The Fastest Way to Improve Your English

What I'm about to tell you is going to change how you study English from now on. I promise that this is one of the most important videos you will ever watch. So watch this video carefully until the end. What is the fastest way in which you can improve your English? I never liked the word fastest because when teachers use the word fastest or companies use the word fastest, they often try to use it for marketing purposes. The thing is, you have to study English and you have to spend time if you want to learn how to speak this language. So is there a faster way to do so? Let me tell you something. It took me 14 years to go from A1 to C2 and get my band 9 of academic IELTS. 14 years is a long time. But the truth is, most of my progress happened in the last three years. So 11 years of studying the wrong way and finally figuring out the best way to study in the last three years. And that's what I want to tell you guys. I don't want you to make the same mistake. I'm going to share my experiences with you so you know how to exactly study English from now on and how not to waste your time. That is what I call the fastest way to improve your English. My name is Matti and welcome to my Slow English Podcast. Before we begin, if you want to experience learning English with me for free, we have started our free English mini course. Based on your level, beginner, intermediate or advanced, you can join our mini course and receive five special lessons that will guide you towards fluency. You can experience how I teach and you can experience our method for free. To do so, scan the QR code or click on the link about this video. It's for free, guys. Give it a try. Now, let's get to this lesson. What's the fastest way? Look, I cannot give all of you guys the same thing to do. That would be wrong. You have different levels. A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. Some of you who are watching this video may be around A2 level. Some of you may be B1, B2, right? So I can't give you the same recipe. What I can give you is your exact place and your next step. So let me paint you a little picture here. This is a staircase with six steps. One, two, three, four, five, six. Every step belongs to one very important element of English. The first one is vocabulary. You need to learn a few words. The next one is grammar. You need to learn structures in which you can put the words to form a sentence. These two steps, the beginning steps, the foundation steps, they are called systems. These are systems of English. Now you learn the systems. What's next? We're getting to skills, reading, listening. Now reading and listening, these two are called receptive skills. These are the skills that deal with receiving and analyzing information. When you read a text, you're not making anything. You're just reading something that is already made for you. So you are receiving and processing information. Same with listening. When you listen to an audio file, the content is already made. It's already produced. You are consuming it. You are receiving it. You are analyzing it and you try to understand it. These two steps are receptive skills. And then you go to writing and finally speaking. They are called productive skills. These are the skills in which you need to produce the information. When you are writing a text, there is nothing on the paper. It's a blank page. And you have to produce everything. From scratch, you're making sentences. You're using your knowledge in order to write something. Same with speaking. When you want to speak the sentences you're making, they are coming from your brain. You are producing them. These are the six steps. And have you seen this meme of a student trying to skip all of the steps going on the last one, which is speaking. That's the problem with a lot of learners. I receive many comments on my videos full of grammar mistakes, full of vocabulary mistakes. It's very hard to read the comment, that one sentence of a student saying, I want to speak English. If you want to speak English, you're doing what this meme is doing. It's not helpful. You can't do that. You can't skip everything and just take the last step. That's impossible. If you want to get to the last step, you can't meme your way through it. You have to take step one, then step two, then step three, then four, and then five, and finally you get to speaking. All right. So the important thing for you guys is to know on which step you are, because that would determine your next step. Now let's look at a couple of problems students usually have. A lot of students have told me I learn words, but I can't use them when I speak. Look at the staircase. Vocabulary is the very first one. You study words and then you expect to magically skip all the other steps and set foot on the last one, speaking. Learning words is the first one. Speaking is the last one. Why are you skipping all the other ones? If you learn words and then you can't use them in speaking, that's because you're missing all the other steps. Another problem, a student of mine said, uh, on paper, I'm very good. Grammar, vocabulary, but when I speak, I freeze. Again, this student is talking about grammar and vocabulary and then nagging about the fact that he or she cannot speak fluently between grammar and vocabulary, there are all these other skills. Have you worked on them? No. And you expect to jump from grammar and vocabulary to speaking. Or here's another problem. Very common one. I understand English, but I can't speak fluently. This is a problem. A lot of you guys have had. You understand. When you listen, you know what they're saying. When you read, you understand, but when you want to speak, you can't. Why? Because you are good in the reading or in the listening part. The next step is writing and then speaking. You're skipping an important step. I want you to look at this diagram now and think where on this diagram are you? Try to find where you are. Are you at the vocabulary stage still improving words and your grammar is not good, then you know, your next step is grammar. Are you on the grammar step and your grammar is good. Your vocabulary is okay. Next step reading is you're reading. Okay. But you're listening is not so good. Next step is listening and so on and so forth, right? And if everything is okay and you understand English, but you can't speak. Your steps are clear. You're here on the listening part and you need to take the next step, which is writing and finally speaking. So the first thing I want you to do, understand where you are on this staircase, because that shows what you should do next, now that you know where you are, I have five rules for you. You need to follow all the five rules and I guarantee you will improve the fastest. This is the best way you can improve your English. This is the fastest way in which you can improve your English. So first understand where you are on the six levels and then follow the five rules. What are the five rules? Rule number one, produce, do not just consume. Think about the way you learn English. A lot of you read books, watch videos on YouTube. It's an, it's excellent. It's great. Listen to podcasts. Fantastic. Right. And repeat again. And then you expect to speak fluently. If you think about it, reading a book, listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video, these are ways you receive information you are consuming, which is good. It's great. You need to consume first, but the next step is to produce, right? You need to produce. If you want your speaking to get better, you need