Fear of Speaking English? Here's What to Do

معنی واژه با لمس

1. 0:00There's something I hear every single week, both in the emails I receive and from my students when they first start learning with me. The thing that I hear is this,
2. 0:11even after years of studying English, the fear of speaking English is still there,
3. 0:18like the fear of freezing or that feeling that all the words you know, disappear the moment you need to speak,
4. 0:27or the fear of making a mistake and feeling embarrassed in front of somebody else. The fear of not being understood,
5. 0:36like when the words in your head just don't match the words that you actually say. And if you've had these same fears,
6. 0:46you might believe that the problem is you or your English or that your English just isn't good enough. But like my students, you haven't given up.
7. 0:56You still try to learn new words. You prepare for English conversations.
8. 1:01Maybe you lay awake at night mentally rehearsing what you're going to say.
9. 1:07You might even watch videos just like this one at 11 o'clock at night.
10. 1:12So what's happening? Why is the fear still there?
11. 1:18Do you just need to study differently or prepare more?
12. 1:22The truth is if studying and more preparation were the only answers they would've worked by now. Instead,
13. 1:30what we need to do is understand the impact that fear has and what helps to overcome it.
14. 1:38Because fear isn't just a feeling you have speaking English, it's physiological. What that means is that fear affects your body,
15. 1:48your hormones, your cardiovascular system, your muscles and more under stress.
16. 1:54Your body prioritizes survival over language.
17. 2:00Fear interferes with the part of your brain that is responsible for thinking about what you want to say in the moment, finding the right words and forming the sentences you need.
18. 2:12But fear doesn't have to do this.
19. 2:16There are ways for you to take control of that fear, and that's what this lesson is all about. Each of those three fears, freezing making mistakes being misunderstood,
20. 2:28they all have a different root cause and that means the solution is different as well.
21. 2:34So today we're going to look at each one of those fears separately so that you know exactly what is causing the fear and what to do about it.
22. 2:44Now, one thing that will really help as you work through this process is to have a low pressure way to start practicing speaking and
23. 2:54trying these strategies out. So to help you do that, I've got a free training called How to Get the Confidence to Say What You Want in English, and I'll leave a link to that training in the description notes below.
24. 3:06It's a great place to begin. So now with that, let's start with the very first fear.
25. 3:12The fear of freezing in the moment of speaking.
26. 3:16When you freeze in English, it doesn't mean that you're bad at speaking English that your level is low or that your vocabulary is too basic.
27. 3:25Instead something else is happening.
28. 3:28Let's say there's an unexpected question or a fast moving conversation and it sparks fear. Remember, fear is physiological.
29. 3:39That means that it affects your body and you might notice that your heart beats faster, your breathing gets shallower.
30. 3:46What that means is you're not breathing deeply and your muscles get tense.
31. 3:51In English, we call this body response fight or flight mode.
32. 3:58It's what happens when your brain detects a threat and it prepares your body to either fight the threat or run from it to survive.
33. 4:08When your body is in that fear mode, fear interferes with the part of your brain that is responsible
34. 4:16for language production. That includes finding words, forming sentences, and choosing grammar.
35. 4:24This is exactly why the feeling of freezing or going blank is real. You haven't lost the words that you know,
36. 4:33but in that moment fear is blocking your access from them.
37. 4:38There's actually a name for this. It's called dual task, cognitive burden, and it means that your brain is carrying two heavy tasks at the
38. 4:49same time. On one side it's trying to find the right words, check your grammar and use the right pronunciation in English.
39. 4:57On the other side, it's also managing fear, worrying about judgment and dealing with your racing heart.
40. 5:06All of that is too much for a brain to handle all at once.
41. 5:10It's a little bit like a computer with too many programs open at the same time, and so it slows down. Things on the computer start to freeze, not because something broke,
42. 5:22but because there's too much running at the same time.
43. 5:26So of course when this happens, when you're speaking in English, it's easy to just stay silent or to think, I just need to study more.
44. 5:36But if you never take control of that fear, if you never learn how to overcome the fear of freezing, then it controls you.
45. 5:47It keeps you permanently stuck or frozen in real world conversations.
46. 5:53Your brain never learns how to adjust and stay calm in spontaneous conversations. So what do you do about this?
47. 6:04Well, first we have to know what not to do.
