say just can't be found. It helps you work on that D sound at the end of words, right? Found. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of. And I actually wanted to ask you, like, when you discovered...

that songs could be a great resource for learning English. How did you get to this? Like, I mean, that you can really practice the sounds because when I think of it, singing forces you to mimic like the natural flow of the song, which is very close to how people speak. Yeah, if it's like fast enough, not too slow.

So exactly that, like the great resource to pick up that natural flow because we know English as being a very rhythmical language, right? How did you get to this? This idea of, oh, I could actually, because I know you love singing. How did you discover that I can actually learn? You know, I think it just happened naturally because I'm a musician and in the band, which I was a part of back then in 2010, 2011,

you know, I would sing sometimes. So at home when I was practicing, I noticed, and the songs were in English, I noticed I was like really training my English with it. But I was doing it because I needed to rehearse. So it went from being like a job, a thing that I needed to do to actually...

get something done to actually having fun and improving my English with it. I know there are people like that. I think I consider myself a little bit shy for like singing in public. So what if I don't have a good singing voice?

Yeah, and it's kind of feel awkward. How do I get past that? Because I do believe singing is a great way for learning English. But how to get, you know, over that obstacle that I don't have a good singing voice? Is it an obstacle? It can be an obstacle. But remember, you're going to be doing this alone by yourself. And if you record yourself, you're going to give yourself a chance to improve as well. Because you'll notice, you know, these are the things to improve. So...

do it again, record the same song and not the entire song, just a part of it. So you can do it over and keep improving. I think that was something that I did as well. There were some sections of the song, some verses that I'd really like some sounds in it, some sounds from it. And I'll just obsess over it. This is a thing that I would apply, I think to everything, like obsess over the things you were consuming and listen or watching over and over again. So the same thing applies here.

Now, I have a challenge, which is actually a chance for you guys to practice. You listening and watching and you as well, Ksenia. That is with a song that I think you all know. Do you know Hey Jude by The Beatles? I remember we were singing it actually as a team when we met in Peru. Remember? That was one of the songs we sang at the karaoke place. You can start to make it better. All right.

All right. Are you all ready? Let's do this. So, guys, this will be a challenge right now for me. Izzy is asking me to sing along with the karaoke. I'll be singing a song. It would be so nice if you could join me. And if you're listening to this podcast in our app, you will be seeing the transcription and also the video version with the karaoke so you could sing along. Hey, Jude, don't make it bad.

Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let it into your heart. Then you can start to make better. Nice. Do you see? I think it was my first performance on this podcast. There you go. Now, there's some sounds there that you can practice, right? That you can pick up on. Like make it. Connected speech. Take a...

Right? Letter. Let her. Letter. So these are things that you notice if you sing and then you can actually practice it. Anyway, so to really make this easier for you, you've got to make yourself a playlist. Create a playlist from Spotify or YouTube, whatever app you use and have it ready. So when you feel like singing, you have your list there. You don't need to find a song, you know, think about what could be the song you want to sing to. Now, for all of you guys watching, listening to us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

I don't know if you know, but on the RealLife app, we now have chapters. You can practice with these lessons part by part. It's so much more convenient. And for this lesson, it's especially great because let's say this segment that we just covered about singing, you can practice just that, you know, and then you can move on and keep practicing as you go. It's so much better.

And you can click on the link in the description below to unlock this lesson completely free. If it's your first one, just click the link or search for RealLife English on your favorite app store and we'll see you there. So come on, let's continue watching the lesson over there. All right, Xenia, let's move on to the second exercise. This one is walking and talking.

Sounds pretty simple, but this one is great for you to improve your fluency, your capacity to express your own thoughts, to use your knowledge, you know, all the words you already know. You got to use those, right? And use them in a meaningful way without just like being at home and trying to make up a situation where you need to use them. Actually go out there and use them for real. So I recorded myself taking a walk this morning and doing just that. Let's check it out.

