I don't know if you know this but I used to teach English online

several years ago what was it I think like in 2014

No 2013 to 2014 I taught English online for an entire year and I learned a lot

through that experience like what makes a good private class what classes did I

enjoy as the teacher what classes did the students enjoy so I want to share

these tips with you today so you can make the most of your time with native

speakers especially if you're paying for classes and one of the biggest mistakes

that a lot of students do is they just don't show up prepared right they do not

come with an itinerary they just show up and they're like okay teacher teach me

everything evaluate my English see where I am what do I need but honestly you

need to show up prepared because that will help you move things forward faster

in the classes and I don't recommend that you book private classes to get

grammar lessons for example you can google the grammar on your own you can

look that up you can watch youtube videos learn the grammar on your own

when your one-on-one with somebody else in English don't spend time there

learning and asking about grammar unless it's a specific question that you really

truly need help with use that time to practice your conversation skills right

because that's why you're learning the language you want to be able to present

in English and be confident you want to be able to speak and balance a

conversation you want to be able to transition ideas you want to be able to

tell stories and tell jokes and understand people when they are telling

stories and telling jokes so one of my biggest recommendations here besides

showing up prepared and coming with lists of questions and things to talk

about is use the time that you have to discuss things that you love and enjoy

for example if you're not interested in soccer don't talk about that in a

private class don't talk about things you're not interested in and don't let

the teacher try to talk to you about things you don't care about because then

you're going to be very bored in the class so you have to set the tone and

maybe when you first meet a teacher if you plan on doing regular classes with

them every single week or something you can let them get to know you first you

can write a nice email about yourself and send it to them and say hey this is

what I do for a living this is what my hobbies are this is how I learned

English help them get to know you but then when you're on the call with them I

encourage you to ask questions about them don't make it all about you because

you want to get to know them on a personal level because when you

establish that personal connection that's when you're gonna have much much

better conversations so prepare questions show interest in the other

person ask questions and when it comes to corrections a lot of students would

say I want you to stop me when I make a mistake I don't recommend that okay

because then I'm cutting off your focus when you make a mistake and we're

talking about something and I say oh wait stop there you made a mistake right

now we're focused on the mistake now you're not telling me the story you were

telling me before or I interrupt your joke and I ruin the punch line or

whatever right here's what I recommend you do and here's what I recommend you

ask your teacher to do if and when you book these private classes okay ask them

to be listening for mistakes and then to write down any mistakes that they hear

and then stop the class ten minutes early if you're having a conversation

stop the conversation ten minutes early to discuss whatever they wrote down

whether that's feedback about your pronunciation grammar that you used

improperly words that you were struggling to come up with that they had

to help you think of have them go over that at the end of the class and then

you can write down their suggestions and take that but that way you focus on the

right thing at the right time during the conversation portion of the class you're

just doing conversation then at the end you're really truly strongly focused on

mistakes and you're thinking about them and how to avoid them okay because if

not if you're doing conversation and mistakes at the same time you're not

focused on either one of them and you're not going to have as good of an

experience okay so I have more tips for you guys but first I want to say that

the company that I found that is offering really good rates right now to

practice your English online with native speakers if you don't have time to find

people yourself you can go on their website you can start today you can do a

15-minute free call I actually have a link in the description where you can

sign up it's with cambly okay cambly is giving you 15 free

minutes just to try out their service just to talk with a tutor it's really

awesome especially because I know some of you have never spoken with a native

English speaker in your life so I encourage you to take this opportunity

even if you're scared because doing the thing that scares you is what will build

confidence okay you need this experience so anyhow you can use the link in the

description book your 15 minute call with a native English speaker and then

if you like it you can sign up to do weekly or monthly lessons with native

English speakers okay let's get back to the tips that I have for having these

conversations so you have really good experiences okay one of my tips is to

not apologize there are so many of you that get on the phone with a native

English speaker and you're just like hi wait sorry I need to apologize for my

bad english and you apologize before you even really have spoken and I have done

so many calls with English learners and some of you have really good English but

you start the call by taking away all of your credibility you say sorry for my

bad english and this has to stop this is something that I used to do with Spanish