48. 6:07The answer to dealing with this fear is not to push yourself into conversations that scare you the most.
49. 6:15When your brain is already overloaded, adding more pressure doesn't help.
50. 6:21It just makes the feeling of freezing worse, not better.
51. 6:26And the answer is also not to simply prepare more.
52. 6:31Preparation is important, of course, there's no question, but since you're here right now, my guess is that you're already doing that again.
53. 6:40You're already laying awake at night thinking about the meeting you have in English tomorrow or the interview or the conversation with a teacher where your
54. 6:49child goes to school. You're already thinking about what to say.
55. 6:54So instead, what actually helps you to have control in these moments to begin reducing that fear is a two step approach.
56. 7:05Step one is to calm the fear response, and this means that before you speak, before you answer an unexpected question, for example,
57. 7:16you take several slow deep belly breaths.
58. 7:21Doing this lowers your heart rate and it signals to your brain that there's no real threat. I know this sounds very simple,
59. 7:30but there's a real reason that we tell someone who is frightened to take a breath. First, it works because it gives your brain the signal it needs to
60. 7:41shift out of survival mode and back into thinking mode.
61. 7:46So the first step here, anytime you feel that anxiety showing up, is to first take a few of those deep belly breaths.
62. 7:55I love to tell my students to think about their favorite smell.
63. 8:00Imagine the way that you breathe when you smell something beautiful, you breathe slowly and deeply and you hold onto that smell,
64. 8:09taking it all in and then you slowly breathe out.
65. 8:12That's exactly what to do at this moment. On top of that, I have a small personal trick I use when I need to calm down fast.
66. 8:21It's a little strange, but whether I'm sitting or standing, I like to curl my toes and kind of press them into the ground.
67. 8:29I do this for two reasons. Number one, no one can see me do it, it's totally hidden. And number two,
68. 8:36it gives me something physical in my body to focus on so that I'm shifting my brain away from the focus on fear
69. 8:47and onto that physical movement. Now, I can't promise that this works for everyone, but it does work for me.
70. 8:54So it might be worth trying yourself.
71. 8:57Now that we have step one in place for learning how to control the fear of freezing, step two is to speak with a framework in mind.
72. 9:07If you're not sure what a framework is, I want you to think about what happens when someone asks you a question in English at that moment. You have to do two things at once.
73. 9:17You have to figure out what you want to say, and then you have to figure out how to say it in English.
74. 9:23Both of those things are competing for the same mental space at the same time. A framework removes one of those demands.
75. 9:34I want you to think of it like a mental roadmap, a simple repeatable structure to help you organize what you want
76. 9:42to say before you even need to find the words. For example, if someone asks you your opinion in a meeting, instead of scrambling to figure out where to start,
77. 9:54you simply follow a structure that you already know. Here's my view, here's why, and here's what I'd suggest.
78. 10:02You can follow that structure time and time and time again.
79. 10:06It's short and easy to memorize.
80. 10:08You don't have to think hard about what to say in what order to say it.
81. 10:13Instead, you just follow that structure and you fill in the words you need with a framework in place.
82. 10:20You don't have to build your whole answer from scratch in real time under pressure while someone is waiting. Instead, there's one less thing competing for that mental space.
83. 10:32And when there's less competition for that mental space, the words come more easily.
84. 10:38Your brain has more space to find the words you need.
85. 10:42But one thing is important here, frameworks are only the first part of this solution.
86. 10:48The other thing that reduces freezing over time is building automaticity. Automaticity means that you can use language, certain words,
87. 10:58phrases, or grammar structures automatically. No translating involved, no stopping for a long time to think it's language that is
88. 11:07just there for you. So again, when someone asks for it, you can just say it.
89. 11:14When you practice the same frameworks again and again and again, you don't really have to think hard about them,
90. 11:23you don't have to remember what the framework is, it's just there.
91. 11:28You have it available, and that makes it so much easier to just focus on what you want to say and to find the words in the moment to help you do that. Now,
92. 11:40in talking about having a framework or a mental roadmap and using it again and again and again to build up automaticity,
93. 11:49this is very different from rehearsing with a script.
94. 11:54A script prepares you for only one specific moment, one specific situation.
95. 12:00A framework with automaticity means the language is always there for you and you can adapt it to different situations.
96. 12:10This doesn't require any memorization, it just requires practice.
97. 12:16And the way that you can build up this automaticity is by starting small.
