happen to be right now. In today's lesson we're going to talk a little

bit about being shy or being confident when you are speaking English to people.

Actually today's lesson was a request from one of my YouTube viewers and that person

said "I have a chance to meet foreigners once a

week but ... when in front of them, I get nervous and my mind goes blank, so I can't speak

English at all. What should I do?" Today I'm going to try and answer that question

as best as I can and I am going to give you five tips for speaking English confidently In a group of people.

Welcome back.

We actually have a word in English to describe this feeling of our minds going blank when

faced with people. This feeling of freezing in front of people.

We say "stage fright." A "stage fright" of course comes form the idea

of performing or acting on a stage in front of people.

The Free Dictionary defines stage fright as acute nervousness associated with performing

or speaking in front of an audience. A little nervousness is never a bad thing,

however if you become too nervous we can't think straight and we can't perform properly

in front of people. This feeling of shyness basically comes down

to three fears. I talk about those three fears, and how you

can overcome them, in a lot of detail in a special report, or bonus lesson, that I made

you can find out more about that if you join the Doing English newsletter.

First of all, it is important that you remember that it isn't just you that feels shy or

nervous. In fact everyone feels shy and nervous to

a certain extent. It's just that some people are much better

at ignoring it or hiding it from other people. But the fact remains, that everyone feels

shy and nervous. So don't think it is just you that feels that

way. It isn't. It's everyone.

my first tip is simply to prepare. If we have no preparation, then we will feel

more nervous because we don't know what to expect.

And that will make it much harder for us to get over our nervousness.

So try and imagine in advance the kinds of things you might need to talk about.

Or the kinds of people might meet. Think about what you might say and work out

how you could say it. If you don't know the English now is a good

time to find out. Also you can prepare a topic to talk about.

It could be anything for example if you've read an interesting book recently find out

how you would talk about that interesting book.

Prehaps you won't need that topic. But regardless of whether you need it or not,

you will feel much better for having something ready that you can talk about easily if you

need it. It might seem like a lot of trouble to prepare

in this way but actually over time you will find that more and more you don't need preparation.

That you don't need to prepare a topic. Because you will get used to being in this

kind of situation. And things will naturally be much easier and

make you feel less nervous. Something that has always worked very well

for me is to set a "nervous stop time". What does that mean?

Think of it this way You're going to meet a group of people at

12:30 in the afteroon. Allow yourself the first 30 minutes to feel

really nervous don't try to stop yourself from feeling really nervous.

Just go with it. But after that 30 minutes is over, at 1:00,

at that time you have to stop. You have to stop feeling nervous and just

get on with it. By allowing yourself to have this 'nervous

time', this first 30 minutes it is actually much easier to get it out of your system.

And to get over it. So when we reach our stop time at 1:00 you

can just forget all about feeling shy and nervous.

My third tip seems very simple and very basic, but it is something that often people fail

to do. Introduce yourself to, or greet, everyone

as quickly as you possibly can. Again, this sounds very basic but actually

making the first contact is the hardest part and the longer you leave it the harder it

will be. So just do it.

Get it done fast. Make first contact and then after that, things

will be much easier. You can also think of it like this:

Everybody is probably feeling the same as you are that means, if you stop thinking about

yourself and start thinking about other people you're actually making things much easier for

them if you introduce yourself quickly. Also, introduce other people that you know,

or that have just met to the new people that you meet.

This will make it much easier for everyone to join a conversation.

And it will also mean that people will turn to you as a person who they can trust and

talk to easily. Basically stop thinking about yourself, and

start worrying about other people, and things will be much easier and much smoother.

My forth tip is to be authentic, and true to yourself.

Now, this works two ways. First of all, don't apologise for yourself.

As an English learner speaking English as a second language it is only natural that

you might make mistakes. Maybe you will make grammar mistakes.

Maybe you will misunderstand some things that people say.

Maybe they will mistunderstand you. But it doesn't matter.

Everybody understsand that you are an English learner. And nobody minds about these mistakes.

So don't feel like you have to apologise for them.

At the same time, don't try to make yourself seem much greater than you are.

When they get nervous, many people will exaggerate and boast about the things that they have

done and have achieved. You don't need to do this.

Be humble. Be authentic.

Be honest about yourself. And people will respect you for it.

My fifth tip today, and possible the most important, is to talk less and listen more.

Everybody likes to talk about themselves which means for you, if you want to seem like somebody

who is a very good talker, and is very good communicating with people the best thing you

can do is to give them a chance to talk about themselves and to listen with interest.

Instead of talking about things yourself try to find questions to ask.

Ask things to other people, and listen to their answers.

What sort of things should you ask? It doesn't matter.

Again, the point is simply that people like to talk about themselves.

So think of something. Thing of anything and ask them that.

Listen and keep the conversation going by asking more questions.

And that is it for today. So just remember everybody gets nervous.

Everybody gets stage fright. But it isn't something which has to stop you

from doing what you want to do. Just follow the tips in this video, and soon

you'll forget all about feeling nervous. My question for you today, is do you have

any tips of your own for overcoming nervousness and feeling more confident when speaking to

people in English? If you do, leave us a comment under this video.

And I will see you in the next lesson.