Where does speaking confidence come from?
From small achievements. Gradually.
Even if it’s just small baby steps.
How do you get those baby steps?
Through practice.
What does practice mean?
Several things. There’s individual home practice. There’s real-life practice with opportunities to use English.
You can only improve your English if you use your English.
Just like getting a driving license.
You take the course, you do the driving exam. You get your license but you never use your car. What’s the point? Can you become a driver if you never drive a car, only have the license?
Same thing with English.
1-Minute Tip ⏳
You should find as many opportunities for English as you can to use what you have learned in class.
Small wins are going to help you build confidence.
We don’t need to drive on the highway right away the day we get our license, right?
First we just maybe get the car out of the garage, park it in front of the house and then just drive it back.
Is that driving? It involves driving. We need to use the pedals, steer the wheel, check the mirrors etc.
We need to feel the car how it moves. It’s learning.
We don’t wait for the big driving opportunity. Instead, it’s much better to get ready for that through smaller incremental practice experiences.
In language learning, we also need to take a small step to try to get going.
Just like setting a steam locomotive in motion. The first metres require the biggest effort.
Hard to take those first steps in conversation?
There are techniques that can help you engage in conversations even at a lower level of English, and start building confidence.
Here’s one of my articles that gives a practical tip on that.
This content is authentic. It is not AI generated.
I write these weekly tips for you because I enjoy sharing techniques that I have seen work for my students through my 20+ years of teaching experience.
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👋 Hi, I’m Gábor
I specialize in helping Spanish speakers develop confident speaking clarity in English for professional and business success.
Talk to you next time 🙂
Questions?
Connect on LinkedIn | Gábor Légrádi | MA, RSA/CTEFLA