98. 12:22You can start in conversations or when speaking where the stakes are low, that means there's no real risk involved, and then you just repeat that experience over time. Now,
99. 12:33these low stakes conversations or opportunities to speak out loud can happen in multiple places. If you're not ready to speak with others,
100. 12:43you can practice speaking aloud on your own.
101. 12:46You could practice with a neighbor you feel comfortable with or join a small conversation group where it feels safe to try new frameworks, new language and new ways of speaking.
102. 12:58Every time you have one of those low stakes conversations, you're giving your brain evidence that's speaking English in front of
103. 13:07another person is not a threat. And over time, that evidence is what makes the fear response smaller.
104. 13:16It's what allows you to stay in control and not let the fear control you.
105. 13:22Doing that with frameworks and building up automaticity, this is exactly what I teach inside my programs.
106. 13:30My students get specific frameworks for different situations like whether you're giving an update in a meeting, handling a disagreement,
107. 13:39or just making small talk. And with those frameworks, we take the thinking out of the equation so that your English
108. 13:48can just finally flow. So if you want to know more, be sure to check out my Fluency School program.
109. 13:55I'll leave a link for the details about that down below.
110. 13:57But now I wanna take a look at how perfectionism and the fear of mistakes are blocking your fluency.
111. 14:05When it comes to the fear of making a mistake, there's something researchers found that might surprise you.
112. 14:12Anxious speakers don't just worry about mistakes.
113. 14:15They actually change how they speak because of that worry.
114. 14:20They use shorter sentences, simpler vocabulary, and they speak at a level that is lower than what they actually know because it feels safer.
115. 14:31So the fear of making a mistake isn't just an uncomfortable feeling.
116. 14:36It's actually getting in the way of the English you already have and something else.
117. 14:42The fear isn't usually about the mistake itself, it's more about the moment after.
118. 14:50It's a fear of that tiny moment after you've said something wrong and you're waiting.
119. 14:57You're waiting to see how the other person reacts, waiting to see the look on their face. It's the fear of judgment,
120. 15:06the fear of sounding like a beginner or the fear that a mistake is a threat to who you are, your identity, your intelligence.
121. 15:17Staying with this fear means experiencing constant self-doubt, looking for mistakes everywhere and always staying safe with your
122. 15:28vocabulary.
123. 15:30It means avoiding complex topics of conversation and that kind of perfectionism.
124. 15:36It also keeps you stuck at the very same level, unable to fully express what you want. Now, if you want to know more about what to do, if you're stuck at the same level,
125. 15:49I've got a full lesson on that. So I recommend watching that next.
126. 15:54But let's talk about what actually happens in most English conversations. When mistakes happen, the reality is the other person barely notices
127. 16:06or they understand anyway, or they simply wait for you to continue after making the mistake.
128. 16:12They just don't really care because they make mistakes too.
129. 16:18I have to be honest. This concept, this idea of accepting mistakes in English, this is really difficult for a lot of my students to accept because
130. 16:29not every language is the same in some languages.
131. 16:33The goal in speaking is precision and elegance, choosing the precise word or grammar structure for the moment.
132. 16:43But that's not really how English works. That's not our priority.
133. 16:48English speakers prioritize.
134. 16:50They value efficiency and connection.
135. 16:54Our brains focus on the overall idea and context.
136. 17:01We listen for the key words, not every single word.
137. 17:06The truth is in English.
138. 17:07The bigger communication breakdown is usually stopping the conversation, not making a mistake in the moment. And I wanna be clear here,
139. 17:17I'm not going to pretend that we don't notice mistakes at all.
140. 17:22Of course we do. And if you've ever had someone laugh or say, I didn't understand, you know that it's a deeply painful experience.
141. 17:33What's often happening in those moments when someone responds with laughter or with an expression that they don't understand is that the listener
142. 17:42is reacting to the messiness of communication.
143. 17:47They're reacting to a momentary break in the connection.
144. 17:51More often than not, it's a reaction to that moment, that messiness. It's not a judgment about the mistake.
145. 18:00And the truth is, even in those moments when those uncomfortable mistakes happen, stopping yourself from speaking doesn't protect you.
146. 18:10It just confirms to your brain that speaking is dangerous, creating that threat and sending your body into that panic mode.
