Fluency Comes from Relaxing and Enjoying English

Have you ever tried to pick up a new skill and find yourself getting frustrated because you didn't get it as quickly as you thought you should? Well, can be a common occurrence in language learning because there is so much to take in. If you are making yourself tense because you're not becoming fluent in English as fast as you would like, maybe you're trying too hard. In this podcast episode, Gabby talks about a time when she was trying to learn a new skill – scuba diving – and how she made herself relax so she could actually enjoy the experience of learning the sport. Gabby explained that learning English could bring about the same anxieties and frustrations, and the way to overcome that is to relax, take a breath, and enjoy the English language journey. You will find that you learn more, and that you learn quicker if you are able to have fun along the way. Learning English is a new skill, and it requires the same effort as learning any other skill. Don't get nervous, or anxious, and certainly don't hyperventilate. Just relax, and learn new words or phrases while continuing to use the ones that you already use in your conversations. Gonaturalenglish.com is your go-to-place to pick up English language learning tips. Episode transcript below: Hello! And welcome to the Go Natural English podcast. I'm your host, Gabby Wallace, your American English teacher and Number One fluency coach. In today's episode I'm going to share a tip with you that comes from my own personal experience of learning a new skill, and I'm going to relate that to how you can learn the English language better and develop your fluency skills. So, this week I had the pleasure of traveling in Indonesia where I learned to scuba dive for the first time ever. So, learning to scuba dive is pretty scary if you've never done it before. It involves going under the water for a long period of time and breathing through a kind of pipe that's attached to an air tank. And when you go underwater, well, you know you're far from natural air and it's just really freaky – it's really scary because you aren't used to breathing through a kind of cable or cord. It's pretty scary to be under the water about 16 meters, and think about, "Oh my gosh, if anything goes wrong ..." well, we don't want to think about that. What we want to think about is staying calm and enjoying the experience. And that's what I would say the exact same thing about for learning the English language. It can feel really strange to go without your native language for a long time, just like it feels weird to go without regular natural air for a long time – breathing through your scuba tank. It feels weird just like speaking English might feel weird at first. But the best thing that you can do in either situation when you're becoming used to this new situation is to stay calm. You can even invent something that helps you to stay calm. For me, with scuba diving it was counting. I would count my breaths – one – two – three – inhale, and – four – five – six – exhale, and again. And if you just concentrate on doing those simple things like breathing, which when you're speaking English, if you feel like you're going to hyperventilate it might be a good idea, or you could concentrate on simple things like using the vocabulary that you already know. Don't try to pressure yourself to use words that you're not familiar with all the time. Of course it's a good idea to try out new words but if you're feeling really nervous, then just try to stay calm. Relax. Use the skills or the vocabulary that you know and enjoy the experience. I noticed that when I was scuba diving – when I was really worried about what might happen, or might I be in danger – when I was just thinking about those things I couldn't enjoy the be...