There are many traits that help a person learn English successfully as a second language. But there is one trait specifically that I believe is the most important one. This trait is called awareness.
When I say awareness, I mean external awareness, meaning that you are aware of the things around you, you are minding your surroundings, but also, and perhaps more importantly, Awareness of yourself Self -awareness I believe that the more aware and self -aware you become as a person, the higher your chances of becoming a very good speaker of English, a very good learner of English, the higher your chances of achieving high levels of fluency and proficiency in the language. And I speak from personal experience, both as a learner and as a teacher. By now, I must have interacted with thousands of students over the years in all kinds of settings, one -on -one settings, online settings, face -to -face classes, group classes.
And in my experience, learners who have this very strong sense of awareness are the ones who reach very nice high levels of proficiency in English. So in today's episode, I want to break down this concept of awareness with you. want to better explain what awareness is about and how it directly relates to successful English learning.
You don't want to miss this episode, so stick around, make yourself comfortable and let's get started. Hey guys, how's it going? Thiago here and welcome to another episode of the podcast.
Before I start explaining here about awareness, I would like to invite you to join my private community. This is a community where you get to interact with me and other learners on a regular basis by exchanging messages. You can ask questions about English learning there.
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So I want to start by defining awareness. Awareness is the state or quality of being conscious of something. It involves having knowledge or perception of a situation, fact or feeling.
There are five main components to awareness. I want to break down each one of these components now and give you some examples here of how these components can be applied directly to successful English learning. OK.
So the first key aspect or component of awareness is consciousness. When it comes to consciousness, you can be conscious of something. We call it conscious awareness, but awareness can also happen unconsciously.
Check it out. Awareness is often linked to consciousness, but it can also include unconscious perception, like I just said. So let's talk about unconscious perception or awareness first.
Sometimes learners absorb language patterns without explicit awareness, leading to intuitive understanding. For instance, a learner may start using correct articles, a, n, the, without fully grasping the rules. This is often linked to extensive exposure to the language.
This is definitely one point. If you gain a lot of exposure to English over time, you will naturally, intuitively, and even unconsciously internalize Thiago Alencar (04:53. 368) some rules.
You will start producing language correctly, not because you have necessarily learned about that piece of language, but just because you have heard that so many times that you have intuitively internalized it. That's great. That happens to everybody.
But there is the extra level, the other level. And this is the level that I see many learners failing, which is the conscious awareness. not just relying on the unconscious awareness of the language or just on your intuition.
Check it out. Conscious awareness is about actively noticing and understanding language features like grammar rules, vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural nuances. For instance, a learner consciously recognizes the difference between I have been studying and I studied.
So you want to combine these two approaches here. You want to combine the intuitive approach, which is all about consuming content in English, experiencing the language in real life as much as you can, but also want to combine that. You want to couple that with mindful, conscious awareness, being mindful of certain structures that you are trying to improve on, you are trying to learn.
trying to correct a mistake that you always make. I say that because I have met so many learners who though they have learned or they had learned certain topics over and over again in their lives, they still make the same mistakes. The mistakes are so frequent that they become what we call fossilized mistakes.
A fossilized mistake is when you make a mistake so much, so often, for so long, that you internalize that mistake as the norm. You think it's okay, it's correct to speak that way. Why does that happen?
Many times, lack of awareness. The learner is not being aware enough. And more specifically, conscious awareness.
So the first takeaway that I want you to have here is Thiago Alencar (07:19. 672) Don't rely solely on unconscious perception. You also want to be mindful and actively notice patterns in the language, structures, rules, things of that nature.
Moving on to the second component of awareness. This one is knowledge and understanding. Awareness implies having some level of knowledge or understanding about the object of awareness.
In this case, the object of awareness is the English language. Okay? So, when it comes to knowing about the language, we have the knowing about the language, okay?
We have the knowing how, and we have the deeper understanding. So, knowing about the language, this is about studying the grammar rules, maybe making a vocabulary list and trying to memorize it. This is nice.
It's nice to do these things as long as they are paired with practice. But more important than just knowing about the language, you should know how to use the language. Your know -how of the language is your ability to use English spontaneously in real -time communication.
This is developed through practice and exposure. Great. That's a.
. . a level above, would say.
But the ultimate level that you want to get to, and that's what I am advocating for in this episode, is having a deeper understanding of the language. It's not just about knowing about the language or knowing how to operate in real life with the language, but having a deeper understanding of the language. This goes beyond memorizing things.