147. 18:20So with this in mind, I wanna talk about what actually helps, what helps you to stay in the conversation even after
148. 18:28a mistake happens. And this isn't about pretending that it didn't happen, it's not about stopping to apologize. Instead, when a mistake happens,
149. 18:39the goal is to simply continue using phrases that help you do that.
150. 18:44Some of the common phrases that English speakers use when we make mistakes is, let me say that again, or, Ooh, what I actually mean is, or actually now again,
151. 18:55these phrases are not about trying to hide the mistake.
152. 18:59They're about keeping the conversation going.
153. 19:02And that's the point because the other person listening to you isn't measuring your English. Instead, they're trying to understand you.
154. 19:12And most of the time, if you keep talking, even if you need to rephrase, they will. So if you're not sure about this whole thing, if you're not sure about these phrases,
155. 19:24I recommend listening to native English speakers in live interviews on podcasts, and in conversations around you,
156. 19:32you're going to hear those exact phrases again and again and again.
157. 19:37On top of that, I want you to practice them so that you get comfortable using those phrases yourself. And to do this,
158. 19:45I recommend a simple activity that you can do no matter where you live.
159. 19:50I recommend that you record yourself speaking, evaluate your speaking, and then pivot when you need to.
160. 19:57My free training on how to get the confidence to say what you want is perfect for this. So really quickly, here's how to do that.
161. 20:07Number one, you record yourself for maybe one minute discussing a topic that you care about, and you can use my free training to give you some ideas of exactly
162. 20:18what to talk about. Then after you record yourself, you listen back, you evaluate, and you find a moment where maybe you stopped for a long pause.
163. 20:30Maybe you went quiet or lost your focus, maybe you froze in the moment.
164. 20:35When you identify that in your recording, it's time to pivot.
165. 20:40This means to identify a way to say what you want, using one of those phrases and then rerecord with that specific
166. 20:50sentence. When you learn to do this naturally in conversation, you're sending signals to the listener that you're refining
167. 20:59your thought so that they understand fully and in English speaking culture, being able to restate or refine your words in the moment.
168. 21:09This isn't a sign of weakness. This is a sign of efficiency, clarity, and fluency in the language. And now let's move on to the third fear,
169. 21:19the fear of not being understood. For many of my students, this isn't just about saying the wrong thing in the moment.
170. 21:29It's really the fear that if you can't be clear, if you're not understood, you'll always be on the outside. So this fear, it's a little different from the first two.
171. 21:41Before we talk about what to do, how to stay in control of this fear, there's something you need to do,
172. 21:48you need to ask yourself an honest question because the answer to this question changes everything about what we do going forward.
173. 21:58When you're not understood in an English conversation, there are several possible reasons, and in a moment, I wanna focus on two.
174. 22:06But before I do that, I want to highlight something very important.
175. 22:10Sometimes we are misunderstood because the other person simply isn't paying attention. Maybe they're distracted or having a difficult day.
176. 22:21It is not always us who are at fault. Now, with that understanding in place, I do want to talk about two reasons you may be misunderstood in
177. 22:32English. Reason number one is there is a gap in the skillset.
178. 22:37What this means is that there's something you haven't learned yet, and that's okay.
179. 22:42Our language development is a process perhaps for that topic of conversation, your English genuinely needs more development.
180. 22:52Maybe you need to learn new vocabulary for that topic.
181. 22:56Or perhaps there's a grammar structure that you haven't learned yet. Either way, in that moment, the way things are getting put together,
182. 23:06the way that sentences are getting put together, it needs more work.
183. 23:10And if that's true, it's totally fixable, but studying more of the wrong thing won't fix it.
184. 23:19What you need to do in that moment is identify specifically what is unclear and work on that.
185. 23:27This is where a teacher or a trusted friend can help.
186. 23:30They can help you identify what's missing so that you can focus your efforts in building up the skills that you really need. Now,
187. 23:40the second reason there may be a misunderstanding isn't a gap with your knowledge, it's a trust gap.
188. 23:48This means that the language is there, you know it, you can think it when you're alone, you can write it out perfectly, but in the moment that someone is in front of you,
189. 24:00that language disappears or you second guess yourself, mid-sentence, maybe you start strong and then get quieter as you continue.
190. 24:10And that's when everything comes out unclear.
191. 24:13This is not because your English has failed you or that you have a low level, it's because fear made you unclear in the moment.
