Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Why your ENGLISH is NOT IMPROVING & How to get it BACK ON TRACK!

What's going on, guys? So, I'm just heading into Geelong to pick up Kel. She has had to do a

Glucose blood test thing for the pregnancy this morning where she had to fast

last night

Well, effectively she just had to go to bed and not have any breakfast when she got up

but

She's having a blood

insulin glucose response whatever it is tested to see if she has

What is it?

Prenatal diabetes, I've forgotten the name, gestational diabetes. I think it is where

The baby grows too fast because it's getting too much glucose. I assume that's what it is

Anyway, so I have to go pick her up

She's had to have her blood taken and I think they made her drink some some potion full of sugar

Well, I don't know like three times and then they test her the glucose levels an insulin response in her blood

Anyway, today I wanted to get on here until you or talk to you

Maybe do an exercise with you guys,

But I wanted to sort of make you guys

Think about why your English isn't improving, right?

So, like obviously if you're listening to this you English is really good and you're at a very good level, but it's

It's very common that we all plateau when learning languages, right? And I noticed this happen with Portuguese it

At home. It's it's a frustrating thing and it's almost like

It feels like you're walking through

You know, molasses sometimes something very viscous, something very sticky

And so it gets harder and harder

To make those games that you want and you have to push harder and harder and harder

So, today I wanted to sort of be accountable to you guys and talk about why my Portuguese

Hasn't improved and, you know, not make excuses,

But do the inverse, right?

Do the opposite where I show you why or a talk about why it's not improving and then hopefully have you guys think about

why your English isn't improving and

This will obviously help you

Think about what you could be doing better, right? You could think about what you need to be focusing on

So, let me start. Ok, my Portuguese is not improving because I

Don't spend enough time in

Portuguese

listening to Portuguese watching Portuguese TV

Reading in Portuguese. Even though I'm learning Portuguese, I

Still found myself quite often falling back on to English

Even when I am just reading something on Wikipedia or when I'm

Watching, you know, YouTube videos about a certain topic that I probably could find in Portuguese

So, that's one excuse that I don't want to use

It's that I don't spend enough time in the language and I need to do more of that and I know this

My Portuguese is also not improving because I talk about the same things with my wife constantly

And I don't bring up challenging topics. I don't talk about

new subjects as often as I probably could, you know, I shy away from

conversations that would be difficult and maybe I switch into English sometimes with her because I know her English is better than my

Portuguese and

We can have that discussion a little easier if I just use the easiest language

So, I know that that's holding my Portuguese back at times.

My Portuguese isn't improving as well because I listen to too many podcasts

in English

that's another one when I'm exercising, when I'm

Walking when I am out of the house, when I'm in the car driving and I'm listening to podcasts

I still keep finding English podcasts, and I'm not pushing myself

To listen to more in Portuguese so, that probably overlaps with my first excuse

My Portuguese isn't improving because I'm not

I'm not forcing myself to learn more grammar. I'm not forcing myself to learn more vocabulary

So that when I do read things or watch things in in Portuguese, I'm not

analyzing, I'm not actively pulling it apart to try and focus on the

New words or the the words that I may recognize, but don't necessarily

Know how to use so, I know that I could improve my portuguese

better

faster if I

Spent more time

analyzing

The new words, new vocabulary, new slang, new expressions that I do

come across what I do see, right? And

it's one thing that

Quite often you get to a level where you can express yourself well enough,

But you don't iron out, you don't polish off all those sort of rough edges, right?

You don't try and nail the grammar because you know, you can get away with saying things incorrectly

So, I find that in Portuguese, I do that too where

Even though I know I'm making a mistake, I'll still keep making the same mistake because I know I'll be understood

So, that's one thing another reason my Portuguese isn't improving is because I keep making the same mistakes

Despite knowing they're mistakes because I know I'll be understood.

What else? What else? I'm just doing this on the fly

I'm just trying to think of this as I drive in to get Kel

Hmm

My Portuguese isn't improving fast enough because I'm not writing very much in Portuguese. So, I talk every now and then on

Facebook with friends, but that's probably the only writing I really do. It's in instant messages

I don't sit down,

I don't put put time aside to write

About certain topics, to write a diary, to write say short essays about certain topics that I'm interested in

So, that's another thing that I could do. I could probably work on my writing a little more often.

I also don't really focus on

Yeah, that the grammar that I don't use very often, right? And I guess this overlaps again with with not working

on my mistakes

I don't investigate areas that I don't use very often, but every now and then I do use that I know that I'm doing

incorrectly or that I could improve upon, right? Using those hard hard tenses like would have done or

Had been, those sorts of things or the equivalent of those in Portuguese. I know that I could be doing that better

Anyway, guys, that's probably enough of me talking

So, I want you to sit there now and the exercise can be that you repeat after me the phrase

"My English isn't improving because..." and then I want you to finish that with

whatever it is, a sentence, obviously finished that sentence in English and

I want you to list out loud now

The reasons why you think your English isn't improving. Ok? So, repeat after me. My English isn't improving because

What's the reason? I want to hear some reasons, right?

Use this as an exercise to practice your speaking. My English isn't improving because I...

So, have a think what is it that you you're not doing, but you know you should be doing, what should you be doing?

What should I be doing?

My english isn't improving at the moment because I

I don't read enough. I don't listen enough. I don't speak enough

What is it that you need to work on, right? We all know those areas that we suck at most

so, my English isn't improving at the moment because I

Alright, good work that's probably enough, but hopefully this has helped you think about

Which areas of your English need work, which areas of English

Which areas of your English, you know, you need to work on, right? Often we need to force ourselves to sit down and actually

Do the hard work and hopefully it's giving you a bit of motivation to do that now

So, let me know in a comment below guys

What's your weakest point in English and what is somewhere, what is an aspect of your English that you know

I should be working on this, but I'm not at the moment that you know that you're going to now

Ok? Let me know in a comment below and I'll catch you guys later. Peace!