Hey there! This is TOP episode 129. WHEN Will I Speak English Fluently? 4 Stages Of Learning
My name’s Ola and I am an English teacher. My goal is to help you start speaking English with confidence and get rid of speaking barriers. I believe it is achievable for you and it’s time you started speaking English fearlessly! Go to my website for full transcripts and worksheets to each episode. Happy learning!
Welcome or welcome back to this beautiful podcast. I hope you’ll learn a lot here today. I hear my students complaining. When will I learn? How come I still don’t use this or that expression if I do know it?? Is there an end to it? To learning? Well, first of all, I’m happy to announce there’s no end to this learning. And second of off, calm down. Learning requires effort and it takes time. Breathe in and breathe out. I’m going to explain those 4 stages of conscious competence. But first, let me remind you something.
After listening to the whole episode, don’t forget to download the worksheet. It’s waiting for you at teacherola.com/129.
If you have little time and prefer to go all-in buy The Worksheet Set. The Worksheet Set includes The Speaking English Planner, a great tool for monitoring your progress in speaking English. Now, time to dive in. Let’s get to it.
In the 1970s Noel Burch described four stages for learning any new skill. The four stages of competence were in fact described earlier. Noel Burch built on that. This conscious competence model relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence. Learning a language involves the same exact stages.
Now. The model is based on the premise that before any learning begins before you even start learning any language or literally anything you are completely unaware of what you don’t know, or how much you don’t know. It gives me the chills! I love this topic. You’ll love it too. Just wait for it. In a moment I’ll give you those four stages of learning and describe them shortly. I’m not going to dive into the details of these stages.
hope I’ll be able to do it maybe in other episodes if you let me know you’re interested in this topic. So please, get on to me if you want to learn more about those stages.
Stage one. Unconscious incompetence is also referred to as ignorance. If you’re at this stage you do not know anything. At this stage, any new language sounds like noise. You don’t know you don’t know. For instance mixed conditionals. There is a point on your learning path when you have no idea they exist. Maybe you’re on this stage right now. We’ve all been there. You can’t get anywhere further if you haven’t been on this stage in the first place. When you’re here you do not recognise the importance of the skill. You might say that ‘Pff, who needs mixed conditionals?’. Yup. This is unconscious incompetence. You might get stuck in this stage for quite a long time if the urge to learn isn’t strong enough.
Stage two. Conscious incompetence, also called awareness. You still do not know how to make mixed conditional sentences, or how to start a small talk, or how to apologise, or how to ask for directions, you can put here any language skill however big or small.
BUT, now you are aware of your deficit. You know what you don’t know. This is this ‘aha moment’ when you accept your deficit and understand that this thing you don’t know is worth learning. These conditionals, yep, highly useful. A very important thing now! At this stage, you are making tons and tons of mistakes. But mark my words, if you stop here if you refuse to make those mistakes you cut yourself out of the goal you’re striving for. You will never bridge that gap between where you are now and where you’d like to be. It’s very tempting to call it quits at this point. It’s hard emotionally, your enthusiasm wears off but all you gotta do is push through.
Stage three. Conscious competence, known as learning. Every step is super important. This one is also, but here you’re exposed to many threats. It’s easy to resign at this point. It’s because you don’t see that fluency yet. But how come? You ask yourself. I know everything about mixed conditionals. About tenses, modals, about phrases. I watch tv shows and I know those phrases. Where’s my fluency? Listen. This stage is called LEARNING for a reason. You know how to do things but you need practice. Performing the skill takes a lot of energy, you need to focus, it’s still really slow. You have to stop before you speak. You have to organise the pieces in your head before you say that conditional sentence for instance. That is a o-k. You see, it’s a stage. You’re here for a reason. You won’t get further if you are not patient. It really does take effort. But it’s worth it. On the other hand, you can stop here and many people do. It’s not fluency yet but for many people, it is enough. It’s enough to communicate, to travel, to watch films, to read and so on. Most people don’t move on.
Stage four. Unconscious competence. Mastery. This is it. This is your fluency. You are here only if you’ve gone through all the steps. You’ve had so much practice, that making those mixed conditional sentences has become your second nature. You make those sentences without any concentration. You can multitask. You can laugh at the jokes people make because you don’t spend your energy on practice. On focusing, on vocabulary, on the order of the words in a sentence. You can teach it to others. You don’t need to get here but it feels good.
Here you have it. Four stages of learning. Now time to practice. Every episode gives you the opportunity to speak out loud. Listen and repeat 10 sentences out loud. If you have no idea what and why we’re doing here now please tune in to episodes 9 and 76.
TOP 9: Boost Your Fluency By Talking to Yourself. TOP 76: Buy A Notebook And Do This For 10 Min A Day. Now, please listen and repeat out loud:
Learning a language involves the same exact stages.
At this stage, any new language sounds like noise.
You can’t get anywhere further if you haven’t been on this stage in the first place.
At this stage, you are making tons and tons of mistakes.
It’s very tempting to call it quits at this point.
Here you’re exposed to many threats.
Performing the skill takes a lot of energy, you need to focus, it’s still really slow.
It’s not fluency yet but for many people, it is enough.
Making those sentences has become your second nature.
You can laugh at the jokes people make because you don’t spend your energy on focusing.
I’m glad you’ve made it! Be proud of yourself. Most of the time the hardest part is finding time for your English. Also! Don’t forget to go to your inbox and grab worksheet 129 in order to test yourself. Complete the worksheet with translations. Let’s use this time wisely. You’ve learned something, you’ve practised speaking, now go and do the tasks in the Worksheet. If you’re not a member of TOPeople download the worksheet at teacherola.com/129 and become one. It’s free.
I also have The Worksheet Set. This way you won’t have to download each worksheet separately. It’s gonna be much more convenient to work with this podcast. All the links are in the description below.
If you think this episode is valuable and worth sharing, please share. Think for a second about that one person, that one friend or colleague, or a family member who got stuck at stage two or three and let them know about Teacher Ola Podcast. They will thank you!
What stage are you currently at? Please let me know! DM me on Instagram @teacherola.podcast or comment on my website.
Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next Wednesday! We’re going to learn English with music! Till then, take care! Happy learning. Stay fearless and say it out loud! Bye!