192. 24:22It created self-doubt.
193. 24:24And that can lead directly to the first fear that we talked about, the fear of freezing.
194. 24:29So here's how to tell which gap you might have.
195. 24:33I want you to ask yourself three honest questions. Number one, can you write it but not say it?
196. 24:41If you can write a sentence correctly, but then you freeze when you try to say it out loud, that points to a trust gap.
197. 24:49Question two, do you recognize the word when others use it?
198. 24:54But you can't find the word when you're the one speaking if the answer to this question is yes, if there are words you understand when you hear them, but you can't use them.
199. 25:04The problem is access under pressure, not knowledge.
200. 25:10And the third question is, does your English work when you're all alone?
201. 25:15But then does it feel like it falls apart in front of someone else?
202. 25:20For example, if you can speak fluently to yourself, if you can practice in your head, even have entire conversations,
203. 25:29but then it's all gone the moment another person is there again, that's the trust gap.
204. 25:37And this trust gap is exactly what I want to focus on.
205. 25:40This is what I want to help you overcome because that trust gap, it's like a silence spiral. Here's what I mean.
206. 25:49You have the fear of being misunderstood.
207. 25:52So to avoid being misunderstood, your brain starts over editing your speech, before it even leaves your mouth. You start checking every word,
208. 26:04reconsidering every sentence, and all of that monitoring takes up a lot of mental space, the space that you need to actually speak.
209. 26:15And by trying so hard to not be misunderstood, you actually become less clear, not more.
210. 26:24So over time you stop taking risks because you're constantly worried about that fear of being misunderstood.
211. 26:33You stick to simple phrases, and that's what keeps this trust gap exactly where it is.
212. 26:40It never changes. In fact, one of my students spent years working on her pronunciation.
213. 26:48She was convinced that it was her pronunciation that was holding her back in conversations, creating misunderstandings. And when I gave her feedback,
214. 26:58she responded by telling me she thought if she just worked harder on her pronunciation, it would solve her struggles.
215. 27:07But it didn't because pronunciation wasn't the problem.
216. 27:11She had the English she needed, and her pronunciation was clear.
217. 27:15She just didn't trust it enough to let it out.
218. 27:19So how do you close that trust gap?
219. 27:23You close it the same way you close the freeze response in fear. Number one, you give your brain real evidence in real situations that
220. 27:35your English works. That means starting where the stakes are low, where there's low risk, you start by talking to yourself out loud,
221. 27:45like I recommend in my how to say what you want in English training.
222. 27:50The other thing, or the next step in closing that trust gap is practicing in a supportive group with guidance where it's safe to try new language and
223. 28:01make mistakes where you can use a word that you're not really sure about and someone else helps you use it correctly.
224. 28:10And even if you do make a mistake, it's totally okay.
225. 28:13No one judges you for the mistake. They just help you use it in the right way.
226. 28:18The next time. When you experience real communication, you give your brain the evidence it needs that your English works, that you are understood.
227. 28:29This is exactly the purpose of my Confident Women community.
228. 28:33It's my English speaking club for women where developing trust in your English through real conversations is part of the process.
229. 28:43Time and time again, I hear women in my community say, I finally feel like me in English. So if that's something you've been missing, if it's something you've been looking for,
230. 28:54I'll leave a link for details about the community. In the description notes, you now know exactly what's happening when you freeze, when you make a mistake,
231. 29:04or when you feel like no one understands you in English. And again, these are not signs that you have a low level in English or your vocabulary is poor. It's fear.
232. 29:15It's fear that has control over you. And fear is workable.
233. 29:21Fear is something that gets smaller and smaller with the right practice.
234. 29:26But knowing that isn't enough on its own, at some point you have to take action. You have to speak.
235. 29:34It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be in the hardest conversation you can think of. Instead.
236. 29:42Start small.
237. 29:43Take one small step with the recommendations I've shared today.
238. 29:48That's where it begins. And don't forget that if you want support along the way, there are multiple ways to get that support,
239. 29:56whether it's by continuing to learn with me or someone else in your English speaking life. So before we finish, I want you to let me know what is one small step you're going to take this week
240. 30:08to begin taking control over that fear.
241. 30:12And as always, if you found this lesson helpful to you, don't forget to subscribe or follow wherever you're watching or listening from today. Thank you so much for joining me,
242. 30:24and I look forward to next time.