Breaking Free from Language Learning Plateaus By Engaging with New Sources of English

I love watching movies. I really do. Yeah, but horror films are not usually what I turn to because I just get too scared.

Just ask my poor wife the few horror films that we have ventured to watch together have left her hands sore from how hard I've squeezed them in the scary parts of the movie, or in the suspenseful parts of the movie. Or, you know, when the main character is going down a dark hallway and you know. You know that they should not be going down that dark hallway because something awful is waiting for them down there.

In those moments, I am squeezing my poor wife's hands. I'm probably closing my eyes and trying not to look. Yeah, I struggle with horror films. 📍 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 self 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? Well, 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 CELPIP exam. Through online classes. If you are new here, if this is the first time you are listening in to this show, I want to personally welcome you. Thank you for dropping in.

If you like what you hear, I encourage you to subscribe to this show on your favorite podcast listening app. I would love to have you stick around, get to know me a little, let me get to know you. So, yeah, just feel welcome. I'm glad you are here, and if you are a regular listener, if you keep coming back week after week, I so very much appreciate you.

Thank you for coming back. Thank you for listening. And if you haven't subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? My friend in your favorite podcast app, make sure that you subscribe and follow along with me so that you don't miss any of the shows that come out each week. You don't have to, but I'd really like it if you did.

But anyway, welcome, welcome, new welcome. Old school listeners. Is that a thing? Do you say old school listeners? I don't think so. I think what you would say is long-term listeners. Anyway, if new or if you've been around with me for a while now, thank you for being here. Okay. Enough With that rambling on a bit at the beginning.

Today we're going to be talking about, we're gonna continue talking about how you can escape from being stuck in a language learning plateau. And today we're gonna be connect. We're gonna be talking about the importance of connecting with new sources of English, and for those of you just joining us over the past three weeks, we've been taking a look at how you can become unstuck with your English and that feeling of being stuck.

It comes from something called a learning plateau, a language learning plateau, and like we've been saying week over week, it's important for you to hear this if you've heard it the last three or four times that, that we have been meeting together like this to talk about language learning plateaus.

You've heard me say this many times, and I hope you don't mind me repeating it because it's something that's important to hear. Being stuck in a language learning plateau.

Oh,

I made a mistake. So a language learning plateau. What is that? If you're just joining us, I'm just gonna quickly dive into what it is. A language learning plateau is when you stop. Or you feel like you've stopped making progress with your English, and no matter what you do or how hard you try, it feels like you're making zero progress.

Zero. You push hard, you study hard, you try hard, and it just. Doesn't seem to be making any difference. Well, over the last three or four weeks we've been working on strategies to help you deal with that and like what I told you. In previous episodes, if you are experiencing a language learning plateau, first of all, you've gotta know that it's normal.

This is a normal part of the language learning process. Everybody goes through it. Everybody goes through it. Everybody goes through a time where they stop making upward progress, or at least it feels like that's important. It feels like you're not making upward progress, and instead it feels like your progress is just going along this flat line.

You know, like, uh, if you ever watch those. Medical dramas on tv. You know, when they bring a patient into the emergency room, they connect their heart up to a heart monitor, and if they're, you know, still alive, you hear the beep, beep beep of their heart going along. But then if something happens, either the, the, the heart monitor starts beeping faster or it just goes, and this is the worst when the person dies, that beeping goes.

Beep. You know when when you lose the person, well, it can feel like you lose that, that progress, that being alive as you're learning a new language. In our case, English, and what I'm trying to say to you with all of this is that it's normal. Everybody experiences language, learning plateaus. There's not a way to get around it.

It's just part of. The process and the idea of these last three or four episodes has been to give you ideas and strategies that work, that help you to break free from these plateaus. But like I said, if you are experiencing one right now, please know. It doesn't mean that you're a bad English learner. It doesn't mean that you suck at learning languages.

It means you're normal and there are ways to get out. So if you've just joined us, make sure you check over the last couple of episodes to see what we've already talked about, and I'll be putting links to those episodes in the show notes so that you can follow along with us later. But today, today we are talking about the importance of connecting with new sources of English.

