What to do when you make a mistake with your English.

you ever made a mistake pronouncing a word in English, or have you ever forgotten how to say what you wanted to say in a conversation in English, or have you ever just plain said something the wrong way in a conversation?

How did that feel? Horrible, right? Like you want to vanish into a hole and never ever see the people that you were just talking with again. It feels like everyone noticed your mistake and that they are all thinking about that mistake as they go about the rest of their day. And as they go along, they are for sure reflecting on your poor, your terrible, your pathetic English skills and likely what a terrible excuse you are for a human being.

I felt all of those feelings and more with them. I felt all of these feelings and more, both in my head. As I use my first language, which is English, as well as when I've tried to use my second language, which is Spanish. Making mistakes sucks. Because those feelings that we feel, the ones that I just finished describing to you, are so loud, aren't they?

They can dominate our thoughts and our feelings about ourselves, and make us basically hide. Hide. from trying to connect with others and hide from trying to use our English skills again, which is what we desperately need to be doing. We need to be using our English. We don't need to be hiding. So if that sounds familiar to you, then friend, you are in the right place.

In today's episode, we're going to talk about something called the spotlight effect, which is what I was just describing a moment ago and some helpful strategies. Some very simple strategies to help you overcome it.

📍 Well, hello there, and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam. I also love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people. This People just like you, who are working towards becoming fluent in English, so we can learn from their experiences together.

Who am I? My name is Aaron Nelson, and I've been an English teacher for over 17 years, and I now help students prepare for the CELPIP exam through online classes.

I had two interesting things happen to me recently that I want to share with you, because I know it will help you as you wrestle through making mistakes and feeling like you need to hide as a result. First, I mentioned in previous episodes that we are in the middle of moving in over a hundred people to a brand new housing complex for seniors where I work.

This past week I had the opportunity to meet and visit with one of these new residents. What made this visit so memorable for me was that this dear lady was a refugee from Ukraine. She was so kind and gracious as she welcomed me into her suite, so I could help her with a few things she needed to get checked.

As we began to talk, And she tried to explain something about her heat pump. She suddenly stopped in mid sentence. Lifted her finger in front of her, as if to say, Please wait a minute. And then she picked up a big, giant piece of paper from her dining room table.

On that paper, she had written out, all in English, the things she wanted to tell me. This was her script. For a moment, she was very quiet as she found what she wanted to tell me. Then She carefully put the paper down again, looked me in the eye, and calmly said these words. I'm still learning English.

Please be patient with me. It's hard for me to understand everything. Please speak slowly. Now, I love this. I love this. When she finished, I smile a big smile and let her know I would go slow, and that if she had any questions at all, we could talk about them for as long as she needed to. I didn't think less of her.

In fact, I admired her bravery. She admitted to needing me to go slow, and she wasn't letting her developing English skills keep her from interacting with me. And that leads me to the second story I wanted to share with you today. And yes, there is a point to the one I just told you, so please keep listening.

My dad recently invited me to go with him and a few friends to watch a live community theater production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. Community theatre is something I've never been to before, but it was so much fun. The actors are all volunteers from the local community, and they are not, usually, professional actors or actresses.

They just love the theatre, and their community, and acting, I guess. But what made it fun was that it was live, and it was by people who made mistakes. Mistakes that you could see and hear. In many scenes, for example, lines were forgotten, and a few seconds of silence ensued as the actor or actress raced mentally to try to figure out what they had to say next.

In other scenes, lines had to be restarted again from the top because they momentarily forgot what came next and needed to start all over again. While in other places, actors were a little late coming into the scene. The other fun part of this was that it was all outside on a lovely farm. Chickens, a dog, and a friendly cat wandered around.

And at one point, The cat decided to walk right through the stage while the scene was going on. But when I noticed the mistakes, and sometimes we all laughed because of them, at no point did I find myself thinking, Boy, this is terrible. Or, this actor sucks. The mistakes were real. And they were obvious, but I want to share something from both of the stories I just told you that will hopefully help you the next time you find yourself feeling like all eyes are on you and your mistake, that something is called the spotlight effect.

According to an interesting article on psychology today, and I'll be linking to it in my show notes, the spotlight effect, and I'm paraphrasing here, says that we think more about our own mistakes and imperfections than everybody else does, because, and I quote here, we estimate our own importance from our perspective, end quote.

In other words, we see our own mistakes. And we think about them much easier and for way longer than everybody else does. In the case of the actors I watched recently who are making many mistakes, yes, I did notice them. All of us did.

