How I Went From ZERO to FLUENT in English ALONE — 5 Speaking Exercises

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 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 SAA so let's roll hey exia 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 you know still improving my English to get to the point where I would consider myself fluent and these really worked but at that point I didn't have anyone to speak with it was really hard to actually uh use my English with other people uh 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 Wella the chance to try it to practice it oh yeah we'll do it the easy way today all right so let's start with the first one which is singing [Music] 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 uh you know I I I sing when nobody hears it so it would be outside of my comfort zone if you ask 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 uh you're going to be by yourself doing this l right so it's not like uh no no one's going to be watching you and the great thing about this is that you can develop more clear articulation uh

your mus of articulation and it's a really fun way to use your voice so here's what I did what I would do back then I would 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 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 W to turn the whole thing upside down I'll find the things they say just can't be found I'll share this love I fine with everyone we'll sing and dance to Mother Nature songs I don't want this feeling to go away oh that was so upbeat nice 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 the meaning of that expression oh it's something that is high Tempo very energetic like you know you want to dance to this music now upbeat the word upbeat reminds me of the title of the song Upside down right upside down yeah mhm yeah cuzz 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 uh you can Master individual sounds so easily because it's also it's everything is so enunciated and you can focus on the phones 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 can at least I'm feeling it because I just Sayang 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 uh 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 that yeah that's exactly what I was thinking of um and I actually wanted to ask you like when you discovered uh 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 uh forces you to mimic make like the natural flow of this song which is very close to how people speak yeah if it's like uh fast enough not too slow um 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 uh I think you just happened naturally because I'm a musician and in

the band which I was a part of back then in 2010 2011 uh 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 to rehearse um 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 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 your give yourself a chance to improve as well

because you'll notice no 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 uh that was something that I did as well uh there were some sections of the song Some verses that I would really like some sounds in it some sounds from it and I was just obsessed over it this is a thing that I would apply I think to everything like obsessed over the things you were consuming and listen

or watch it over and over again so the thing so the same thing applies here now have a challenge which is actually a chance for you guys to practice you listening and watching and you as well CIA that is with a song that I think you all know you know he Jude by The Beetles 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 [Music] place all right are you all ready let's do this hey don't make it bad

take a set song and make it better remember to let her into your heart then you can start to make it better nice do you see I think it was my first performance on this podcast there you go now uh there's some sounds there that you can practice right that you can pick up one like a make it it's there SN conected speech yeah take a right uh letter let her comes 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 got to make yourself a playlist create a playlist on Spotify on YouTube whatever app you use and have it ready so when you when you feel like singing you have your list there you don't need to find a song you know think about it 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 real life 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 real life 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 so

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 all right so I know I need to go to the supermarket this morning got to buy some Tomatoes then I'll start working at 9:00 have a couple meetings still got to prep for that first one I just love this treat look at these trees how old are they I know these are Urban trees but they're they pretty old all right here already Tomatoes they don't look so good oh man check out the passion fruit it's huge look at that what awesome 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 like I know I speak better when I do this kind of stuff like some sort of physical activity before a podcast so that's got to be true for using language in general now did you notice what I did there like the the kind 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 going to 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 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 a 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 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 easy like I mean uh you were speaking English in the supermarket and you don't live in an english- speaking country uh was it a little bit awkward or not I I thought that it would be you know because uh back in the day I would wear like earbud 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 um but it didn't bother me I think uh these days I'm not that uh shy so for practice uh we're not going to do this year right because you need to go out to actually practice this but take note of this uh add a reminder on your phone right now so you really take action and just 5 minutes 5 minutes would be enough and think about those things that I just said like reflect on what you do next and also

think about look take a look at your surroundings 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 no waste of opportunities here so if you 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 activating my English with a lot of a lot of discipline cuz normally you don't do that you don't naturally find yourself recording you yourself reading right but I'll do that because I wanted to understand you know where I wanted to identify the 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 I 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 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 just works wonders right Works magic mhm like combo is combination there's other words like convo conversation uhuh uh and killer in this sense is exactly what you're saying like uh you could also ccate that with movie or song that's a killer song I love that song that's a really great one um 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 goal first mentality is that you're continually putting happiness off until 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 goal first mentality is that you're continually putting happiness off until the next Milestone nice yeah that's the message I

