Episode transcript below:
 
Shh! I have a secret to tell you. But you cannot tell your English teacher!
In this episode, I’m going to share the five things that you should never say to your English teacher, even if you’re thinking them. So is it okay? Can I share them? Can we keep it a secret? Okay. Awesome!
Just before I share these five phrases, I want to let you know that you can come to gonaturalenglish.com and I have a free training for you. The Seven Steps to Fluency Training will help you start improving your English – now, today, immediately! So, be sure to check that out.
Now, I want to share these five things to never say to your English teacher.
First of all, never, ever, ever say, “I’m too busy to study.” Why? Maybe it’s true. Maybe you’re really busy. But why should we not say this? “I’m too busy to study.” Well, we’re all busy. Teachers, especially, are super busy. So, I’m not sure if your teacher would feel sorry for you. Maybe. But the thing is, we make time for our priorities. So, if you do want to improve your English, you have to make it a priority and give it some time in your day.
Okay. Number two: Never ever say, “Yes, I understand,” if you don’t understand. This is very important for you because it doesn’t help anyone to lie. If you don’t understand something, it’s much better to say, “I don’t understand. Could you explain? Could you help me?” Teachers usually like to help their students and, of course, it’s better for you to have a full understanding of the point or the phrases that you didn’t really understand. So, I know it can be a little embarrassing sometimes to say, “I don’t understand,” but it’s okay. Just understand it’s a good thing to ask for help. So, don’t be shy to do that.
Okay, the third thing that you should never say to your English teacher is anything not in English. I’ve had students come up to me and ask me questions in their native language – like in Japanese. And my Japanese is not very good and I couldn’t respond in Japanese to my students’ question. Actually, English class is a time for English. So do everything in English. Do not revert to your native language. This is a time for you to try out new things, to make mistakes. So go ahead and even if you’re not sure or you’re not comfortable about how to say something in English, just try it in class. It’s a great time to experiment.
Okay, next. Another thing that you should never say to your English teacher is, “I’ll never use this tense.” Okay, a lot of people don’t like to learn grammar, right? It can be boring. It can be dry. But just understand that your English will sound so much better if you use the compound tenses. So, you can probably communicate just fine if you use simple tenses, but if you want to sound like a professional in English, like you’re fluent in English, then you need to know all the tenses and you’ll definitely find times when you can use them.
Finally, the last thing that you should never say to your English teacher is, “Since I only need to write emails, I don’t need to learn how to speak in English.” Or it could be vice versa. Maybe you might say, “Oh, I only want to learn to speak, so I don’t need to learn how to write.” Well, this is not really a good idea to tell your English teacher, because your English teacher wants to help you with your all-round fluency. And in order to have really good English fluency, you need to know all the skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking. Now, if you’re doing more speaking than writing, you could focus more on those skills. Like at Go Natural English, I focus mainly on listening and speaking because those are the skills that help you to connect with people on a daily basis. Of course, you want to use writing and reading every day, too. But it’s really important to know each skill and then you can focus on learning what you like according to your goals.
Alright!