Having a deeper understanding of English is about grasping the meaning behind the words and structures and how they fit into the broader context of communication. So you are able to notice nuances. You look at context.
You look at feel. What feeling do you want to express with that sentence, with that word? You are as precise as you can.
Thiago Alencar (09:45. 046) in your word choice, in your structure choice, in the way you use the language as a whole. Another key component of awareness has to do with external awareness and internal awareness.
I've already hinted at this at the beginning of the episode today. So awareness can be directed inward, toward one's own thoughts and feelings, or outward, toward the external world and events. So, both are beneficial and it should be developing both kinds of awareness here.
Let's talk about external awareness first. External awareness involves paying attention to the language used by others, noticing patterns and trying to emulate them. If you are having a conversation in real life with people in English, you are actively paying attention and noticing how those people use English.
You are on the lookout for patterns. If you are consuming content, watching a movie, listening to a podcast, you are actively paying attention to how the speaker or the actors or the hosts use English. This is being mindful of your surroundings.
This is about external awareness. OK, you can practice this by listening to speakers of English using their language in general. in real life or in media.
Also, by reading authentic materials. When I say authentic materials, I mean real books in English or real articles in English, things that were produced in English, directly in English, not maybe like a not a course book or something that was written or tailored to learners of English, but authentic materials. You pick a book.
And you read it. You choose an article online. Thiago Alencar (11:53.
652) read about. And of course, this is also about actively participating in conversations. But aside from developing your external awareness, you should be developing your internal awareness, your self -awareness.
Check it out. Self -awareness involves monitoring one's own learning process, recognizing strengths and weaknesses, and adapting strategies. For example, a learner realizes they struggle with listening comprehension and decides to focus on that.
Thiago Alencar (12:34. 818) Being self -aware is not the same as being self -conscious. It's important to tell the difference between these two.
When you are self -conscious, you have a heightened self -awareness, let's say. Self -conscious is the heightened self -awareness, and it's usually a bad thing. It's a negative thing because you are so self -conscious.
that you are worried about what other people will think of you, how others will perceive you. This is bad. This is self -consciousness.
You don't want to be self -conscious. Why? You want to be self -aware.
Self -aware is about understanding your learning style, your needs as a learner, your routine as a learner. What works for you? What doesn't work for you?
This is self -awareness, being aware of who you are as an English learner, English speaker, English communicator. Okay? I love this part here about being able to monitor your own learning process, recognizing your strengths as a language learner, your weaknesses as a language learner.
I got a. . .
mention another student of mine now because this happened about, I think, two weeks ago. And that was really interesting. I have this student who started having classes with me recently and we had about a month of classes.
OK. And then after a month, he asked to join me on a meeting. He wanted to talk to me about the upcoming classes.
And then in this meeting, he said that he reflected on his needs as a learner, the things that he is trying to achieve. Thiago Alencar (14:35. 256) with English, his goals, his routine.
And then he came up with a series of suggestions of things that we could implement in our classes together that would be more suitable for him and for his goals. And then at the end of the call, I actually told him, congratulations, great job. You know why?
Because what you did now, You know, calling this meeting, calling me on a meeting, wanting to meet with me to discuss this, very few people do. Very few students do. He was self -aware enough to reflect on what he needs from the classes, what he's looking to achieve.
Reflect on his lifestyle, his difficulties with English. and proactively come up with solutions and strategies. And he wanted to run those strategies by me, those solutions to see what I think, and if we could start implementing some of these things in the classes.
You see, this is self -awareness. All right. It's a perfect example of being self -aware as a learner.
All right. The next component of awareness has to do with perception. Awareness is closely related to perception, the process of acquiring information about the world through your senses.
OK, now, when it comes to being sensorial, right, and being able to perceive things through your senses and English learning, we can think of auditory perception, things that you hear. So this is crucial for spoken language understanding. spoken English, recognizing sounds, intonation, and rhythm.
And you as a learner need to train your ears to distinguish subtle differences. When it comes to English pronunciation, there are many subtle differences between the sounds. One sound can be very similar to the other sound, but they're still different.
But the difference is subtle. So, Thiago Alencar (16:59. 17) The more aware you are as a learner, the more of this subtle ear you also develop when it comes to listening comprehension.