Alright, so I know I need to go to the supermarket this morning. Gotta buy some tomatoes. They don't start working at 9. I have a couple meetings. Still gotta prep for that first one. I just love this tree. Look at these trees. How old are they? I know these are urban trees, but they're pretty old. Alright, here are the tomatoes. They don't look so good. Oh man, check out the passion fruit. It's huge. Look at that.

What? Oh my God. Thank you so much for taking us on a walk with you. It was so cool to see the greenery. At least for this podcast, I know I speak better when I do this kind of stuff, like some sort of physical activity before the podcast. So that's got to be true for using language in general. Now, did you notice what I did there? The types of things I said. For example, when I was at the park, I was thinking about what I wanted to do

on my day like okay so what i'm gonna do today it's just a reflection you know uh listing the things that i could do so you could do that do just that like a take a walk in the morning and think about what you do in your day and do that in english uh now when i was at the supermarket

I was reflecting on the things that I was doing then. I was looking at the objects and naming them and being like, oh, okay, so I need this for that. I commented on stuff like the passion fruit, which is huge. Like it really was. Like you couldn't see in the video so much, but I've never seen such a large passion fruit, right? And on the street, I commented on my surroundings too.

Does the location matter? I mean, like, doesn't matter where you go to have this exercise? Yeah. I mean, that's optimizing it, right? Improving it even more. But just go take a walk and don't judge your surroundings just like a walk, right? But if it can be at a place where you feel really happy, really joyful, that's even better. I think joy is the perfect ingredient for everything. Your performance will probably be a lot better and you'll get a lot more out of it.

You're such a courageous person, Izzy. Like, I mean, you were speaking English in the supermarket and you don't live in an English-speaking country. Was it a little bit awkward or not? I thought that it would be, you know, because back in the day, I would wear like earbuds. So people would just think that I was, I don't know, like speaking with somebody or whatever, not talking to myself. So I wouldn't look like a crazy person. And you guys can do that too, right? Just...

wear one of those and you'll be fine. But it didn't bother me. I think these days I'm not that shy. So for practice, we're not going to do this here, right? Because you need to go out to actually practice this. But take note of this. Add a reminder on your phone right now. So you really take action in just five minutes. Five minutes will be enough.

And think about those things that I just said, like reflect on what you do next. And also think about, take a look at your surroundings and describe it. What catches your attention? What if I don't have words for what I see? Take note of that.

Everything counts, right? There's no waste of opportunities here. So if you don't know something, that's a gap. That's great. Your curiosity for things is showing you the gaps. Awesome. Great. All right. Now let's move on to the next exercise, which is another simple one. This is the simplest of all. That is record myself reading. I'll do that too. And that was one thing that I think was more on the side of curiosity.

activating my English with a lot of discipline. Because normally you don't do that. You don't naturally find yourself recording yourself reading, right? But I would do that because I wanted to understand, you know, where I wanted to identify...

these gaps that we're referring to, but more in terms of pronunciation. That's a killer combo, I guess, because like, you know what I thought? It was just like such an ingenious decision to combine those two. I've heard a lot of times that people, um, suggest recording yourself in English while speaking English to, you know, to spot those, uh,

fossilized mistakes maybe but you you're saying like read and record that's a great way for those who for example like me sometimes I feel stuck I don't know what to talk about okay I told what I did or I talked about what I plan to do and that's it I don't know what to talk about and when you read you don't have to think of what you want to describe you just like reading and recording I love

I love that. I love that. Yeah, it is a killer combo, as you said. And that's an interesting collocation, by the way. What is a killer combo? It's something I wanted to say that it's such a great combination that it like when combined together, it just works wonders, right? Works magic.

Like combo is combination. There's other words like convo, conversation. And killer in this sense is exactly what you're saying. You could also collocate that with movie or song. That's a killer song. I love that song. That's a really great one. So anyway, let me demonstrate it here with a nice quote that I found.

The implicit assumption behind any goal is this. Once I reach my goal, then I'll be happy. The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you're continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.

It's a quote from, do you know who this quote is from? No, I don't. The author of Atomic Habits, James Clear. This book is foundational for a lot of what we cover here in our methodology for learning English. And there's some interesting vocabulary here to explore as well before we move on and talk about this exercise. Do you know the word milestone? What does it mean?

it's like an achievement. So it's just like a step. So when you get to your goal, you kind of break it down into smaller steps. So milestone is one of those steps. So let me play from my phone what I just recorded. Here we go. The implicit assumption behind any goal is this. Once I reach my goal, then I'll be happy. The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you're continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.

Nice. Yeah, that's the message I loved while I was reading this book, that we should not put off this happiness. Sometimes we're so fixated on the future goal that we don't appreciate the present smaller wins, smaller victories, right? So that's what James Clear was talking about, that be present, be in the moment and enjoy the process right now while you're

you know, on your way to reaching your goal. And what does that mean to put something off? Like to put your happiness off? It's to like postpone it, to let yourself enjoy it in the future, not now. And all these expressions that we're covering in this lesson, this one...

milestone as well and all of the previous expressions that we've covered. These are so important for you to develop your fluency, your capacity to express your own thoughts like you would need from like in the second exercise. This is a great way for you to learn new words as well. And you see it in exercises four and five. You have more opportunities to learn new words. And let me ask you guys, like, what if you just don't remember these, you know, when it's time to actually use them when you're walking and talking?

That happens to everybody. Now, one great way for you to not forget, for you to never forget these expressions that you're learning on this lesson and all of our lessons is by actually watching them on the RealLife app and practicing all the words there. I already said the link is in the description, so just click on that and you can go straight to this lesson over there and practice all these words. Now, again, this exercise is really great because you can break all the resistance.

is just reading. How hard is that, right? And if you record yourself, you notice like, oh man, like I said that word in a way that I didn't want to, or I'm too slow. I'm not using connected speech enough. I'm seeing all these opportunities. It's really great for that. Anyway, so now it's time to practice. Are you ready to read a quote here? Let's do this. Just grab another phone so you can record yourself reading this. We're going to show this on screen. If you're not watching this on a real life app, that's where we're going to be showing this. So Ksenia,

Please read. A novice is easily spotted because they do too much. Too many ingredients, too many movements, too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention.

Oh, juicy vocabulary here. Novice, intention, right? Motions. Nice. A novice, like a beginner, right? An inexperienced person. What else? What else did you say? Fulfill their intentions, like to accomplish, to have it done. Motions, like movements, not a word for that. Spotted. Spotted is nice, like when you notice something, when you spot something. Now, guys, when you record yourselves and you listen to this podcast,

Pay attention. Did you spot any mistakes in your reading there? And use that as an opportunity to improve. Personally, I would really want to look up the word novice because, like, you know, it's a word that can be tricky, the pronunciation of it. The sound, novice. Is it novice or novice or like, yeah, I would want to look it up. Good question. Yeah. Let's go to the next exercise here.

which is practicing with a clip, a video clip. We do this all the time here on this podcast, on our app. We have lessons with movies, TV series, podcasts,

podcasts like this one. And this is really great because it gives you the ability to learn all these sounds, all this connected speech, the correct way to pronounce words, which is going to be great for the previous exercise. Because if you don't know how to correctly pronounce words, how are you going to even do that? Right? So these synergize really well. Anyway, so let me demonstrate it here with a YouTube clip that I love this channel.

It's called Veritasium. It's a science channel for people who are not scientists, for known scientists. And they explain really complex stuff in an easy way. And for this kind of activity, you want to find something that you like. This is important because you want to be able to just watch this as if it weren't for learning purposes.

But it is. So let's check it out. This video is about learning styles. What kind of learner are you? Oh, yeah, I'm a visual person. So like I can see things. I think visual learning. Visual. I mean, like I remember formulas like auditory. I need to be like interacting with the material. I like to learn by doing myself. Very hands-on. Hands-on learning.

hands-on so like if i have a model i'd like to look at that and look it over nice and also great vocabulary right a little bit like specific like almost like terms this visual learner auditory learner and there was one more like hands-on

What is a hands-on learner? Well, hands-on in this case is an adjective, right? It's when it's more practical. It's when you use your hands or you actually take action yourself to engage with it. And in this case, learn as you engage with it. Yeah. There was another guy who was talking about this, but not using this word. He said that I learn as I like...