to speak. If you want your writing to get better, you need to write, you can't watch a few videos on speaking and then expect to become fluent. And that's not going to happen because when you watch a video, you are consuming. When you speak, you need to produce. I'm not saying stop watching YouTube videos or stop reading books or stop listening to podcasts. That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying do them and then come and practice producing, right? You watch this video right now. After that, go to the comment section. That's a very easy exercise. Go to the comment section after this video or right now and start typing. Tell everyone about what you think of this video. What's your opinion? Do you think this is a good video? Do you think what I'm saying makes sense? Or you can tell everyone else how you are working on your English or where you stand on that staircase. That's a very good activity. That's a production activity. You are writing. You watch the video. Now you are writing. Go to the comment section and do it now. Or take a piece of paper and start writing. Remember, writing comes first, speaking comes next. You first write and then you present what you've written. Rule number two, make what you do slightly challenging. What do I mean? If the video you're watching, if the book you're reading, if the activity you're doing, if the podcast you're listening to is too easy for you, it will not help you learn. It will help you consolidate. It will help you review, but it's not helping you to learn. If you want to learn, think of your brain as a muscle. If you want to grow your muscle, if you lift something that is not heavy enough, is your muscle going to become bigger and stronger? No, you need to lift something that is slightly more challenging than what you Pick the videos that are slightly higher than your level. Read books that are slightly more challenging than your level. Listen to podcasts that are slightly higher than your level. Challenge yourself a bit more. If you are reviewing, that's fine. Do something that is easy, but if you're trying to learn, make it more challenging. Next rule, focus on your weakness, not on your strength. This is important because I've seen this a lot. A student of mine told me that my writing is great. I'm very good at writing, but I'm terrible when it comes to listening comprehension. I asked him a couple of questions. Okay, your writing is good, which is weird because writing usually happens after listening. But if your writing is good, something is going on. I asked him a couple of questions and I realized that every time he wants to study, he starts writing. His writing is good. He is very comfortable when it comes to writing. And when he wants to practice, he chooses the comfortable thing to do. And the comfortable thing to do for him is to write. And he does it over and over and over again. What do you think happens then when you only train your strongest muscle and you forget all other muscles, you will look like this guy. You see very big muscles in the upper body and then lower body, nothing. Why? Because he only ever practiced the upper body. That's the same with your English. If you only focus on your strengths because it's comfortable and because you are very confident, I'm very good at writing, so I'm going to write more. You will never improve your weaknesses. So if you are learning English, focus on your weaknesses first, then go for your strengths. The only exception to this rule is when you are close to an exam or a deadline. If, for example, next month you need to take the IELTS test, you should not focus on your weaknesses. Instead, when the deadline is closed, when the exam is closed, when the test is closed, you need to focus on your strengths because they will develop faster because you're already good in them. But if you have no deadline, if you're just learning, forget your strengths, focus on your weaknesses, make them strong first, then go to your strengths. Okay. So if your listening is weak, but your writing is okay or vice versa, focus on the one that is weak first. Rule number four, to me, this is the most crucial rule. Learn from your mistakes. Now, a lot of people just do something. For example, they write a text or they speak with themselves or, um, they listen to a podcast and answer a few questions, but they never check their mistakes or they check their mistakes. This is even worse. They check their mistakes, but they never review them. Look, mistakes are a gold mine. If you make mistakes and you don't review them, you are losing the most valuable element in your learning journey. Feedback is the most important thing you can ask for. You can find a teacher and ask for feedback, or you can use AI. Right now, I think all AI tools are free, at least for correcting a text. You can ask AI to correct the text you've written and to give you feedback. If it's an audio file, if you've recorded your own voice, you can use a speech to text converter. Turn that speech, the audio file into text, give the text to AI. AI will correct it and give it back to you. That's how you can kind of get feedback on your spoken English. Feedback, ask for feedback and based on the mistakes, based on the feedback you get, improve yourself. Last but not least, be the turtle, not the rabbit. Are you familiar with the story of the race between the turtle and the rabbit? So I'm going to make it very quick. Maybe many of you have heard this, maybe not. Once there was a turtle who challenged the rabbits to a race, who would win? Of course, the rabbit is much faster. The turtles are known for being very slow. So the rabbit, who was very arrogant, started running very fast. And then he took a break. He took a nap, he woke up, he had a snack. He went on again. He took a nap and then he overslept. And once he woke up, the turtle had won the race. Why? Because the rabbit was fast, intense, but not consistent. The turtle on the other hand was slow, but consistent. Consistency is the most important thing in the learning journey. Look, I don't want you to study two hours a day. I don't want you to study 10 hours a day. I want you to study 15 minutes a day, every day, regardless of how you feel. If you're down, if you're sad, if you're angry, if you're sick, do it for 15 minutes, and it's a very good trick because you sit down to study and you say, okay, Maddy said only 15 minutes. 15 minutes is easy. Let's do 15 minutes. You get into it, you start enjoying it and you would go on for an hour. But if you don't enjoy it, and if you feel bad, if you don't feel like studying, you can study for 15 minutes and then close it 15 minutes every day. Do this. Try this every day. Force yourself to sit down for 15 minutes. The hard thing about studying is starting to study. Once you start more often than not, you will find yourself enjoying it and you will go on for more than 15 minutes. But if you feel bad, you just end it immediately after 15 minutes, do it. Consistency is key. And that's it again, guys. If you want to experience learning English with me and with my method for free, you can join our free English mini course based on your level, beginner, intermediate, or advanced. We will send you five free lessons. To experience this for free, scan the QR code or click on the link above this video. And don't forget your first homework. Now you have consumed this video. Remember rule one? Produce, don't just consume. Now you have consumed the video. Go to the comment section and start producing. Leave a comment. I'm going to read every single comment. See you soon. Bye.