And to get this conversation started, I want to share a little story that has been happening in my own life. So a few months ago, my oldest son started showing an interest in horror movies. Uh, I love watching movies. I really do. Yeah, but horror films are not usually what I turn to because I just get too scared.

Just ask my poor wife the few horror films that we have ventured to watch together have left her hands sore from how hard I've squeezed them in the scary parts of the movie, or in the suspenseful parts of the movie. Or, you know, when the main character is going down a dark hallway and you know. You know that they should not be going down that dark hallway because something awful is waiting for them down there.

In those moments, I am squeezing my poor wife's hands. I'm probably closing my eyes and trying not to look. Yeah, I struggle with horror films. But you know something, I love my son and I wanted to find another way to be connected with him and hopefully without having to sit through a horror movie. And what I found was a lovely surprise.

A podcast that was exploring horror films as a movie genre. And I must admit that I was skeptical at first about what they would be talking about. But I ended up getting hooked. On their show. I learned so much about why people watch horror. From listening to this podcast, interviews with behavioral psychologists, I learned about why film directors create those terrifying movies to begin with, and even more interesting.

I was surprised to learn about some of the ways horror films can actually help us process and face our fears. Now I am in no way a converted horror film watcher now, but this podcast, which is called Be Afraid, and I will be linking to it in the show notes for you if you are kind of interested in it.

I'll warn you now, there are some scary ish episodes. They do delve into some topics that you might find to be terrifying. They. But they do it very well. And it's all, uh, in the spirit of helping us understand the attraction and the interests of horror. But yeah, the, and the host does a really good job of being real and authentic and sharing the things that scare him about horror films.

And sometimes it's quite funny to listen to him talking about, uh, what it's been like and what it is like for him going through, uh, the preparation of this podcast series that he puts together because as he is narrating and telling us about it, um, he's also having to do research, which means he's having to watch these films.

He's having to think about things that are scary and talk about it with people who are experts in the field. But yeah, it's, it's really well done and I can't recommend it enough. So. You are probably wondering what does horror films have to do with you breaking free from the horrors of being stuck with your English?

Yeah. Did you see what I did there? Did you see what I did there? I linked horror and the horror of being stuck in English. It can feel pretty scary. Can't it when? When you're working hard and it just doesn't seem to be helping you to make progress? Well, it turns out that there is a whole lot to do with you and being stuck with your English.

As I listened to the 12 episode podcast series that I was just telling you about, I was exposed to words. Phrases, ideas and lots of feelings that I would not normally be exposed to. And because I was interested and engaged with the topic, I was learning new things along the way. A lot of new things. So that's a double win.

I mean, I was being entertained. I was enjoying. The process of listening to this podcast and I was learning new language, new words, new ideas. I was learning new things. And this needs to be happening for you to help you break free from being stuck. So my question and my challenge for you this week is if you dare to accept it.

My challenge is connect with English in ways you normally wouldn't or simply haven't before. Here's one way, number one, look for and listen to a new podcast about a topic you are interested in. Think about something you're passionate about, something you're curious about, something that you enjoy, something that is maybe a hobby or.

I don't know, the sky is the limit, but you can find podcasts about pretty much any topic under the sun and topics that you probably never thought would exist. Why don't you try listening or, well, why don't you try finding a podcast that you've never heard before about a topic that you're greatly interested in or curious about, but that you've never really.

Listen to before, because that's the cool thing about podcasts. It's for listening, right? But I encourage you to find one, look for them, and connect with them. Find one that you like. Maybe the one that you, that you pick to listen to doesn't catch your interest. That doesn't mean you need to listen through it.

No. Ditch it. Throw it away. And look for some other ones until you find one that you like. Like for example, today I was looking for another kind of podcast to listen to because I had already finished the Be Afraid one and I wanted to learn about something that actually had to do with podcasting a little bit.

And uh, like internet internety, things that I am trying to learn for. Well serving you better. And so I was looking through my podcast catcher, the, the thing that catches podcasts that I subscribe to, and it has like a browsing section so you could be looking through the different shows according to the category that you're interested in.

And I found a few, uh, podcast episodes that seemed to be talking about a topic that I wanted to learn about. So I downloaded it to my phone. And I started listening. The first one that I started listening to, I'm afraid I shut off within the first couple of minutes because I, I, they just weren't capturing my interest.

They were for me, boring. I didn't like it, so I shut it off, deleted it, and moved on to the next episode. And that one I listened all the way through. I'm still trying to think if. I'm going to listen to them in the future, but one thing that I did enjoy. Was their Scottish accent. These guys were from Scotland.

I'm pretty sure they were, but they had a lovely accent, which is very different. Very different to the kinds of accents that I'm usually listening to on the podcast that I enjoy, like that Be Afraid podcast that I mentioned before, that one had like an American accent. I, well, I'm not gonna say normal because everybody's accent is normal for them.

Right. But it, it was a normal accent for me to hear. It's what I'm accustomed to. So when I start listening to someone from another country who has a different accent than what I'm used to, that's. Good. That's a good thing to be exposing myself to because I found myself listening extra closely to make sure that I was capturing everything that he was talking about.

So that is something else that you might enjoy doing as you are exposing yourself to different podcasts. What if you looked for some that had different accents? Learning how to hear different accents is also a really important skill that will help improve your English abilities. But yeah, look for. New podcast episodes around topics that you are interested in.

Don't get stuck with the same podcasts that you always listen to. Don't be afraid to try new ones. I mean, we're a creatures of habit, aren't we? We, I know I am a creature of habit. I have a set of podcasts. I, I mean, I'm just gonna be talking about podcasts for a while here, but I've got a group of podcasts, like probably about, hmm.

If I open my phone right now, I probably could find at least six or seven podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis, and I rarely go beyond those set podcasts and for a while. That's fine. It's, it's okay to have favorite podcasts that you listen to, but you know something, you get used to the host, don't you?

If you've been a, if you've listened to a podcast for a long time, you start to kind of feel attached to the host. And that's a good thing, right? It, uh, you, you, that shouldn't be avoided, but you get used to their way of saying things. You get used to the way they think and the way they express their ideas.

And like I said, that there's nothing wrong with that. But if you are wanting to find ways to get in touch with. Different sources of English so that you can expose yourself to different styles, different ways of expressing things, then you're going to have to step away from or take breaks from. The, the podcasts and the hosts that you have gotten used to, and you can always keep listening to them.

Obviously, I'm not telling you to never listen to them again. What I am saying though is that it's really important to connect to new ones and find new. New podcasts that catch your attention and that talk about things that you're interested in. Alright, so I've rambled on enough about podcasts. I'm not gonna keep talking about it, I promise.

So the second thing that you can be doing, and I've talked about it before, but it's such a fun thing to do and it's very similar to looking for new podcasts, is you should find new genres of movies if you're a movie fan or new. Programs or new TV shows that you can get into. If you are a movie fan, try breaking out of the normal style or genre of movies that you watch in English.

I. Uh, that's a huge parentheses there. I'm talking about you're watching habits in English, right? Not in your first language. I'm talking about the times when you sit down on purpose to practice your English by watching your favorite kinds of movies. I. So, as I was saying, if you're a movie fan, try breaking out of the normal style or genre of movies that you watch.

For example, if you're into romcom, romantic comedies, I mean, my wife and I love watching those together and, but if you are a huge rom-com fan. What if you tried breaking free of that and watching a thriller movie instead? Or if you hate thrillers, try watching a foreign film. That is a rom-com.

Recently, my wife and son and I got into a Korean TV series drama on Netflix. We loved it so much that we watched two full seasons and a little more than a month. The audio was all in Korean, but the subtitles were in English, and that's great practice, by the way. It's great practice that you could use too.

Maybe, maybe you won't be able to change the audio into, into English, although in most cases you can. You can also practice your reading skills by reading the transcript, uh, the, the subtitles, not the transcript, but by practicing reading the subtitles of whatever show you are watching. That's also great practice, so try breaking out of the normal kinds of movies that you watch.

Or the normal kinds of TV shows that you watch, try something new. Try something that you've not watched before. And number three, and this is likely the most important thing. You can and should be doing regularly. It also just happens to be the hardest, depending on your personality style. And that thing is connecting with new people in English.

And this is also one that I have repeated often and I repeat it often because it's something that you're probably not doing enough of. Just because of fear, just because of not wanting to be embarrassed, not wanting to make a fool out of yourself in front of somebody else as you make mistakes in English with a native English speaker, and you're going to make mistakes, there's no doubt about it, but you know what?

Making mistakes is the only way to make progress. Making mistakes is the only way to make progress. It is a fact, a true fact, and you can quote me on this, you can take this to the bank if you are not being embarrassed, if you're not making mistakes with your English. It's because you're not taking enough risks, you're not trying enough new things.

You need to be putting yourself out there. And one of the best ways that I know of from personal experience in learning a new language, because I had to learn Spanish, I've learned Spanish, and the times that I've made the most progress has been the times when I've been forcing myself. To connect with other native speakers.

In my case, it was native speakers of Spanish. The times that I did that were the times that I found my Spanish skills were growing, and it was also the times when I've made the most mistakes. But boy, when I made those mistakes and got the correction that I needed to help me fix those mistakes, those are the things that I never forget.

I haven't forgotten the corrections that people have kindly given me when I've made mistakes. I just don't forget them, and it's kind of like a quick way to learn. So try not to allow yourself to fall into a comfort zone of always talking with the same people in English. New people equals new ideas and new ways to talk about life.

It's just the way it is. There's no two people, hopefully, who are going to talk about things in the exact same way who are going to have the exact same set of ideas and the exact same ways of processing life. Not two people will have the exact same senses of humor, will tell the same kinds of stories.

You see what I'm getting at? Like as you connect with more people around you, you'll begin connecting with different styles of using English, and that is a great thing because it's going to help you to understand what they're talking about for one, but it also will expose you. To new ways of saying things and expressing things like as we were talking about, I think it was the previous episode, is be listening for interesting uses of English around you.

And when you hear something that sounds cool to you, grab it and try using it yourself. So. Homework for you is who is one person? Just one. Just one. Who is one person that you can connect with this week over coffee or over a movie or over dinner? I. Who is it that you can connect with in English? Because by regularly connecting with new sources of English, you'll be exposing yourself to new vocabulary and new language that will over time cause your own vocabulary and language skills to grow.

And that's why I was recommending to you. Those, those previous two ideas of looking into new podcasts and watching new genres of movies and talking to new people. You see what happens is when we explore a different podcast or a different genre of movies or different people, it's almost like we're opening the door.

To a new world, to a new set of language, to a new way of expressing things. I promise you, you'll hear new words that you haven't heard before. If you start connecting with new sources, new uh, TV shows, new movies and new people, you'll just hear things differently because each of them have different ways of sharing their experiences or their stories with us.

And the more times you are doing that, the better, the better the opportunity you will have of growing your English skills and the better chance you will have of hearing words and phrases and ideas expressed in ways that you like and that you like so much you want to steal and use it yourself. That my friends, is how you make progress.

Adding little by little to your phrases, to your use of, of English, adding new words and vocabulary and using them on a regular basis is how you break free of those plateaus. And I've said this in each episode that we've been talking about this. This is not an easy fix. It's not a quick fix. You're not going to magically, somehow start doing this and be like, ha, suddenly making progress.

I'm suddenly going, my, my learning curve is rocketing upwards. No, this is a long. Term approach, but I give you this guarantee and it's a total money back guarantee on this, my friend. If you do this on a regular basis, consistently every week on a daily basis, if you can, if you are consistently doing this, reaching into different styles of English, you will, you will begin to see your English start moving up.

Again, I guarantee it. Thank you so much for listening in today. I hope I haven't lost you on my rambling as I go along, but I get really interested in these topics and I want you to succeed. I want you to feel like you're making progress. 'cause I know what it feels like to get stuck. I know it's so frustrating, but there is a way out.