But do you know what I thought about them? I admired their courage to even try to do what they did. And I commented with my dad and the friends we were with how amazing it was that they were able to memorize so many lines. It was nearly a two hour play, and it was entirely dialogue. It was entirely people talking.

We did laugh, and we did giggle at the times when they were expecting someone to walk on stage for the next scene, and they weren't there. We did laugh when the cat wandered randomly through the middle of the scene. But when the play was over, the entire audience, and there was easily about 80 of us, we all clapped and we all cheered loudly.

And it wasn't because of out of mercy. It wasn't because we felt bad for them. It wasn't because we were trying to be polite. No, you could tell by the enthusiasm of the applause and the cheering that it was because we had fun. And it was Out of appreciation for what they had done. Here's why I think that happened.

We knew going into the event that these were not professionals, but regular folks, truck drivers, groceries, grocery store clerks, someone you'd likely meet walking down the sidewalk tomorrow if you lived in that little small town where the play happened. We knew not to expect a Broadway production. It was on a farm.

And another reason it worked, when the actor or actress made a mistake, they didn't freak out. Instead, one of them in particular just kept going. One time he started his lines from the top in order to get momentum rolling again. But he just kept going. Another lady froze midline, unable to remember what to say next.

Ah, she said, and then said what she needed to say, but in a different way. It wasn't the exact lines, but she got her point across. The show went on. Here's what you can learn from these two stories. Number one, keep going when you make a mistake. Can you say what you mean in a different way? Do it! But keep going anyway.

Focus on getting your ideas across. That's the whole point of communication. That's the whole point of trying to learn a new language. That's the whole point of you trying to learn English. I once heard an English, during an English teacher training conference, a teacher who had been in the field for probably longer than I have been alive.

That's what he said. Your goal is not perfection. Your goal is not to produce a perfectly thought out, well designed sentence in English. No, your goal is just to get your ideas from you over to another person so that they understand what you're talking about. Perfection comes over time, but it's not the immediate goal.

If you make it your immediate goal, you're always going to be falling. You're always going to be getting stuck. No, your goal needs to be you getting your ideas across so that another person can understand what you are trying to say. So keep going, even if you make a mistake. And can you find another way to express what you're trying to say so that you can keep going?

Point number two. Remember the spotlight effect. You will notice your mistakes way more and for way longer than everyone else does. And chances are they won't think any lesser of you for your mistakes. And in parentheses here. If they do, if they do think less of you because you made a mistake, they aren't worth being around anyway.

With our Shakespeare actors, for example, we didn't trash talk them or think how horrible they were at acting. But instead, we admired their accomplishment. Normal, everyday people did this. That's incredible. 3. Manage Expectations My Ukrainian friend. Ah, now I'm bringing my Ukrainian friend back into the story.

Yes, there was a point to that. My Ukrainian friend did an amazing job of letting me know she needed me to slow down and be patient with her. You can do this too. I've done it many, many times in Spanish. It makes a world of difference. Come right out and tell who you are talking with. Hey, I'm sorry English is not my first language.

Please be patient with me and speak slowly so I can understand you I promise that you'll find that most people will be very supportive and helpful when you ask them to be Not everyone, of course But like I just mentioned if you do encounter someone who treats you worse because you're trying to use English English, and it's not your first language.

You don't need that person in your life anyway. So feel free to move on. You don't need to have them around. I also saw this managing expectations thing happening with this theater production I was telling you about. They made no attempts to make the general public, me, believe that this was something more than what it actually was.

From their simple, often homemade costumes, to their simple lighting and stage, we, the audience, knew we were not watching a Broadway event. Not that they didn't do their best to make it a great experience. No, they did do their best. They worked really hard to produce something that was meaningful and that was fun and that was honest.

It wasn't just something that they threw together and it fell apart as they were going along all the way through. You could tell that they worked really hard to make this happen.

But they did manage our expectations so that we were not disappointed or expecting something else. You can do the same thing by sharing that you're still learning English with the people around you and for them to please be patient with you. Now, having said that, this is not a license for you to be lazy with your English skills.

No, you still have to put in the work of trying your best, and you still need to be developing your skills along the way. But I've found that managing expectations pushing through to get your ideas across, even though you've made a mistake. And remembering that people don't really care about your mistakes as much as you do, are vitally important strategies that will help you to continue to build your English skills.

Thank you so much for listening to this week episode. I hope you come back and join me next Tuesday. Have a great week. Bye bye.

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