We can also talk about the visual perception. This is also important, things that you see, mainly for reading and writing, would say. You know, being able to recognize letters, words, punctuation.
punctuation. This is so important, I have come across many messages online or even, you know, talking to students, former students, and I am amazed how people don't pay much attention to punctuation. But this is incredibly important.
You know, using the capital letter when the capital letter needs to be used. Using the period when the period needs to be used. So, you see, this is all about being aware of things.
You pay attention to these details. Again, we could say that the more aware you become as a person, the more detail -oriented you become as a learner. And the more detail -oriented you are, the better your English gets because the more nuances you'll be able to pick up, the more correctly you'll be able to write down things.
because you'll be looking at every comma, every period. In other words, you will increase your level of accuracy in the language. Still talking about visual perception, this also aids or helps in picking up non -verbal cues during communication.
When you are talking to a person live or even online on a Zoom call, for example, it's important that you are visually aware. And Thiago Alencar (18:59. 426) Pay attention to the the body language of the person, you the person's body language, the gestures, the facial expression.
And to combine that with your auditory awareness and you can listen to the person's tone of voice. How the person is probably feeling talking to you at that time, if the person is OK or not. You see, all this can be accomplished through awareness.
Alright? The next and final component of awareness is attention. Attention.
Awareness often involves focusing attention on a particular object or phenomenon. Bringing that to English learning, we can talk about selective attention. This is the ability to focus on specific language aspects.
while filtering out directions or distractions. Selective attention is about focusing on specific language aspects while filtering out or eliminating distractions. For instance, a learner might focus on verb tenses in a conversation.
This is a tip that I've given my students over the years quite frequently. For example, imagine we are learning the present perfect tense. What I would always tell my students is, okay, you have learned the present perfect tense in this class.
Now, watch a movie in English with the subtitles in English and actively look for present perfect sentences throughout the movie. Whenever you spot a present perfect tense being used, pause the video and read the subtitles and see how this structure is being used in that scene, in that context. This is selective attention.
You are choosing what to focus on. Thiago Alencar (21:06. 114) Maybe you listening to a podcast and then you can apply selective attention by going something like this.
OK, today I want to focus on the speed of the speaker. want to focus my attention on how fast or how slow the host of the podcast speaks. And as you listen, you pay attention to that, person's pace.
The next day, you can listen to the same podcast, but focusing on something else. focusing on the vocabulary the person uses more often or how the person pronounces certain words. You see, selective attention, but you can only have that if you are aware as a learner.
We also have sustained attention. This is about maintaining focus on language learning tasks over extended periods, which is essential for progress. So.
. . If you are the type of person who gets bored easily, be careful with that.
Maybe you need to work on your sustained attention and develop it more. Because while learning English for the most part should be fun, there are some things sometimes that you have to do to learn English that are not so attractive, are not so exciting. For example, maybe you love writing.
But maybe you hate writing. You know, one learner might love writing, the other learner might hate writing. But if you hate writing.
. . Know that you still have to write.
You still have to practice your writing in English if you want to develop as an English communicator and speaker, you know, as a whole, right? You want to develop all your skills. This may be boring for you to practice, but you got to do it.
So increase your sustained attention. We also have divided attention. Divided attention is about managing multiple language tasks.
Thiago Alencar (23:12. 274) simultaneously, like listening and taking notes, which becomes important, especially in advanced stages of proficiency. I've already talked about the IELTS exam here on the podcast, for example.
One of the skills you need to develop within yourself is actually this, divided attention, being able to listen to a passage and take notes at the same time. relatively quickly. You see?
It's something more cognitive. It has nothing to do with the language itself. So these are the five main components of awareness.
Just to recap, we have consciousness, knowledge and understanding, internal awareness and external awareness, perception and attention. Now, I want to give you, want to close this episode by giving you some practical tips that you can implement to improve your level of awareness as an individual. Remember, my opinion, the more aware and self -aware you become, the better English speaker and learner you will become.
So how can you increase your level of awareness? How can you become more aware as a person in general? Here are some tips.
Practice mindfulness and meditation. Cultivate present -moment awareness through practices like mindfulness meditation or simply focusing on your breath, sensations, and surroundings. I know that for some people, meditation works wonders.
It might not necessarily work for everybody, but you can definitely try meditating because meditation is all about bringing your attention to the present moment. and being aware of what's happening right now. But you don't have to meditate to practice this.
