How to break free from a language learning plateau by breaking free from your course book and English class

In today's episode:

I hope that I'll be able to help you steer away a little from the traditional course book and classroom setting.

We'll explore the surprising places where real growth occurs and how everyday life can become your most valuable learning resource. I'll share stories from my time running an English teaching company in Mexico—illuminating the pros and cons of relying on structured course materials—and how truly immersing yourself in the language can make all the difference.

Now, whether you're in Canada, Mexico, or anywhere else in the world, there are endless opportunities to absorb and practice English in a way that course books can't prepare you for. And remember, slow and steady wins the race. By staying patient and aware of the English around you, growth is not only possible but inevitable.

So buckle up, and let's get ready to transform the way you approach your English learning journey—right after this quick break.

Breakdown of what we cover today:

00:00 Be patient, keep learning, and break plateau.

05:41 English classes focused on individual student needs.

08:58 Initially excited, switched to course books for structure.

11:18 Coursebooks can give false sense of progress.

15:26 Immigrants in Canada find comfort in community.

18:19 Develop English skills through real-life experiences.

20:37 Encouraging active listening for learning English.

24:30 Victoria bus announcements lead to missed stop.

27:38 Continuous daily effort leads to language growth.

Links Mentioned:

The episode where I talk with my wife, Ana Nelson: Dealing with employment challenges and seasonal depression immigrating to Canada feat. Ana Nelson

My interview with Dozie, where we talk about his immigration journey to Canada from Nigeria - you'll hear him share about the importance of community: How to find work, housing and deal with racisim immigrating to Canada feat. Nnadozie Anyaegbunam

The article by Karen Otavalo I referenced: Here’s what it was like for me to transition from ESL to mainstream classes

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If you keep at it, if you're patient, you will

begin to see growth happening again and you

will begin to see that learning curve begin

to go up again. It might be a

slow growing, steady slope. It might

not be that sharp uptake that you experienced when you

first started learning English. But I promise you this,

if you will continue listening and paying attention

to the English that's going on around you, especially if you're living in

an english speaking country like Canada, my friend, I

promise you, you're going to be getting new words that you can begin

to take on and learn and make a part of your

life each day, and you will break that

learning plateau that you've been stuck in.

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 celtip exam. I also

love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people,

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

16 years and I now work to help students prepare for

the selpip exam through online classes.

If you're just joining us, welcome. We're taking a

look at something that everyone deals with at some

point in their life and learning journey.

When all forward learning progress you are making

suddenly or even slowly

begins to fall and you go from an upward

learning curve to a flatline. And no amount

of hard work or pushing or endurance

seems to help you get started upward again.

This is called, aside from being terribly

frustrating and demoralizing, it's called a

learning plateau. And in our specific situation, since

we're talking about learning English and building our english

skills, it's called a language learning plateau.

And like I said before, it happens to

everyone at some point in their language learning journey.

It really does. There's just no way to get around

it. Everybody will deal with it. Maybe you've already

dealt with one, or maybe you find yourself stuck

in the desert of one. Right now.

If that is the case, then I want to invite you to

sit back and enjoy the next episodes over

the next three or four weeks, because we're going to be taking a close

look at breaking free from learning

plateaus. So language learning plateaus can

be dangerous creatures. They have the

power to make you give up if you don't know what to do

with one. And like I said before, during the month

of February, we're going to take a look at why language

learning plateaus happen and what you can be doing

about them if you find yourself in one. And if

you're not in one right now, if you are enjoying that upward

climb, you might want to file this away in

your pocket somewhere and keep it handy. Because at some

point, and this isn't to be negative or pessimistic, but

at some point you're probably going to find yourself feeling

stuck. And if that's the case, you can reach back, pull this

episode out, and these episodes out and

start listening to find your way forward again.

So if you haven't yet, please subscribe to

the show and come along with us as we figure

out how to get unstuck with your

English. Together, we can do this.

And again, just in case you're joining us if this is your

first episode. Hey, welcome. You can catch the first

episode of this series by checking out my show notes today. I'll

link to it there. It's actually the previous

episode to this one. So this week we're

going to be talking all about how you can break free

from a language learning plateau by pulling away

from your course book and your English

classes. To get us started, I want to share

with you a little story that happened to

me when I lived in Mexico, my

wife and I, who you met a couple of episodes ago.

I'll link to that in the show notes too, if you want, so you can

hear her talking, but

not a couple. When we used to live in Mexico, my wife and

I ran an English teaching company, and our focus

was on helping companies. We worked with

employees of international companies who

had like, head offices in the United States or

in Europe, and they needed to use English to

conduct business. And I will never

forget this one company.

Our first company that we got started with, my vision

for teaching English was to be English

that is built around you, not

something that has nothing to do with you. Before

running my own company, I worked for several other schools,

and one of the most annoying things that I found being a

teacher and working with course material was that

very frequently what we were studying in class had

little to nothing to do with what the student

was needing to do in English outside of class.

There was just no connection and the poor student was

maybe doing great in class. But once they got out of class

into their real world, they were struggling big time

with the English that they needed to use. So one of

the reasons why I started my own company was I wanted to

try to solve that problem. I wanted to build english classes

that were focused on the student and

what they really needed to do in English every

day. And what I found was that there just

weren't any course books out there that were that

focused. They were very general, right? They were very

general English. And, I mean, you could get business english

books that were pretty good. They weren't so

bad, but really, they didn't come

close to helping students deal with the

English that the real English that they had to use once they

got outside of class. So my idea was to build

english classes that were built around each

student and what they needed to do with English every

day. So that involved me getting to know my students really well

and then designing courses that would help them

directly with what they did with English. So we didn't use

coursebooks at the beginning. We used the students life.

But something strange happened as we were getting

going, we started getting feedback from our students

saying we kind of miss having

a course book. What?

I was shocked and puzzled by this, and I couldn't figure it

out. I mean, this was a great idea that I was trying to get them

to do. Tell me about your day to day life,

what you use English for, and I'll build something that will help you

use the English that you'll need to do your life,

basically. But they started asking, not one,

but many students just started asking for course

books. And the main reasons why they were

wanting the course book was that feeling of making

progression from going from chapter one, chapter two,

chapter three, and so on. For many of my

students, they have had a long

career of taking english classes. In Mexico, where

we lived. Learning English is a very regular part

of everyday life for many people. And so

students are often very used to using

coursebooks. So having this class where

there was no coursebook at first was an exciting idea.

But they began to ask for that structure,

that safety, that sense of going from one page to the other page

and making progress in that way. So we eventually

decided to listen to their request, and we

found the best business focused books that we could

find that was closest as possible to what they were doing in

English, even though it wasn't exactly the same,

and they were happy to do it in that way. And

I do get where they're coming from. There are benefits

to using course books, aren't there? For one? Like

I just mentioned, what my students were looking for was that

structure, that sense of predictability.

The second thing that coursebooks are really good at doing is helping you

notice and highlighting important

vocabulary. They're really good at that, and they're also

really good at helping you notice and learn and

practice grammar. But there are

also some problems when you rely on course books.

And the first one, I've already kind of told you about it in that little

story that I told. Course books, at best,

are artificial. They're not real

world English. They're contained

English. And it's not what you're going to experience

day in and day out in the real world outside of

your english class. And two, while

the initial structure and safety they provide can be very

helpful, they don't do well to prepare you for the hard

and fast and very unstructured english world

that you will encounter the moment you pick up the telephone

and you're talking to someone who is a native english speaker on the

other end, or the moment you get pulled or pushed

into a business meeting with your coworkers who only

speak English. It's a very different and

wild world when you step out of the safety

of the course book. And if you're not used to doing that,

it can be a very rough ride. And three, the

third thing, and this is really, really dangerous about

course books, is that they can give you the false idea

that finishing, for example, an intermediate level

coursebook means that your English is now ready

for upper intermediate level, like your English

somehow grew from being a

beginner intermediate to a more advanced

intermediate in the span of, I don't know, like

15 or 20 chapters in a course book.

If you've ever worked through a coursebook like I have,

I've taken students through coursebooks, many of them in

my career as an english teacher. And I can promise you this,

finishing a course book does not mean your English has

leveled up. No, it just, sadly,

does not mean that you've gained a lot of great supports.

You've gained a lot of great vocabulary. You've gained a lot

of, hopefully, useful grammar tools that

will help you communicate. But unfortunately, finishing

a course book does not mean your English has leveled up.

The other thing that's dangerous about course books is that they

can become a crutch, something that you depend on

and something that you kind of if you don't have one. Like what my

students were telling me at the very beginning

with the story that I was sharing with you. They were

dependent on those course books. They depended on it to feel like they

were moving forward. And again, I understand where they're coming from.

If you're used to that kind of a thing all your life,

if that's what you grew up with, it's hard to

take on an alternative or a different approach.

But we must beware of crutches. Right? We can

become dependent on them. And then there's english class.

English class. They can be

trouble. They can be great, but they can also

be trouble. And the biggest mistake, and I've talked about

this in previous episodes, but the biggest mistake that

I see students making all the time

is this. And this is like a mindset

statement. I only work on my English

or my selpit prep when I'm in class.

