So you need to improve your speaking…
How do you start?
Is it as simple as, Open your mouth and start talking?
Will this automatically make you a better speaker?
Or is there more to it?
Well, as someone who has had conversations with over 300 students (I once sat down and tried to add them all up), I can tell you, there is definitely more to it.
Some students talk and talk and talk, and don’t improve.
Other students talk and improve quickly.
So here, I give you…
Mr. Vig’s DOs and DON’Ts For English Conversation
DON’T #1 — CORRECTION
Situation One….
I’m having a lesson with my private student, Vojta. He says, “…on the party.”
I say, “You mean, At the party…?”
Situation Two….
I’m talking on Skype with my Polish friend, Tomasz. He says, “Tell me every time I do a mistake.”
I say, “You mean, Make a mistake?”
Situation Three….
I’m eating dinner with my father. He’s says, “Do you want to watch Netflick?”
I say, “You mean, Netflix?” (“s” added)
Are they wrong?
Yes.
Am I right?
Yes.
Does my correcting them help?
Nope.
They continue meeting people on parties and doing mistakes and watching Netflick.
Correction is a nice idea.
But it simply doesn’t work.
Once, I decided to try to get Vojta, the student I mentioned above, to finally, once and for all, stop saying “at” and start saying “on.”
He said, “at.”
I said, “on.”
And, like a scientist watching a rat in a maze, I made a little mark on a piece of paper to see how long it would take him to learn.
Soon the marks marched from one end of the page to the other.
I did that for several lessons, then gave up.
And Vojta was a smart guy! A biologist, motivated, and a hard worker.
Correction, unfortunately, just doesn’t work.
That’s reason #1 why you should not ask anyone to correct you.
Reason #2 is, it can ruin a conversation.
Last Friday, some members of The Society and I met online for a chat. One student told us about how he tries to practise English with his family. But whenever he speaks, they correct every word. It ruins the conversation, he doesn’t like it, so he quits and goes back to Spanish.
What a pity!
“But wait,” you say. “How will I learn to speak correctly if no one corrects me?”
That’s a good question.
And the answer is, You learn the same way you learned to speak your native language correctly.
I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow.