Topic Talk | 3 strategies for overcoming a plateau in your language journey

The A to Z English Podcast

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!

https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content

In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack provide three good strategies for overcoming a plateau in your language learning journey.

Transcript:

00:00:00

Jack

Hey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.

00:00:03

Jack

And if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.

00:00:23

Jack

And be careful, don't hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.

00:00:42

Jack

Each week.

00:00:44

Jack

So make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.

00:00:52

Jack

Now let's get on with the show.

00:00:56

Jack

Welcome to the Ages English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we are doing a topic talk episode and social the topic for today is I've I've pulled up three strategies for overcoming.

00:01:13

Jack

A plateau in language learning and a plateau just means that you reached a certain level and then you're not improving anymore. You're kind of stuck and you're you're kind of flatlined.

00:01:25

Jack

Know.

00:01:26

Jack

And yeah, so I'll, I'll.

00:01:27

Xochitl

I'm.

00:01:29

Jack

I'll tell you the strategies.

00:01:30

Jack

And then you just, you know, tell me what you think about them and and and share your your your your view on on these.

00:01:38

Jack

So the first one is.

00:01:40

Jack

Diversify your learning methods, which means changing the way you engage with the language can re energize your learning process. So incorporate different activities that target various skills, such as reading, listening, writing and speaking.

00:02:00

Jack

You can for reading, you can choose a variety of materials such as books, articles and blogs to expand your vocabulary. You can listen to podcasts. You can follow YouTube channels and again that's right in our that's what we're doing here.

00:02:18

Jack

UM to listen to different accents and slang, and we do a lot of slang episodes. So the 80s, the English podcast is really a great way to improve your listening by writing, journaling, writing essays, or replying on online form.

00:02:35

Jack

Things. And by joining language exchange programs, finding a conversation partner or participating in speaking clubs. Or you could even join the world English Google meets class, which is something that I started with.

00:02:56

Jack

Another another teacher here in Korea and students can for $10 a month, they can join and just have a one hour conversation. Actually, if you become a VIP, it sometimes students will talk for two or three hours a night.

00:03:13

Jack

Every night. Every day. Yeah. So. And then there are multiple classes and what we have multiple teachers teaching different lessons as well. So you know. So there's a lot of things you can do. What what do you, how do you feel about this like?

00:03:13

발표자

Yes.

00:03:28

Jack

Diversifying learning methods.

00:03:31

Xochitl

I think that's really good. I I actually was one of the first things I would have suggested right off the bat, especially with reading. It's really great to read varied content like you can try.

00:03:44

Xochitl

Thing old English literature and you can try reading science articles and you can try reading the horoscope in a magazine or a celebrity news thing or and and you can try reading a fashion article just because you're gonna acquire a lot more different, diverse vocabulary that you don't see in every day and.

00:03:53

Jack

Right.

00:04:04

Xochitl

That really helps be able to get you from just a proficient level to really a distinguished native speaker level.

00:04:14

Jack

I'm gonna throw. I'm gonna throw a plug for something I'm not related to it at all. I have no connection to it.

00:04:21

Xochitl

Yeah, do it.

00:04:21

발표자

But.

00:04:22

Jack

It's called Breaking News English and what they do is they take an article and they kind of scale it down so that it's more understandable for second language learners.

00:04:35

Jack

And they put a new article up every single day, and you can read the article and answer some comprehension questions, some true or false questions, vocabulary matching. They've got lots of little exercises there, and I think that's just such a great.

00:04:51

Jack

Website I I've used it many times for my classes and I I love breaking news English. So if you're in, if you're looking for somebody to read and the articles are all different, you know it's a science article. It's a sports article. It's a news article. It's all just a bunch of different things. And like you said.

00:05:10

Jack

If you read a variety of of material, you're gonna pick up a variety of vocabulary. If you stay in one specific area like sports only, you're gonna get a lot of sports lingo, but you may.

00:05:24

Jack

Get exposed to science or yeah.

00:05:24

Xochitl

You'll be lacking in several social studies, sociology and all history, yeah.

00:05:30

발표자

Right.

00:05:33

Jack

Exactly, exactly. #2, the second one is set specific, achievable goals. Breaking down your learning into smaller manageable goals can help you stay motivated and measure progress.

00:05:48

발표자

Yes.

00:05:49

Jack

How do you feel about that one?

00:05:51

Xochitl

I think that was good. I mean for example, you could say your goal is to improve your pronunciation, but that's extremely vague. But for example, let's say that you struggle with pronouncing the R or R.

00:06:06

Xochitl

R sounds so which is really common. Then you could practice a few words that are L&R heavier that alternate between L&R within the same word.

00:06:18

Xochitl

And record yourself every day and you'll see your progress from the beginning of the month to the end of the month. And that will really inspire you to keep going and keep practicing and improving.

00:06:30

Jack

That's right. That's right. I think students tend to like, try to bite off more than they can chew. You know, you you you set your goals as like I wanna. I wanna sound like a native speaker. What does that mean exactly? You wanna sound like a native speaker? Well, I mean, it's it's kind of like a a a child saying, you know, I want to be Michael Jordan.

00:06:35

Xochitl

Yeah.

00:06:44

Xochitl

Right.

00:06:50

Jack

Well, there's a lot of steps that you have to take to get to that high. The highest level of of basketball or whatever sport you.

00:06:50

Xochitl

Yeah.

00:06:57

Jack

Might be playing.

00:06:59

Jack

You you have to, you know, set you small goals. Yeah. Yeah. Well, right.

00:07:01

Xochitl

Pick an accent.

00:07:05

Xochitl

Pick an accent for 1A neutral English or some kind. The easiest one that though, or the one that you like, or the one that you resonate the most with and there's just so many small goals from there. Just start with short words or the one you know, ones that you have a little bit of a hard time.

00:07:22

Xochitl

Announcing and then build up from there and gain your confidence, yeah.

00:07:26

Jack

Absolutely.

00:07:28

Jack

And #3 is immerse yourself in language and immersion is one of the most effective ways to push through a plateau. And what does immersion mean?

00:07:39

Xochitl

Immersion means when you are fully surrounded by a language, in a lot of aspects. So when I was living in Korea, I was immersed in Korean because it's only foreign teacher. So all day, every day, all that I would hear were people speaking Korean around me. And I would say this is this. And patients were the biggest keys to my breakthrough and speaking Korean.

00:08:00

Xochitl

Because at first when I got there and I would, I would hear a word and I'd.

00:08:05

Xochitl

I wouldn't know where a word began in another one and another began.

00:08:08

Jack

Yes, that's a hard thing. You create a yeah, yes.

00:08:11

Xochitl

I was like, what's going on? Because so where is there so many it might be?

00:08:16

Xochitl

A sentence with only two or two words or three words, or even one word. But it has many syllables, so I was very confused. I was very confused and then with I said I said I'll never learn Korean. I'm I've gone crazy on. I don't know what I'm doing here with patients. Within a couple of weeks, I could. I could begin to distinguish where.

00:08:36

Xochitl

Words ended and and began.

00:08:39

Xochitl

And every month it just got better and better. And then I would feel like I hit a plateau of understanding, or sometimes I would even regress a little bit and then I would improve. And so it it's another thing is that learning of any type and especially language learning, it's not necessarily a linear improvement, is not going to be linear. You might do really well for a while, you might regress.

00:08:59

Xochitl

After a little bit and come back down. But overall the trend is going to be that you're improving. So you just have.

00:09:04

Jack

Yes.

00:09:05

Xochitl

To have faith, yes.

00:09:06

Jack

Absolutely. It's a, it's a. It's a long process and it's very detailed and or tedious we say detailed.

00:09:16

Jack

And it takes a long time to to to grow your language skills. And yeah, I mean, like, So what social did what I did travel if possible. So that's one of the ways you can do just throw yourself right into the fire. You know, so that you have to use.

00:09:29

Xochitl

Yes.

00:09:35

Xochitl

Thanks.

00:09:37

Jack

The target language you have to use English to survive. You know survival English, you know, right? But that's expensive and that's not available to everybody that that's not available. But you can do a version of that online like that. Google meets class that I was talking about.

00:09:42

Xochitl

Sometimes people.

00:09:53

Jack

On is a kind of a version of that where we have a number no native language rule. You have to speak English and so no matter what your skill level is, you've got to find a way to communicate some ideas and you just have to figure it out and you're there's no, there's no guide or anything necessarily.

00:10:07

Xochitl

Yeah.

00:10:13

Jack

You just, you know, you can ask questions, people will help you. But it's a great way to grow because it's a stress. It's putting stress on your.

00:10:22

Jack

On on, on you and forcing you to perform.

00:10:25

Jack

Form.

00:10:26

Jack

And.

00:10:27

Xochitl

In a real.

00:10:27

Xochitl

World environment that you don't. Only you wouldn't have access to otherwise. It's really like, OK, this is crunch time kind of behavior which I think really helps. And yeah, I would say that. So that's a great way. Jack. Sorry. Did I?

00:10:41

Xochitl

Cut you off. Go ahead. I.

00:10:42

Jack

No, no, that's it. I'm. I'm good. Yeah.

00:10:45

Xochitl

I was going to say that's really good.

00:10:46

Xochitl

And another way I know a lot of people learn another language is through playing video games with people that speak that language. As native speakers, you'll pick up things that they're saying, and you'll begin to understand things through that context.

00:11:01

Xochitl

Another way to immerse yourself is by joining like a Facebook group for that. For a hobby that you like in English, or watching a YouTube channel in English, or listening to our podcast or watching Netflix or English movies.

00:11:21

Xochitl

I have a friend who moved from Brazil to the US when he was around 7 and he said the biggest way he learned English was through movies and I think that that was a really big help when I was trying to learn Korean is just a lot of listening.

00:11:35

Xochitl

This and and sometimes I would watch something with subtitles and I would rewatch it without the subtitles, yeah.

00:11:42

Jack

Yeah, that's that's the incremental element to it, right? Start with the easiest and then move a little bit more challenging, a little bit more challenging. That's the way you.

00:11:50

Jack

Grow so yeah.

00:11:54

Jack

Right on.

00:11:55

Xochitl

All right, listeners, if you like these tips or if you're curious or have any English learning language tips of your own to overcome a plateau, make sure to leave a comment down below at A-Z englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at AZ [e-mail] and join the WeChat and also groups to join the conversation.

00:12:12

Xochitl

And if you have $1.99 to spare, make sure you support Jack and I and our exclusive podcast content. It really helps us create more content for you guys and we really, really appreciate all the.

00:12:22

Xochitl

Support so far.

00:12:23

Xochitl

Thank you again and we'll see you guys next.

00:12:24

Xochitl

Time. Bye bye bye bye.

00:12:25

발표자

Go back.

Podcast Website:

https://atozenglishpodcast.com/topic-talk-3-strategies-for-overcoming-a-plateau-in-your-language-journey/

Social Media:

WeChat: atozenglishpodcast

Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/

Tik Tok: @atozenglish1

Instagram: @atozenglish22

Twitter: @atozenglish22

A to Z Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast

Check out our You Tube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A

Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670

Join our Whatsapp group: https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7

Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/donations
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy