How to Make English a Part of Your Life: Lesson 5

Take Responsibility for Your Learning

Welcome to Lesson 5 of the How to Make English a Part of Your Life mini-course!

Today let’s discuss the number one factor that’s standing in your way on your path to fluency: YOU.

Have you ever depended on teachers, textbooks, or other outside factors to “make you fluent”? Have you hoped that if you just find that perfect course or tool you’ll be able to get fluent quickly and easily? Maybe you even thought that this course could be the key to “easy fluency.”

Well, unfortunately, learning a language isn’t always easy. BUT that doesn’t mean that it can’t be FUN!

It’s time to take your learning into your own hands! Learn more in this short (3 minute) video. As always, remember to read the transcript after for full comprehension.

Transcript:

Hey this is Ethan from RealLife English, and I want to welcome you to lesson five of Make English a part of Your Life.

If you are NOT WILLING to learn no one can help you. If you are DETERMINED to learn, no one can stop you.

Lesson five is all about letting go of your dependence on outside factors (for example schools and teachers) to make you fluent.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a teacher myself, and I believe that a good English teacher can make a huge difference in your learning experience.

However, a teacher alone, no matter how good, can’t make you learn English. At some point, you have to take some (or all) of the learning into your hands.

Imagine for a moment that you want to walk to another town. It’s your dream to visit this town, but you don’t know how to arrive there. So, you ask a guide from that town who knows the path very well how to arrive there. He can tell you the way to get there, and he can even give you advice, tools, and resources to help you get there faster and with less difficulty. However, just him telling you this doesn’t get you there. Eventually if you want to arrive at this other town, you have to make the decision to take the first step.

In this same way, only you can make the decision to start on the path to fluency. A teacher can certainly help you along the way, but you’ll have to do the hard work if it’s something you really want to achieve. However, once you do make the decision to start on the path to fluency you will surely see yourself improve little by little and get closer to your goal.

Hopefully you already realize that two or three hour-long classes each week isn’t enough if you really want to reach a high level of English fluency.

If you’re passionate and motivated about achieving this, then you’ll realize that English is something that you do EVERY DAY. But at this point you probably know I’m not telling you to sit down with your textbook and do grammar exercises.

Taking responsibility for your learning means utilizing Lifestyle English to make learning English something that you enjoy and look forward to.

One way to stimulate your English learning is by challenging yourself, that is, by doing things that seem difficult for your level of English (for example, watching a TV show without subtitles). Doing this will without a doubt make the learning process faster. It’s important that you start by changing your mentality toward the language.

First, become comfortable with not understanding 100 percent of the language.

Realize right now that you’re not going to understand everything, that’s okay, you’ll get accustomed and understand more and more over time. Eventually you’ll get to a level where you understand almost everything just through the context. And when you don’t understand something, you’ll have the survival phrases there to help you.

Second, comprehend that you’ll make mistakes, but learn that it’s a good thing, as we talked about in lesson four.

“Formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune” -Jim Rohn

In part VI we’re going to discuss what I believe is the most crucial part of any language: communication. This is where you’re going to take everything that you’ve learned so far and put it to use.

Take Responsibility for Your Learning

Transcript:

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