touch things or like when I like do stuff with things yeah when I what how did I just remember how he said that exactly but that's the meaning now in this video Derek the the creator there the owner of the channel he debunks this theory of learning styles like some people are better when they listen some people are better when they see there's a whole study on this showing that that is actually not

True. We'll see later. Yeah, we'll see later what actually works. He'll show us. But let's talk a little bit just about some of the expressions that we hear in the way they were being pronounced, because that's what I would do. The exercise that I would do, I'd watch and then pay attention, close attention to the sounds like interacting. Where's the T there? Interacting, interacting. The guy said interacting. How about auditory?

Where's the U? Auditory. In Portuguese, I would say auditory, but there's no U, right? It's auditory. Or visual? I think visual learning. Visual. Not visual, but visual, right? And connect to speech. There was a guy who said...

So I like to have a motto, I'd like to look at that, to look it over. If I have a motto, I'd like to look at that and look it over. So see the way he's connecting all those words. So pay attention and you're going to learn a lot just by having fun. Like you can do with this lesson, for example, we're using a lot of connected speech here. We're saying words, we're pronouncing them in the way they should be pronounced. And if you pay attention, if you're actually watching with the transcript, you can see, oh, that's nice the way they said that. But how do you usually pick the videos?

or picked in the like back in the day how did you choose the videos to watch and learn oh this this is one thing that i still do to this day because it's i just i'm just living my english right i watch stuff

So I'm a big YouTube consumer. I don't know if on a daily basis, but on a weekly basis, I watch several videos and I'm learning while I'm doing that. To this day, I still pause and be like, huh, that's a nice way to say that. I've never heard it that way, for example, where this is a new word to me. So let's practice now. And I'm going to challenge you guys to who are watching. Now, you can say that because you're a master at this, right? You're really great at explaining vocabulary. So it's going to play a clip here.

And I just want you to take note of the words, the sounds that really pop to you. By the way, now Derek's going to explain what actually works. What is the kind of thing that makes more sense? If you're a teacher, if you're trying to learn more effectively, what works? Check it out.

So if learning styles don't improve learning, then what does? Well, there's a large body of literature that supports the claim that everyone learns better with multimodal approaches, where words and pictures are presented together rather than either words or pictures alone. Now there's gonna be words as well as the picture. We're gonna see if this is any better. This is known as the multimedia effect, and it explains, in part at least, why videos can be such powerful tools for learning when the narration complements the visuals. Duck?

Heart. So just to give you guys like a, to help you a bit, identify some words there that I particularly find interesting, like literature. Like what is that? It's like, that sounds completely different from the way it reads. It's literature. Literature. There's other words as well, but I'm going to leave that to you. Now, as I said before, you know what are really great clips for you guys to practice you listening, watching us

for you to practice with these podcasts. And there are people who are doing just that and really improving their speaking skills by themselves at home alone using the RealLife app. And I have here a message from our learner of the week. Let's do our shout out to Jeannie Nasmy. This app is so complete. I like the way they teach us English and how they help us to improve. I was feeling so stuck in my English because I don't have a partner to study with.

Then I found RealLife on YouTube. And after that, I found out their app and the way that I can use it freely. I'm so happy and grateful to you guys. Thank you so much. Ah yeah, Zhanyi. This is it. And she's doing exactly what I was talking about. Really awesome message. Thank you so much.

All right, Xenia, now let's move to our final exercise, which is shadowing. This is a classic one. I think lots of people do it, but I had my own way of doing it, which I didn't learn from anybody. I just like I heard that it existed as an exercise shadowing. I heard a little bit about the theory of it, but I developed my own way of doing it.

Such a mysterious name, shadowing. Maybe you want to explain what it is about or did you want me to tell it about this method? Tell me about the way you do it because it's probably similar. The way I did it in the past would be I would listen to an audio. Usually it was an audio for me. I would have a text, so I would follow both the text and the audio.

I would pay attention to the pronunciation, to the intonation, and I would try to reproduce it as closely to the original as possible. Mm-hmm.

