we teach English every single day to people all over the world with

different nationalities and after doing it for three or so years we've realized

that a lot of people actually start to get stuck particularly in the

intermediate area or the b1 b2 level of language so in this video we're going to

give you three fantastic ways that you can implement into your life to go

beyond the level that you are at now and so you can get out of that plateau that

you have reached with your English so we can say goodbye to the intermediate

levels and push towards the advanced levels of English

technique number one

is largely focusing on your drive your motivation or your get-up-and-go and a

lot of language learners start out with a ton of motivation drive and get-up-and-go

don't we because when you know nothing to knowing a little bit it's

quite a big contrast you can say oh my god I know all of these phrases now and

before I didn't know any of it I'm amazing I'm learning so much I'm a

sponge of information and it continues like this doesn't it unfortunately not it doesn't

we all know that the longer that we practice a skill or a hobby and

we have gone past that initial beginners phase it can be really difficult for us

to spot or to notice our improvements over time and we have noticed with many

of our students that are at an intermediate level some of them feel

like they stay stuck on that level for such a long time and they can never

really see themselves progressing past that b1 or b2

level well we were actually looking for a case study to example this first

technique that we want to give you but it was actually staring us right in the

face because Harry was actually doing it so as many of you will know I am

learning Spanish and you may have seen me in a video of Lucy attempting to sing

a Mexican song to her to serenade her

but clearly that didn't work because she's got a boyfriend now anyway many of

the people with whom I practice my Spanish have told me recently that I

have advanced my level and it appears that now I am more or less at a c1 level

and this noticeable progression that I have made I attribute it to this

technique that I have been employing in my Spanish studies so I thought to

myself how can I mix one of my passions in life with my language learning and

one of those passions is psychology so I started looking on YouTube for Spanish

psychologists who practice cognitive behavioral therapy and I found Rafael Santandreu

and me encanta I love this guy I love everything that he does and now

I've completely immersed myself in his teachings and in doing this I've learned

so much more Spanish and now when I talk about psychology and I have the types of

philosophical conversations that I enjoy having with people about life but in

Spanish I feel confident talking about this subject because I have read all of

his books I even tried to translate one of his books into English it was a

really good technique for me and by reading those books and completely

throwing myself into Spanish in that way helped me so much

so a great technique to supercharge that intrinsic motivation is

to connect yourself to a true interest of yours the areas in life that make you

tick that make you forget about going to bed on time at 10:45 or even make you

forget about the important necessities in life of err like showering

so we asked you to get in touch with your passions your callings

your purposes your interests and like Harry follow or get avidly involved in

someone who personifies your interest and we want you to get really creative

with the ways in which you interact with these interests in English and if you

have some creative ideas tell us write to us put them in the

comments the possibilities are endless I tell you they are endless

you could take a course at uni or online about that topic that you're interested in

you could host a meet-up in your local area in which you interact in English with other

people about a subject or an activity that you love like hiking or reading or

fashion anything that interests you you could make your own online content that

you're actually really proud of and showcase it to your friends and family

write reviews and blogs about places and restaurants that you visit become a travel blogger

you could even get super creative by thinking outside of the box

like how about writing your own short story producing a miniature series of videos on YouTube

or you could even do something as daring as writing your own

TED talk in English and then applying to Ted and asking to do this talk I mean

people actually do this and me and Charlie are actually considering doing

our own TED talk sometime soon and I would love to do

that in Spanish it would be scary but it would be an incredible project whatever

it is remember that if you are not getting the results you want then it

might be time to change your approach

okay now we are ready for technique number two now many people that get

stuck in the intermediate realm or level of English are stuck there because they

lack the fully involved experience of learning English our advice is to give

yourself that fully immersive experience as much as possible and if it's actually