You can simply deliberately focus on your breath, sensations and surroundings. In order to achieve that, you should be in a place with no distractions. So deliberately eliminate distractions.
Maybe leave your phone in another room and just Thiago Alencar (25:39. 687) Have that moment where you are just looking around the room, just looking at your surroundings, wondering. This is practicing awareness and being in the moment.
Thiago Alencar (25:54. 173) By doing this, you can significantly improve your overall awareness of things. Slow down and observe.
Another tip, slow down and observe. Resist the urge to rush through activities. Take time to truly experience and notice details, whether it's eating a meal, walking in nature, or having a conversation.
This is particularly challenging nowadays in this Instagram, TikTok world that we live in nowadays. These social media platforms are making us look like zombies. They are zombifying people.
You go like this, scrolling up all the time and instant gratification, instant stimulation. It's also fast. Fast, fast, fast, quick.
So be careful with that. Slow down. Observe.
Let me say that again. Resist the urge to rush through activities. You know, life nowadays feels very fast, right?
The pace feels very fast nowadays. If you think about all the things you have to do in a given day or on a given day, excuse me, study, go to work, use social media, right? Everything's so fast.
But you have to be deliberate about this. Slow down and appreciate doing things more slowly. You can also try journaling.
Reflecting on your thoughts, feelings, and experiences through writing can help you gain deeper insights and identify patterns in your behavior. So maybe five minutes in the morning or five minutes in the evening before you go to bed, pick up a notebook, pen, and jot down your thoughts about the day, about yourself. Try journaling.
Thiago Alencar (28:08. 381) This can definitely help you raise your level of awareness as well. You can also seek feedback, but make sure you ask trusted friends or colleagues for honest feedback on their strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots.
Okay? But I only recommend doing this with trusted friends or colleagues. Don't ask anybody for feedback.
OK? Feedback about yourself. So, only select a very small handful of people who you truly trust to do so.
OK? When it comes to language learning specific awareness, you can actively plan your learning, monitor your progress, and evaluate your strategies. You can ask yourself questions like, what am I doing well with my English learning?
Where do I need to improve? An idea for this is you could have some sort of weekly review. Once you have set a plan to practice and study English every day throughout the week, maybe reserve a day at the end of the week, maybe on a Sunday evening, where you can sit down and do a weekly review of your English studies that week.
Reflect on your past week. OK, how was this past week for me? When it comes to my English learning and development, what did I do to practice my English?
Could I have done something differently? Did I do something that I didn't enjoy or that didn't work for me? Should I change something?
Thiago Alencar (29:58. 057) Should I talk to my teacher about something? You see?
Do some sort of weekly review. Reflect on your past week. This is also practicing your awareness.
This is you being aware as a learner. Error correction. Pay attention to your mistakes and seek to understand why they happened.
This helps identify areas for improvement. I can't tell you how many times I have corrected learners in classes, but it seems like they don't listen, you know? Why?
This is lack of awareness, guys. Lack of awareness. If you are more aware, you will have the correction.
You will receive the correction. You will take notes of the correction and you will work on that mistake. And then hopefully next class, you will either stop making that mistake altogether or you will have reduced the frequency of that mistake.
Still talking about mistakes. I would say that Self -correction is also very important to develop as a learner. As a matter of fact, the more advanced you become as an English speaker and user, the more or the better you are able to self -correct.
We all make mistakes. The problem is not making mistakes. The problem is being aware of our mistakes.
And if you can be aware of our mistakes and if you can catch it, Thiago Alencar (31:36. 809) when you can spot that you have just made a mistake and you can self -correct, this is a very good indicator. You don't need a teacher anymore to correct you so much.
You yourself can correct yourself. You know when you just said something wrong and immediately you recognize that, you go back and you correct yourself. You see, this is awareness as a learner.
Also, when it comes to active listening, you can focus on understanding the meaning and intent of the speaker, not just individual words. Like I just said, the feel, the type of impact the speaker is trying to have. You can notice pronunciation, intonation, and even non -verbal cues if you are talking to the person live.
Shadowing and mirroring, also mimicking. You can practice repeating phrases or dialogues immediately after hearing them, mimicking pronunciation and intonation. This can boost your phonological awareness, your awareness to the sound of the English language.
And of course, have language immersion. Surround yourself with the language, in this case English, as much as possible through books, movies, music, conversations, etc. because this fosters unconscious learning as well.