Pretty much that. Now, the idea is that you're shadowing the person who's speaking. So you're speaking at the same time. That's how I would do it. I don't know if that's how you would do it. You did it in sync. Okay. I tried a couple of times to do it in sync, but most of the times I did that mimicking or shadowing, like just repeating after. Like pausing. Now, the way I did it, I felt it was more dynamic. And that's what we're going to try today. And here's how it works. You got to pick a clip.

a scene from a movie, a TV series. I find TED Talks to be the best tools for this. So choose a TED Talk you like or these lessons. I think they would work pretty well too. And we're going to find just a moment to practice with because if we're going to be speaking simultaneously, you're going to want to listen to it first, right? And really obsess over it. So here we go. Obsessing over the same thing. And there's just two steps. Watching

and then play again so you can shadow it and keep repeating that. You watch it again and then shadow it until you just find yourself to be speaking exactly like the person is speaking. So let me demonstrate it here with a tech talk that I love. But then came my 90 page senior thesis, a paper you're supposed to spend a year on.

I knew for people like that, my normal workflow was not an option. It was way too big of a project. So I planned things out and I decided I kinda had to go something like this.

Nice. You know what I like about this video is that he's so emotional and he changes the pitch. Okay, so doing this was awesome for me to practice the ups and downs of the language, the word stress, and even add more emotion, as you were saying, right? Add more emotion to my voice. Work on those muscles of articulation again. It's like you're really speaking, right? It's as if you were that person speaking. That really helps to really to make your...

language richer thanks to first vocabulary a second exactly to this variety of intonations yeah now let's practice it uh i'm going to play another part of the clip and you guys are going to watch it and then you're going to go back you're going to have to use your hand here and you know go back to the beginning of the clip again here to play it

and they're going to shadow it. So watch it the first time, and then go back and shadow it. But then, the funniest thing happened. Those first few months, they came and went, and I couldn't quite do stuff. So we had an awesome new revised plan. But then those middle months actually went by, and I didn't really write words. And so we were here. And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two weeks. And one day I woke up with three days until the deadline.

Still not having written a word. Anyway, so that's it. Now you guys go back and watch that again. Now this time shadowing. You can see the words on screen if you're on an app and that's going to be really great for you to again work on those muscles of articulation and speak like just Tim Urban. This great storyteller, blog writer. It's really awesome. And he's talking all about how to avoid procrastination in this TED Talk. I love this one. And that's it. These are all the five exercises. And again, I did all of these

All the time. And it got me to fluency. It really did. Like in 2014, I started teaching and I had my actual first conversation. It was my job interview and I got hired and it was the rest is history as you see it.

Amazing. Amazing how you did that. Now let's do a recap of the five exercises. I said that the first exercise is singing. I decided to start with it because it really shows all that energy. It reveals that English can be fun and you can have fun while you practice speaking. The second exercise was walking and talking. The third one was record yourself reading. The fourth one was practicing with a clip. That could be a movie, series, YouTube clip, podcast like this one.

And the fifth one was shadowing. Yeah, guys, so I'm sure you would be interested in experimenting with these five exercises and include them in your study plan. Guys, if you're enjoying these lessons and learning with them a lot, a free way to support us if you're here on YouTube is to subscribe to our channel and give this video a like because it helps YouTube understand that you found this video valuable and so that other learners can find these videos as well.

And if you're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other streaming platform, do the same there. Follow us there, give us a five-star review and share this podcast with your friends who want to learn English as well.

Hi, Xenia. Thank you so much for joining me in this one. It was really great to revisit all these exercises. Some of them I still do. I can't stop doing them because it's, you know, it's me. It's what I do. I don't just teach English. I actually live my English every day. It's part of who I am. And guys, as we always say on this podcast, at the end of our lessons, a really important message that we believe in that if you're able to just take this with you and really

really reflect on it because we really believe in and it's the reason why we're doing all of this that no matter what divides us that which unites us all humanity no matter our differences race gender sexuality cultural differences no matter what these differences could be what unites us is far greater one two three oh yeah