It doesn't happen overnight, but there is a way out. Give these a try. Pick one of them. Pick one of them. And start trying it and then get back to me and tell me how it works for you. Tell me what new phrases or words that you've heard or that you've picked up or that you've experienced as you've talked with somebody new.

Tell me some stories. I would love to hear them. I would love to hear what happens to your English as you start using some of these and you can tell me about it by simply writing me. You can write me at aaron@celpipsuccess.com. Let me know which one of these options you try, and if you've been listening in on this all the way through, all the way to the end.

I'm now at minute 28, almost minute 29, if you've hung on with me this long. I want to invite you, my friend, to join my weekly newsletter community. I keep losing my voice.

As I was saying, if you've made it all the way through to the end of this episode, we're now at minute 29. If you've been here sticking it out with me, first of all, thank you. Thank you for listening to the entire episode. If you haven't already, I want to invite you to subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

It's super easy to do. Just go to www.celpipsuccess.com/subscribe, and a link will be in the show notes. If you are driving and you can't write this down or you can't go here now, but I want to invite you to subscribe because every week I send a text version. Not of the episode exactly, but I talk about it.

I go into different detail about what I'm talking about here with you. I explore different strategies and ideas to help you grow your English skills. I link to different man.

I, I, I link to resources that I find to be of interest that are, are designed towards helping you improve your English. I put all those things in the newsletter. It's all for free, and you can,

I did not prepare to say this. If you've been listening the entire way through this episode, we're now at minute 30. I just want to say a big thank you for hanging in there with me through the entire episode. I really appreciate you for sticking it out, and I want to invite you if you haven't already. If you haven't done this already, I want to invite you to subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

To do that, just go to celpipsuccess.com/subscribe. I. That's celpipsuccess.com/subscribe, and it's totally free. There's no costs, there's no hidden costs. No salesperson will visit you and try to convince you to buy something. Uh, if you subscribe to my newsletter, you are welcome. You are welcome to subscribe and in my newsletter that comes out every Tuesday, I share additional information that's oftentimes related to this podcast episode.

I go into deeper detail about the topics that we talk about here. Not always. Sometimes I go in a completely different direction, but. Many times I, I take a closer look at a certain aspect of what I was talking about in this episode that maybe I didn't want to go into detail on, on the podcast just because it was gonna go on longer than what I wanted it to, or I just found more information out that I wanted to share with you about the topic, or I go on a completely different.

Direction. Maybe I'll share information about helping you grow your English skills in general, or I'll take a deep dive on an aspect aspect of the CELPIP exam and talk about that on helping you to get ready for the CELPIP, if that's something that's of interest to you. So what are you waiting for? If you haven't signed up already, what are you waiting for?

Please go to CELPIP success.com/subscribe and join today. And if you do during the month of February, I've got a free resource for you that I'll send you automatically for subscribing. It is a language snapshot tool. And the idea behind it is to help you pay attention to the things that you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep again.

Are you using your first language during that time or are you using English? And if so, how much time? And the whole idea behind this tool is to help you notice if you are making enough connection with English. Or not, and to give you areas of opportunity or show you areas of opportunity where you could include English into your day-to-Day life.

So it's totally free. Just go to CELPIP success.com/subscribe and you can get that copy. That copy, no, you can get a copy of that tool for yourself. Totally free. My way to thank you for subscribing. That's it for today's episode. Please come again next week if I haven't scared you off. I hope I haven't, but I want to invite you to come back next week.

It's going to be our final week, at least for this time around where we're going to be talking about breaking free from learning plateaus, where we're gonna be talk. We're gonna be talking about. The power of negative experiences. Maybe you experienced something in your language learning career that has made you freeze.

Hmm? Has that happened to you? It's happened to me when I've been learning Spanish. I know what that feels like, but you're gonna have to tune in next week to hear what we talk about. Have a great week, my friend. Thank you so much for listening in.

Take care. Bye-Bye, and we'll see you next Tuesday.

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