loved uh while I was reading this book that we should not put off this happiness sometimes we are so fixated on the future goal that we don't appreciate the present smaller wins smaller victories right so that's what James C was talking about that be present be in the moment and enjoy the process right now while 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 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 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 in all of our lessons is by actually watching them on the real life 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 uh because you can break all their resistance it's just reading how hard

is that right and if you record yourself you notice like oh man like a I said that word in a way that I 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 uh 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 cenia 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 oo juicy vocabulary here novice um intention right motions nice a novice like a beginner right an inexperienced person what else what else you to say fulfilled their intention is like to accomplish to have it done motion is like movements another word for that spotted spotted is nice like is when you notice something when you spot something now guys when you

record yourselves and you listen to this 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 a novice is it Novis or naice 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 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 energize really well anyway so let me demonstrate it here with a YouTube clip that I I love this channel it's called very tassium it's a science channel for

people who are not scientists for for known scientists and they explain um 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 um 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 to see things yeah 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 learner 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 handson 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 uh 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 mhm 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 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 uh there's a whole study on this showing that that is actually not uh true we'll really see later yeah we'll see later what actually works He 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' watch and then pay attention close attention to the sounds like interacting that where's the T there interacting interacting the guy said interacting how about auditory where's the U auditory in in

Portuguese I would say ow auditory but there's no you right it's auditory or visual I think visual learning visual not visual but visual right mhm and connect to speech there was a guy who said uh so I like to have a model I'd like to look at that to look it over like if I have a model 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 while 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 video 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 on a weekly basis I watch several videos and I'm learning well I'm doing that to this day I still pause and be like Ah that's that's a nice way to say that I never heard it that way for example or this is a new word to me so uh let's practice now and I'm going to challenge you guys to who are watching now you say because you're a master at this right you're really great at uh explaining vocabulary so just

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 Dereck is 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 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 going to be words as well as the picture we're going to 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 U to help you a bit I didn't find 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

lure 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 real life app and I have here a message from our learner of the week let's do our shout out to Jani [Music] Nas 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 real life on YouTube and after that I found out their app and the way that I can use it free really I'm so happy and grateful to you guys thank you so much a yeah Johan this is it and know she's doing exactly what I was talking about really awesome message thank you so much all right CA 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 aim shadowing maybe you want to explain what it is about or did you want me to tell it about this method uh tell me about the way you do it cuz 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 um 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 like as closely to the Reginal as possible pretty much that now the idea is that you shadowing the person who's speaking so he 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 couple of times to do it to do it in sync but most of the times I did that mimicking or shadowing like just repeating after mhm like pausing now the way I did it I I felt it was more Dynamic and that's what we're going to try today um 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 uh 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 uh you're going to you're going to want to listen to it first right and really obsess over it so here you go obsessing over the same thing and there's just two steps watching and then playing 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 uh

a tech talk that I love but then came my 90 page senior thesis a paper you're supposed to spend a year on and knew for a paper 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 kind of had to like this nice and 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 My Voice work on those muscles of articulation again it's like you're really speaking like it's as if you were that person speaking that that that really helps to really to make your [Music] language Reacher thanks to First vocabulary as 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 and you know go back to the beginning of the clip again here to play it and they going to Shadow it so watch a first time and then go back and Shadow it but then funniest thing happened those first few months they came and went and I I couldn't quite do stuff so we had an awesome new revised plan and then 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 turned into two weeks and one

day I woke up with 3 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 in 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 just speak like just Tim Urban this great Storyteller uh blog writer he really awesome and he's talking all about U how to avoid procrastination in this tat 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 uh 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 I say it amazing amazing how you did that uh now let's do a recap of the five exercises um 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 we 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 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 podcast 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 AIA 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 as 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 reflect on it cuz 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 1 2 3 a yeah if you have the issue of sounding like a robot when you speak English and not really being your true self well then today's lesson will be perfect for you now Imagine This you're listening to someone tell you a story that goes like this yesterday I went to the supermarket I wanted to buy bread I couldn't find it and it came home that's how many Learners sound because they haven't mastered the flow of going from phrase

to phrase more smoothly now that line it could have actually sounded like so yesterday I went to the supermarket cuz I wanted to buy some bread you know but the thing is I couldn't find it so I came home now what made a difference there was not Advanced vocabulary or grammar it was actually those linking words and connectors and fillers that we often Overlook words like you know well like anyway and that's what you will learn and master today so you can sound more natural when you speak in all in a really fun way with

Ethan and I