How to Finally Turn Listening Into Speaking

You're doing your best to try to include English into your day-to-day routine, but the problem is, despite all of your efforts to live an immersion, you feel like your speaking isn't improving as much as your listening is. You still don't feel confident to enter conversations, you still lack vocabulary and struggle to use grammar structures naturally, and you just feel like your listening skills are just much better than your speaking in general. Is there even a solution for this problem? Yes, there is, and this is exactly what I'm gonna teach you in this video. But first, let me introduce myself. Hi, my name is Aline, I'm a non-native speaker of English who's reached fluency, and I'm here to help you speak English with confidence using smart strategies to talk to anyone, anytime. So if that's what you need and you're new to my channel, go ahead and hit the subscribe button and the notification bell so you're the first one to get the new videos with lots of practical strategies. Okay, so the thing is, while all teachers and polyglots tell you you should live an immersion, what they don't tell you is how to do it the right way. And guess what? That's why I'm here today. I'm here to teach you the right way to do it so you can see real results in your speaking when entering conversations. Because, come on, at the end of the day, all we want is to exchange, is to connect with people and have great conversations in English, isn't it? So the truth is, yes, you should live an immersion. I'm not saying you shouldn't. What I'm going to teach you here is how to do it the right way. And let me tell you, I used to consume a lot of English content because I thought that by doing that, I would end up speaking English very well, very naturally, like the people I listened to. I even moved abroad. I lived in an American household for one year and it didn't really help me to speak better. I was still getting stuck. I was still insecure. So principle number one, input for the sake of input isn't enough to activate your speaking skills because listening and consuming is passive. And if you just do that, you will end up becoming a great understander, but not a great communicator and confident speaker. So the question is, how can you turn the English that you consume into the English that you speak? Well, there are two methods, the passive method and the active method. Which one are you using? Because your results depend on the method you adopt. So in case you don't know, the passive method consists of listening for the sake of understanding. You become a great understander because all you want is to understand what they are saying, but you are doing it wrong because the active method is completely different. The active method focuses on listening for the sake of speaking and not just understanding. If speaking is what you want to improve, you need to start practicing the active method. But in order to practice the active method of listening and consuming English, you need to follow three basic rules. Rule number one, focus on listening and not reading. Why? Why should I listen more than read? Because speaking is pronouncing. So you need to have what I call sound memory, which basically is the pronunciation of words and phrases and sentences ready inside your head. So you can think about what you're going to say and you know how to say it. You know how to pronounce it. Therefore, reading only cannot help you because you don't learn how to pronounce words, how to say things. You just, you know, read with the voice of your mind and not with the right pronunciation. Now, what I do recommend in case you love reading, listen to audiobooks. That is a great way to improve your speaking because you are reading and listening at the same time. So you're learning how to pronounce so you can feel confident when it is your time to pronounce and to speak those things. So rule number one, listen more than you read unless you are listening to audiobooks. But there is a secret here. In order to apply the active method, you need to choose something that you can understand at least 90 percent. All right? Because if you can't understand it enough, you're going to be focusing on trying to understand, trying to understand and that is passive. So it's really important that you choose something that you can understand a lot, like most of it. Now, rule number two, listen to content that you can actually use in your speaking. Many people make the mistake of consuming English that is not the same English they will have to speak. For example, they work for a company and they attend meetings but all they consume in English is like action movies. How the heck are action movies going to help them speak English in a meeting? Don't do this. This is a silly mistake that is not helping you speak better. What you have to do is you have to look at your reality and understand the situations where you have to enter conversations and speak English and then you choose your content according to those. Another example is if you live abroad and you want to socialize and make friends, that's what you should listen to. You should listen to TV series and videos on YouTube or podcasts where people are making friends, are socializing, are meeting new people because that's what you want to be able to do. So does it make sense? You have to consume what you will actually speak and not just something else that won't help you with the real situations where you will have to talk. So focus, stop consuming and listening to anything that is irrelevant to your conversations. Rule number three, listen to it at least three times. Your brain needs repetition so whatever you're listening to, whether it's an audio or video, you should listen to it at least three times. Now here is another secret that only I can tell you. Nobody's going to teach you this. There is the right way to listen to something and to consume something so you can activate your