I know why we do it we just we don't feel like we're good enough but we have

to stop because if you tell yourself that every single day you're basically

not giving yourself credit for all the hard work you've done over all these

months and years to get where you are today

and you're not going to ever get to a place where you feel confident if you're

taking away that confidence every time you apologize right so when you talk

with somebody just get on the phone with them be excited to talk with them don't

apologize right it's an experience they're going to enjoy it you're going

to enjoy it and have fun my next tip is to really listen when people are talking

to you okay and listen by not interrupting I know how tempting it is

to interrupt especially if you didn't understand something or if you're

agreeing with somebody and you're like oh yeah yeah yeah okay okay okay right

but slow down the best conversations are slower

conversations okay not slow but not really fast where people just feel

exhausted by the time that they end take your time when you speak and when the

other person speaks allow them to take their time and really listen and if you

think you're gonna forget something 'cause a lot of people go no I have to

interrupt because then I'm gonna forget what I'm gonna say if you think you're

going to forget something write it down write it down so you don't forget that's

what I do when I'm having conversations because I don't want to interrupt the

other person and then if I do forget you know what that idea probably wasn't

important enough anyways it just felt important and it felt

in the moment right but you will start having better conversations when you

take your time you take it slower you really listen and then when somebody

finishes talking about whatever they're talking about ask them a relevant

question to go deeper or respond to it by saying something that's related you

know something that you experienced that was very similar or something like that

your conversations are going to go a lot better and I want to say that if you're

a good conversationalist in your native language you probably don't think about

communicating strategically in English but I teach strategic communication and

when you communicate strategically that's when you have the best

experiences so before you have these conversations you need to prepare you

need to think of questions you need to think of conversation starters maybe

even practice in the mirror if you want okay but get your confidence up and then

do calls have calls every single week because that is how you will build

confidence and fluency you need that experience right so whether you again

you do this yourself or you use a service like cambly to book these

appointments you need to be talking with native English speakers regularly if you

want to be fluent and confident next I just want to say that you know the first

person you talk with hopefully there's somebody you click with hopefully you

get along and you have a great conversation but that doesn't always

happen right so you want to take your time to find teachers that you like

watch their introduction videos see if you click with them see if you like

their personality you can you know feel a person's vibe just by hearing them

talk for a couple minutes so look through everybody find people

like and then book lessons with teachers you think you're gonna have a great

experience with and then if you don't have the best experience move on find a

new teacher and keep going okay so now I'm gonna show you a clip from a

conversation that I did I booked a call with someone on cambly because I wanted

to see how it works so I can show you so here's a quick clip take a look and

enjoy

hi Nancy hi how are you I'm good how are you I'm good how did you start working

with cambly so I got my teaching English as a foreign language certification when

I was overseas with my husband it's very very difficult to get jobs overseas

because there's restrictions and so I was able to work with cambly

and they really were awesome oh wait where are you from I am originally from

Utah we spent four years in Germany and now I'm back to the United States again

oh wow so that experience living in Germany probably taught you a lot about

what non-native English speakers struggle with right yes absolutely you

see it firsthand and the Germans speak wonderful English most of them they are

fantastic but they work really really hard at it so it's really great awesome

and what do you think makes a good class with a teacher I used to be really I

really wanted the students to do like some sort of formal lesson but now I let

them completely choose if they just want to chat I will just chat whatever it is

I try to gear towards them so that they get what they're looking for and it's

not just my agenda it's 100% them

all right you guys that's all I have for this video

I hope you found it very helpful and I'm so glad that there are other companies

out there that are putting together these resources for you so you can

practice your English no matter where you live in the world as long as you

have an internet connection if you think about it this is phenomenal

so take advantage of these opportunities make the most of them and you know don't

make excuses don't procrastinate because you have a lot of great things that

you're going to achieve and we don't achieve things if we don't work for them

with that said I want to invite you to share your own experiences in the

comments have you ever done a private class with a native English speaker tell

us what you liked about it what you didn't like what worked well what didn't

work well what you would do differently the next time or what you're glad you

did because the comment section of these videos are so full of good advice from

you guys and I really am working hard to create a forum section where people can

come and get advice not just from me but from you because you guys have done

these kinds of things you know what it's like and you have lots of stories and

advice to share and even if you had a bad experience online you know booking a

class and speaking with somebody that didn't meet your expectations or

something like that even sharing that can help all the rest of us learn from

your experience right so good experiences and bad experiences they're

all good in the end if we learn something from them with that said take

care you guys have a great day and I'll see you in another video bye