The Real Reason You’re Stuck in English

 What does a torn knee ligament have to do with your English mistakes? More than you might think. In this episode, I’m talking about why “just practise more” often doesn’t work, and how to diagnose the real reason you’re struggling with reading, listening, Use of English or writing, so you can focus on the right kind of practice. 

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Transcript

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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Cambridge Advanced Accelerator podcast. My name is Cheryl, and I am here to help you absolutely smash your Cambridge Advanced exam and get your English up to that C1 or even C2 level. So, this Monday morning, what are we talking about this week? Well, I wanted to share a little story with you about my week last week. Um, so I had to go to the physio last week because I had a bit of an issue with my elbow. I'd been going a bit too hard at the gym, and also I have a giant Labrador and German Shepherd poppy who loves to pool on the lead constantly. Um, so I had a weird pain in my elbow from all my pull-ups and pulling dogs. Uh so I went to the physio and um she was great. Um, as soon as I got to the physio, uh she kind of asked me a ton of questions about my elbow. She's like, if you do this, does it hurt? If that, what about this? Move here. Does that hurt? Does this hurt? Um, how did you do it? How long has it been going on for? She asked me a ton of questions, and then she got um um uh what's it called in English? Uh I was gonna say an echograph, but I think that is a Spanish translation, an ultrasound. She got an ultrasound machine and then uh looked inside my my elbow, looked at all the ligaments, um, and uh was able to see where there was some inflammation and exactly kind of what was wrong with it. And then she proceeded to stick some giant needles in my elbow and then whiz some electricity round it. Um don't know exactly what what that did, but it worked. Uh, I trusted her and it worked. Um, and I have to go back again today to have some more needles shoved in my arm. But uh anyway, it worked, and uh she was really she was lovely, and I wanted to contrast that with um a physio I went to maybe about three years ago, um, and I went about a problem in my knee. I'm I'm 43 guys, I'm getting old. Like every year, some bit of my body I wake up and it hurts. I'm I make more noises when I get off the sofa now, more uh, or walking upstairs, uh, or getting out of bed. Does anyone else feel like this? Anyone else in their 40s having these these issues? Um anyway, um, so I went to this physio about three years ago. Now, I think there are good physios, and there's excellent there are excellent physios out there, um, and there's kind of everything in between, and very rarely there are some bad ones, no? Uh, but just like teachers, you've got some good teachers, you've got some excellent teachers, and occasionally you get the odd terrible teacher. Um, but you know, uh there's kind of everything in between. So this physio that I went to two or three years ago with my sore knee. Um, I went in and I said, Hey, I've got a sore knee. I was kickboxing and kicked a bit too vigorously, and now I have a sore knee. Um, but this physio didn't ask me any questions really. He just said, Oh, I don't think it's your knee, I think it's your hip. And he shoved a lot of pins and needle things into my hip and did some like massage on my hip, and then he gave me a back massage, which was really nice, but um kind of didn't solve the problem with the knee. Um, so I came back a month later and got a different video in the same company to have a look at it, and they went deeper, they asked me questions about my knee, they did an ultrasound of my knee, and they were like, Oh, actually, yeah, you've got a tear in your ligament in your knee. So it was nothing to do with my hip at that time, it was a ligament tear in the knee. Um, so what I wanted to kind of relate this to is in with English, like, bear with me, there is a link here. You're like, What why is she telling us about her health issues? What has this got to do with the Cambridge Advanced exam? Um, so there is a link here. Um, when students come to me and they say, Ah, I want to improve my English, or uh I'm not great at the Cambridge Advanced Exam, or my reading skills are bad, or listening part four is a disaster. When people come with this kind of problem, most teachers will kind of look at it like my physio three years ago did, and just kind of go, ah, okay, so you've got a problem with the reading exam, let's just do some reading exercises. Um, which might help if we get lucky, but it probably won't because it's not really getting to the root of the problem. Whereas my lovely physio that I had uh last week and I'm going to see today, my lovely physio who asked loads of questions, went deep, literally did an ultrasound of my elbow, um, and found out exactly what was causing the issue, because it could have been hundreds of things that was causing the issue, but looked exactly at the little tiny thing that was causing the issue and worked on that. Well, she's fixed my elbow in a matter of a week. Um, and this can be said for your English as well. So if you're trying to think about why am I not improving? Why am I still making mistakes? Why is this difficult? Your immediate response shouldn't be, oh, I'll just do more practice tests, or or if it's listening, I'll just listen more, or I'll just read more. You need to think about this like my physio, and start asking yourself questions about the why. This is something I do for my students, is I ask them all these questions, I ask them the why, so that we can find out exactly what is causing the problem and fix that thing. But this is something you should be thinking about as well. Every time you find something that's difficult in English, okay? So, for example, if it is listening part four, okay, is it actually your listening skills that is causing the problem? Because it might not be that, it might not be what you think. It might be that you don't know vocabulary on that topic, in which case it's not really your listening skills that's issue, it's that we need to learn vocabulary on that topic. It might be that the accent of that speaker is particularly challenging for you, in which case you might need to practice that accent. It might be the speed of the speaker that you're not used to listening to native speakers speak. You're used to kind of listening to people on a course book speaking slowly rather than at real speed. This could be an issue. It might be that you didn't have enough time to read all the questions before the listening started and you were doing the task. It might be that you got tricked by distractors during the exam. It might be that you lost focus and started thinking about what you were gonna have for dinner in the middle of the task. It might be that you don't know the correct technique or the best technique for you to do the task. So there are millions of different things that could be causing you issues with that listening task. So by asking yourself all those questions, like the physio did with my elbow, that's gonna help you get to the root of what actually is causing you the issue and give you the opportunity to fix that small thing that is causing the issue, which is gonna give you the massive results. Whereas if you just look at it as a big picture and have a guess of I just need to do more listening, that is unlikely to be the real the core issue, the root issue, and the thing that's gonna help you. Okay, so always ask yourself as many questions as you can to help you analyze and see what the real cause of your issues are. And of course, if you're working with me, if you're not sure what the root issue is, then that's when you've got me to help you and do that part, uh do that hard part for you. Uh, so then we can make you your personal plan that's going to fix those root causes and fix those things. So, guys, that is it for today. Uh, wish me luck at Ephizio later on. Uh, and um, we will see you next Monday for our next session.