speaking and this leads us to the three-step strategy I'm going to teach you right now to activate what you listen in your speaking. So step number one is the first time you listen to this audio for example, you need to focus on grasping the context. What are they talking about in the video? And of course I'm considering that you chose the video based on your real life, on the kind of English you'll have to use, right? You haven't chosen soccer if you need to speak in a meeting. So imagine you chose a video where people are in a meeting and by the way I'm gonna share in many links of real meetings that companies publish on YouTube for you to listen to how real meetings happen with lots of people with different accents. That is how you should practice your speaking skills for meetings. So I'm gonna leave them below so you can immerse yourself in meetings in case you need to speak in meetings, okay? All right, so you have your audio or your video. The first time you listen to it, you're gonna focus on understanding. Just the first time, not the second time. Now step two, you're gonna listen to this for the second time and now you're not gonna focus on understanding. You're gonna focus on taking for yourself the phrases, the expressions that you really like, that you can really use in real life. So ask yourself which phrases and sentences you want to be able to use in your speaking. Which ones sound more fluent to you and you want to take for yourself from the video or from the audio. So the second time you listen to it, it's gonna be like focused on taking for yourself, on stealing for yourself the, you know, the pieces that really interest you. Does it make sense? So here, what you're gonna do is you're gonna pause the video a little bit. You're gonna rewind and listen to that expression or that phrase again and you're gonna say it out loud. You're gonna shadow the speaker. All right, you're gonna listen to it again and say it after the speaker. Again and say it. You have to do it a couple of times until you can remember it from memory. Until you don't need to listen to it again. And I wanted to say it out loud by imagining yourself in the situation where you would say that. What is the situation where you would say that? You would use that expression. You would use that phrase. I want you to imagine. Is it in a meeting? Is it in a socialization? Is it, you know, talking to your neighbor? Where are you? Who are you with? So imagine yourself that there. Rewind the video. Say it out loud by imagining yourself in the situation because your goal is to finish this video with something in your hands. You can't just finish a video by taking nothing for yourself. Many people just listen to understand. That's why you became a great understander but you get stuck when it's time to speak. If you do that, I guarantee that your English immersion is gonna be so much more advantageous. You're gonna take advantage of it and you'll be able to activate your speaking through that. Through that immersion. Okay? And you're gonna come here and tell me, Aline, I've improved tremendously by applying the active method. So that was step number two. Step number three. It's time to correct your mistakes. How can you do that? You can do that by asking yourself a very smart question. Guys, I've been teaching this to my students this whole time and they have improved their English so much by asking themselves these questions. It's such a simple thing but it makes a huge difference. The question is, would you say it the same way? So every time you listen to something that you wanna take for yourself to use in your speaking, ask yourself, would I form the sentence exactly this way? Because when you ask yourself this question, you can compare to the probable mistakes you would make. Maybe you wouldn't conjugate a verb right or maybe you would never think of using that specific expression. Maybe you would forget a word or use the wrong preposition. For example, let me show you what I mean. Imagine you really like a phrase that the person said. It depends a lot on the person. And then you think, okay, I wanna say that. I wanna be able to say that in a conversation. It depends a lot on the person. So ask yourself, would I say it the same way? Oh no, I would make a mistake. I would say, it depends a lot off the person. I wouldn't say on. I would say off. So you catch your mistake before you even make it and you correct yourself and you use it the right way because the native speaker said depend on. And depend on is a chunk. It's a combination. It's not depend off. It's depend on and now you learn because you are actively interacting with the video. You're applying the active method. Does it make sense? So it's a really smart way to not only activate your speaking but also prevent you from making mistakes. So step number three is to always ask yourself, would I say it the same way or would I say it differently? And there's something I need to correct here or there's something for me to learn here. Now you are powerful. Now you know exactly how to immerse yourself in English and consume it the right way using the active listening method, which is the method I teach my students and which has boosted their, not only their listening skills, but mainly their speaking skills. And nowadays they're fluent, I'm fluent and you're gonna become fluent that way. So if you're curious to get to know my methodology even further, I suggest you click on the link down below and I'll take you to a free class where I'll explain to you all about my method and how I can help you become really fluent with not only this strategy I taught you today but with many other strategies. Also, if you want to practice your speaking for free, I have a free WhatsApp group you can join right now to expand your vocabulary and practice your speaking skills. Feel free to join. The link is in the description of this video. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for the next videos.