Why English learners should NOT “Speak More”

one of the most common pieces of advice English learners get just speak more can actually make you worse way worse this is Albert and I've already helped 162 intermediate learners one by one improve their fluency without wasting years simply speaking more so let me show you exactly why I'm saying this what happens if you keep doing it and what you should do instead first of all you should know that speaking broken English is just like walking with a limp this is walking with a limp just in case he is Mr. Limping nice to meet you Mr. Limping he wants to walk faster and better so he decides to walk every single day Mr. Limping doesn't know he's limping he just wants to get better at walking everywhere he goes he walks and everywhere he walks he limps it's day 7 and Mr. Limping has been walking for one hour every day he actually feels better than the week before yeah walking does really help it doesn't hurt anymore but he's still very slow and actually his back hurts a little too now why hasn't he improved? the reason is actually very simple he made the same movements so often that his muscles got used to walk that way he wanted to get better at walking but actually he got better at limping I hope you appreciate the metaphor because the same my friend happens with your English speaking skills so now imagine Alberto hello everybody I am at home speaking with you Alberto is Italian and he wants to learn English Mamma mia! as a beginner Alberto tried to learn it the right way but he often translated in his head ahhh Io sono a casa I am to home eh I am to home as a result when people asked hey where are you? he replied I am to home it's been a while Alberto is now an intermediate learner when he writes he remembers the rule and gets it right but when he speaks the mistake just comes out I am a to home it's like Alberto has lost completely control over his own mouth but why that happened? you see what Alberto doesn't know is that just like walking when you keep speaking without noticing a mistake that mistake doesn't simply disappear it actually solidifies and it basically becomes the backbone of your English every mistake you don't correct it increasingly becomes automatic it cements it becomes bigger this is why you see so many videos here on YouTube about mistakes people make when they try to speak English so why do people throw this advice around? you see for a beginner speaking more can be exactly what you need because they need to actually see what it's like to speak English rather than simply writing it or reading it on a piece of paper they need to get comfortable with the sounds of this language overcome the fear of speaking and learn that they don't need to be perfect so the suggestion to speak more makes perfect sense but once you reach an intermediate level the problem isn't I don't speak enough it's actually I don't notice what I'm doing wrong and so I can't grow and so how do we fix this? I want you to try this today record yourself answering this simple question what did you eat last night for dinner? I know it's simple but don't prepare your answer don't write it down just speak off the cuff then listen to your recording and most importantly write down everything you said not what you think you said the actual words you used because my friend you'll be surprised by what your mouth has been doing without your brain even knowing about it and here is the uncomfortable part you can't fix a problem you don't even know you have you might think you're speaking correctly you might even know in your head the correct sentence but when the pressure is on when you have to answer quickly your mouth still goes back to the old version to the version of you who still doesn't know how to speak well and this my friend happens so many times obviously you can't just go around recording everything you say that would be absolutely ridiculous right? and that's exactly why I built FluentSelf an app specifically built for intermediate English learners to learn how to speak natural and fluent English and get the speaking practice you need for your life goals you speak and the AI listens and instead of simply giving you a shallow correction of your mistakes it goes deep and it helps you notice your old habits your psychological blocks everything that is actually stopping you from becoming the version of you who actually speaks fluent English if you want to try the app you can find FluentSelf down here at the link below check it out and I'll catch you in the next video