I'll say that again. Maybe this is you. I only

work on my English or my selpit preparation when I'm in

my English or my selpit prep class. Outside

of class. I do my life in my first language. I

don't even care about English. I avoid it if I can. All my

friends speak my first language. It's just

easier that way. My friend, my friend,

if this is you, this is a surefire cause

of the learning plateau you might be experiencing right now.

You will be stuck at your current level

for years, maybe even decades, if you

have that mindset where the only time

you work on your English is when you're in your english

class. Please, if you don't get anything out

of today's episode other than this, don't

embrace that mindset. It is the worst

mistake you can make with regards to your english

class. Don't depend on it to be the only

source of english practice that you get. When I

lived in Mexico, I saw students doing this all

the time. The only time that they'd work on English and be in

contact with English was the hour and a half

period of time where they were in class with me.

Outside of that class, they surrounded themselves with the rest

of, well, with Spanish, because that was the world

that they lived were. They were living in a spanish speaking country.

But even here in Canada, where I live, we have very

good friends, and I've spoken about this so many times on this podcast, but

it's something that needs to be repeated because

it's just such a hard truth, and it's something that we

do naturally. But I have so many

friends who build around themselves a

bull in their first language, and they do not step out of

it. They stay inside that safety

of their first language. They have friendships with people.

They somehow manage to find people in Canada

around them, in their little world where they live, in the community

where they live, they find people who also speak their first

language, and they stick like glue to them.

And I totally get that stickiness, like,

you want to stick close to your people, right? You feel alone, you

feel left out. Sometimes you feel

frustrated sometimes with how hard life can be

when you're just moving to a new country, when

you're just struggling to get by. Sometimes all you want to do is

find someone who speaks the same language as you, and

you don't want to go through the struggle of trying to communicate in

Spanish. I totally get that. If that's something that you are dealing

with, my friend, I get you. I feel that pain. I

feel that frustration of not wanting to do

another thing in English. I just want

to talk to my friends in my first language.

So, yeah, that whole community piece that we heard

in that episode with my friend Dozy, where he shares the

importance of finding community

in order to make it in Canada. When you are immigrating here,

that is vitally important. And your community can be

with people who speak the same language as you, your first language.

In fact, you should have some friends who speak the same language as

you. But it shouldn't be your only

circle. The members of your community

should not only speak your first language. You need to have

friends who are native english speakers if you want

to not fall into that trap of building a

bubble around you in your first language. So,

yeah, you must realize this important truth.

Real english development and growth

happens outside of your class and in

the rest of your life. The more you make English a regular part

of your life, day in and day out, the

more you will learn and grow.

I'm going to repeat that again because it's really true. And I really hope you

hear this. Real english development and growth

happens outside of your english class and

in the rest of your life, where the rest of your life happens.

The more you make English a regular part of who you

are day in and day out, the more

you will learn and grow. Do you remember that article that

I referenced last week? I'm going to link to

it again, but that girl, that

young immigrant, she shared this

experience. She shared how

she found it difficult and challenging to be in her english

class. But as time went on, that english

class began to be her community. It

began to be her safety zone. But when the time

came for her to step out of that safety zone and move into the

public school system, that was when she

really found the challenges and the difficulties

and the struggles with her english skills, because she had

to face life outside of that bubble

that she was living in, even though she was working on her English, even though

she was facing her fears. In that story that she

shares, she says that the biggest struggles

came when she stepped out. She even says

that it felt like everything came to a standstill when

she stepped out of that, out of that class. She felt

like she was pushing hard and just not making progress anymore.

But that's the thing. It's important to not depend

only on your english class for your english development.

You need to step into the English that's happening all

around you, especially if you're living in an english speaking country

like Canada. English is happening

everywhere around you all the time. But if you are not

connecting with it, if you are focused only on building that first

language bubble around you and staying inside of that safety

zone, you're not going to experience the richness

of learning English out there

where real life happens.

So what can you do with the

information that I am sharing with you today? Well,

number one, I want to encourage you, if you

use a coursebook, if you rely on a course book, I want to

encourage you to make your life your course

book. Practice noticing the way

english speakers around you say things

like, listen in if you're riding the bus, even if

you're not talking to someone who's a native english speaker,

if you're listening to music or something like that, I encourage you to take out

your earbuds if that's the thing that you do when you're riding on the

bus and listen to the conversations

that people are having around you. I bet

you if you start doing this, you're going to pick up phrases and

words and ideas that maybe you've never heard

before and you think, hey, that's kind of an interesting thing to

say. That's an interesting word. Where I work,

for example, I have the privilege

of running a coffee time for a group of

seniors who live in an independent living facility.

And there's a group of about 15 seniors who come down every

Tuesday and Thursday to the little cafeteria where I work.