difficult to go to an english-speaking country then use technology to surround

yourself in English now it is totally possible to do this from the comfort of

your own home because the Internet is full it is insane the amount of free

resources that you can find online on different websites and social media

platforms that will help you with your English all you need is access to the

Internet which means you can do this if you don't have a favorite list of

podcasts then you're missing out if you've never listened to a British radio

station then get on it we've got so many fantastic radio stations that are

broadcasting really interesting modern and also traditional music all over the

radio we have Radio one which broadcasts

modern pop music we have radio 2 which plays classical folk and world music

with BBC 1xtra which is all about modern day urban music from the UK find the

radio station that discusses topics that interest you or the radio station that

shares your musical preference and listen to it every day if you don't know

who David Attenborough is then you need to actually probably stop this video

right now and go and enjoy his amazing wildlife

footage that he narrates in a brilliantly quintessentially British way

it's fantastic if you still have your phone set to your native language we

need to change that immediately I have my phone in Spanish and I even have to

talk to Siri in Spanish so if you've got an iPhone

make sure you pop your iPhone on English

hola Siri oye Siri... bitch

so this is a really good way to improve your pronunciation as well because Siri will

only respond to you if you pronounce things correctly oye Siri... f****** hell

our point here is to manipulate your surroundings to be predominantly English

the next step to truly immerse yourself in English is to get on a plane and

catch a flight to the UK or any other native english-speaking country and once

you arrive in that english-speaking country don't expect the language to

come to you I've spoken to many of my students who have been to England and

they actually said that they speak more English when they're in their own

country taking lessons now I think that is absurd so what we have to do is we

have to put ourselves in situations in which we can actually talk to native

speakers and other learners of English because it's not just going to happen

without us doing something

get yourself on an immersion course because these

courses really make you actively interact with the target language in

ways that you wouldn't do elsewhere and it really helps your confidence and your

fluency grow in a short amount of time of course we have our very own English

immersion courses which we are incredibly proud of not only because

we started our own business but because we think we've created a truly immersive

experience which is different to any other immersion course because you'll

actually be living with two native English teachers me and Charlie for a week

so if that is of interest to you do click on this link and find out more about

those courses but if it's a bit too far for you to travel then check out one of

the other immersion courses which is available to you more locally

technique number three this takes us back to an episode we released earlier this year

and this technique is rather unheard of really it's called language coaching we're

going to dive back into part two of the interview with this coach that I

interviewed called Christina Lorimer so let's get stuck in shall we

this is the second part of the interview you can check out part one where we

covered what a language coach is at the end of this video or by clicking the top

right info card now moving on to part two Christina is going to cover the

outline of how to do a coaching session

you know you start with motivation it always

starts with motivation so today at this moment you know on a scale of 1 to 10

how motivated are you feeling about you know working on your English right now

and then you know you start with that number that number is pretty important

especially in terms of a short session because that's the way you're gonna end

so you're gonna bookend the sessions with on a scale of 1 to 10 how motivated

are you feeling about improving your English today okay interesting

yeah so there's mechanical goals and mastery goals mastery goals would be

what are the objectives and what are the priorities so this is when you you know

really do some different techniques to ask students you know what is the

English for and you know not why do you want to learn English why is very vague

and then you always want to close out with an action plan what what I like to

add into that myself because I think it's so important is talk about your

support network as well so let's say I'm working with a Brazilian learner who is

a Brazilian that you can identify in your life who has learned English and

can they be your mentor when are you gonna tell your family that you're

focusing on learning English right now who in your immediate network can also

practice English with you so we sort of finish up with an action plan and a

support network and close it with the 1 to 10 question about motivation again

there we have it technique number three is to get a

language coach so you can get in contact with Christina through her website at

www.christinalorimer.com I should also add that she specializes in working with

native Portuguese to English language learners

all right a quick recap of

technique number one is to combine an interest of yours with the English language

technique number two is to use technology to your advantage and

surround yourself predominantly with English or even better go on an English

immersion course again ours is available up top and technique number three is to

get yourself a language coach to keep you on track and motivated to keep

pushing through that intermediate stage onto the advanced levels go ahead and

tell us how helpful these three tips have been for you and share any ideas

you have for your beloved language learning buddies around the world if you

haven't subscribed yet then please be our guest and give us a cheeky thumbs up if you fancy it

catch you next time on Real English With Real Teachers