Recently I faced problems to develop my learning in the English language and luckily (or by chance) I came across this wonderful talk by teacher Marianna Pascal, and I found it interesting to talk about it.
Teacher Mariana Pascal teaches Malaysian students to improve their English, and dealing with several students she noticed something in common.
She noticed a difference that made one student do very well at communicating and others not, some with a high level of English but couldn't communicate and others with a low level of English but great at expressing themselves.
The reason for this was that students with a low level of English were focused only on the person they were practicing the conversation with and on its outcome, others were too concerned about what mistakes not to make, or whether they were going to be judged.
The idea that is passed on that we should sound like a well-spoken English (high level), causes excessive concern, overthink stresses the brain, scares us and we get stuck, all because the main focus is not being communication.
We should practice learning as if we were playing video games, even though we suck at that game, we don't care if other players are judging us, we are just having fun and focused on moving to the next level and winning the game.
The teacher also brings data that shows that for every 1 native speaker in English there are 5 non-native speakers, which reinforces that you should not worry so much about making mistakes but about fulfilling your objective, which is to communicate and be understood.
A language is not an art to be mastered, but a tool to achieve your results.
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