And we sit around this big table. I pour everyone

coffee, and I keep their coffee cups full. And

one of the things that happens every single time is that people

just start talking with each other. And I've got people

around that table who are not from Canada, but who are our native english

speakers. One of them is from England, and every so

often she will come up with a word or an

expression and say it because she has a strong

english accent when she's speaking. She's a lovely

lady. And when she's sharing her ideas, she'll

often say words or phrases that come from her growing

up years in England. So it's not normal English

here in Canada. I've learned

words and phrases from her just from listening to

her say things and thinking, oh, that's an interesting

word, and asking her, hey, what does that mean? And she would explain

it to me, and then I would start to use it. And you know what?

That's how you make your course book.

That's how you make your life your coursebook, by paying

attention to the English happening around you. And when you

hear a word or a phrase that you like or that you think

is unusual or interesting, and you will, if you start to

pay attention for it, then you need

to capture it as soon as you hear it, see if you

can write it down. Or as soon as you hear it. If

you've got a cell phone handy, make yourself a voice memo. Hey,

I just heard this word. And then record yourself saying

that word. Or a phrase. If you

hear an interesting phrase that you've never heard of before,

make a note of it. Somehow write it down. Make a text note for

yourself, or leave a voice memo to yourself, or

simply make a mental note. Like that time when I was sitting around the

table. I'll actually give you the word that my friend used. She used

the word cacophony. Now, I had

never heard that word before, cacophony. Have you

heard that word before? It means, like, a bunch

of loud noise happening all at once. And she

was saying that there was such a cacophony on the bus

that she didn't hear when the little announcement came

on, telling her when the bus stop was going to be that she was

listening for. Because probably where you live, too,

but here in Canada, in Victoria, whenever the bus is driving

along, it announces each stop.

So if you're listening for a specific stop, you'll

be able to know when it's time to get off. But she was saying that

there was such a cacophony on the bus that she missed

her bus stop and ended up riding much

farther into town than what she intended to.

But I had never heard of that word before, cacophony. So I asked her to

explain it to me. And once I figured out what it meant, I started

to try to use it on a daily basis. I made it a

game with her, actually, where I would try to use that word

around her. And she thought it was great fun. I thought it was fun, too.

Other people in the group were also trying to use the word with

us. And so that's how cacophony

became a part of my vocabulary. And interestingly

enough, actually, maybe you'll notice this happening to you,

too, once you understand what a new word means or a

new phrase means. All of a sudden, it's almost as if by

magic, you will start to hear that word or phrase

popping around you all the time. And I kid

you not. Like a day or two after I learned what cacophony

meant, I was listening to the radio, and guess

what word? One of the announcers said, you got

it, cacophony. And I was very proud of myself. I

listened to it with a big smile, and I said, I know what cacophony means

because I learned it at work the other day.

So that's the next part. I was just telling you the next thing

that you need to do. Once you understand what that word or

phrase means, you need to use the heck out of it.

Make a point of using that phrase or that word as

often as you possibly can on a daily basis.

You don't need to memorize it. You need to focus on

using it. And when you use it, something really cool

happens. The word becomes a part of your

vocabulary, and you don't have to worry about memorizing it because

you've assimilated it. You've owned it. You own that word.

I own the word cacophony now. I mean, it's not mine in

the sense that I created it, but it's a part of my vocabulary to the

point that I can use it whenever I want.

That's what you are looking for, too. And my

friend, you don't need a course book to do

that. You don't need an english class to do that. You don't

even need a teacher to do that. I used my friend. I used

my friend to teach me what cacophony meant. You

don't need an english teacher. You don't need a course book. You don't need an

english class to begin building your english skills in this

way. You just need to take the initiative to begin

doing it. But here's the promise that I will

give to you today, and it is 100% guaranteed or your

money back. If you do this on a

regular daily basis, I promise you something.

If you keep at it, if you're patient, you will

begin to see growth happening again, and you

will begin to see that learning curve begin

to go up again. It might be a

slow growing, steady slope. It

might not be that sharp uptake that you experienced when you

first started learning English. But I promise you this,

if you will continue listening and paying attention

to the English that's going on around you, especially if you're living in

an english speaking country like Canada, my friend, I

promise you, you're going to be getting new words that you can begin

to take on and learn and make a part of your

life each day. And you will break that

learning plateau that you've been stuck in. So don't

give up. You can do this. Be patient,

be perseverant, and pay attention to the

English that's happening around you.

Next week we are going to talk about our

routines and how they can work against

and for you when you're trying to break out of a

language learning routine. So please, if you

haven't already, follow and subscribe to this

podcast so you can catch the next episode when it goes out.

And if you liked today's podcast episode, you can get even more

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subscribe. That's it for today's episode. Thank you

so much for listening and I will see you and talk to you

again next Tuesday. Bye.