Here are some additional tips to become more aware as a learner. Reduce distractions, limit multitasking and create focused time for activities. Minimize phone and social media usage.
Spend time in nature, connect with the natural world, observe details and practice mindfulness in nature. You can go to park, go to the beach, just practice mindfulness. Engage in creative activities, explore arts, music, or any hobby that allows you to express yourself and connect with your inner world.
Thiago Alencar (33:47. 933) You guys know that I love to play music. I love to play guitar.
Guys, whenever I play guitar, to me is a transcendent experience. I feel that I am very in touch with my most authentic self when I have a guitar on me in my hands and when I'm playing it. It feels like home.
It feels like I can be. All I can be. So if you don't have.
an activity that provides you with that feeling, I would encourage you to find one, find a hobby, find an activity that allows you to connect with your inner self. Be curious. Approach new experiences and people with an open and curious mind.
Ask questions and seek to understand different perspectives. I truly believe that the more aware you become as an individual, the more curious you become as well. And curiosity is another key trait of successful English learners.
What you see, in my opinion, curiosity is built on top of awareness. First, you develop awareness, you become more aware. And then, other traits such as curiosity tend to flourish as well.
Remember, consistency is key. Make these practices a regular part of your routine to experience lasting benefits. Be patient and kind to yourself.
Increasing awareness takes time and effort. Celebrate your progress and don't be discouraged by setbacks. And also, enjoy the journey.
As you become more aware, you'll discover new depths and richness in your experiences and interactions. learning English will be a whole different experience, the more aware you become. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this explanation about awareness and these tips on how you can become more aware as a person.
Before we wrap up today's episode, let's jump into the learner's corner. And I have here another message to play for you today by one of our followers here on the channel and on the show. This is Jorge.
Thiago Alencar (36:15. 891) Jorge Gomez. So let's listen to Jorge's message right here.
Hi, Tiago, it's Jorge Gomez from Colombia. I want to just say hello. I've been watching your podcast.
I've been speaking, reading, writing. I get immersed into the language because I was school, studying of English, and I learned some skills or I get my English for some level, but. .
. I really want to get to the another level because right now I'm being working with a company that is from Canada and I'm a Latin guy that just knows to speak Spanish fluently. But right now, I think I am improving my communication skills.
So I'm practicing a lot. I get immersed into the language. hearing, watching, speaking, writing all the time, 24 -7 and 365, that language.
So I had to say hello and thank you for all the classes and all your information. All right, nice. Jorge, thank you so much for the audio message.
was great to listen to your message here on the podcast. And yeah, mean, great job. Keep immersing yourself.
Keep practicing the language and you will see that the more you do that, the better you become. I really enjoyed your vocabulary use here when you said 24 -7 -365, meaning 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days of the year, right? So you have been immersing yourself in English and practicing it all the time, like in a very intense way.
So that's great. Thiago Alencar (38:18. 825) Guys, if you want to do it like Jorge and send me an audio message, you can send me a message on this link, speakpipe .
com slash English with Tiago. So speakpipe . com slash English with Tiago.
can record a short 90 second message in audio there and I can feature your message here on the show. Or if you prefer, can also send me an email. You can write me an email at hello .
teachertiago . gmail . com and you can send me a message, a question, a story that can also be featured here on the show.
All right. Guys, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Remember that a free way for you to support my work is by subscribing to the channel here on YouTube.
This is really important. Like this video. leave a like and also leave a comment telling me what you thought about today's topic, about awareness, about these points that I brought up today and share the channel with your contacts.
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If you are listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can also leave me a five -star review on those platforms there. And if you want to take a step further with me, there are some things you can do to support my work even further. First of all, you can become a member of the channel here on YouTube.
For a very small amount of money, you got to support my work here and you make it possible for me to keep creating this content. Week in, week out. Also, can join my private community, the community I mentioned at the beginning of the video for exclusive content and also one live Q &A with me every month.
You can also check out my pronunciation course. This is a course that teaches you the main sounds of the English language, the main connected speech patterns that you hear in fast spoken English. And that's pretty much it.
I mean, this is how we can support my work. If you want to maybe take a step further and support my work. Thiago Alencar (40:43.
986) financially speaking. Okay. Guys, I'm Thiago.
I'm signing off. Thank you so much. And I'll be talking to you very soon in the upcoming video or episode.
Bye bye.
