Is Your English Learning Salmon or Sailboat?
Does it Feel Like Hard Work?
Salmon may be on a mission but they are not enjoying the journey. Swimming upstream is HARD.
Are You Following the Wind?
Sailing is freedom!
Are you following the sound of the language, having fun and enjoying the journey you are on?
Feeling GOOD in English!
At Blue Noun, we prioritise feeling good speaking English.
It’s the most important thing!
How do you feel now, when you speak?
How do you want to feel speaking English?
For A Lifetime of English Learning
All your progress in English depends on paying attention to these two questions and caring about them – at least as much as you care about new words/grammar.
This blog explores why.
It will also show why an English immersion vacation is a superb way to transition to a place of feeling good speaking English.
Language Holidays are Not the Only Way!
Even if you can’t travel right now, read on for English learning tips.
Discover if you are more salmon than sailboat!
From Salmon to Sailboat
Are You Learning With Your Heart?
Are you ‘banking’ confident, carefree English moments in your heart – or just the actual language words/structures in your head?
If your English isn’t flowing from a happy place, the language-learning you are doing can feel like swimming upstream.
Even as hard as a salmon’s journey upstream.
What’s Wrong with Feeling ‘Salmon’
Salmon are capable of incredible power, and determination, and their migratory journey is remarkable on every level, but most salmon don’t complete their journey.
Obstacles stop them at every part of the way.
Above all, they are trapped in a binary success/fail, right way/wrong way scenario.
Feeling salmon means:
It is just too easy to give up on English
when the leap feels too high.
You avoid speaking English
to the detriment of your social life and/or career.
You are learning English from a place of need
(not curiosity & exploration).
It's one more stress point in your life.
You will not get your message heard by those who need to hear it.
You have already missed opportunities.
You think you are 'bad at English' because traditional learning methods didn't stick.
You could be having fun instead of feeling frustrated, silenced, and miserable.
Ask yourself, is this you with English?
The Solution
Collect many varied confident, carefree English moments in your heart.
This is a long-term project to change how you feel about your English, which is as important as ‘working on your English’ in a traditional sense.
All English teachers have worked with clients who have spent years getting their English ‘ready’ to use – without ever having the pleasurable experiences/successes that are the point of language learning.
Is this you?
The goal is to feel like a sailboat riding over the waves, completely free of limits and stress – your English taking you wherever you need to go.
Really, even picturing your sailboat will help!
Ask yourself, right now, are you more salmon or sailboat?
If you are a salmon, how are you going to change?
The One Thing Your English Needs
My single biggest tip for learning English is to find your own ways to make English practice something to look forward to – and even love.
That’s personal: from cooking to crosswords, English coaching to travelling – what you do have is a whole world of online and offline options.
Remember: everyone is different. You don’t need to do what others are doing, you need to do the things that will get YOU showing up.
My single biggest skill as an English coach is to help you do this, to help you find your ‘click’.
What’s Going to Change You from Salmon to Sailboat?
One way of speeding up this transition is to take an English immersion vacation.
Taking an English immersion vacation offers so much more than improving your technical level. When you choose a course with activities and experiences that you will love doing, English skills will follow.
Don’t expect a miracle.
You won’t learn 1000 new words in a week. That’s not possible in the time frame and I hope you are beginning to realise – it’s not even the biggest change most learners need.
What a good English immersion vacation can offer is the transition from salmon to sailboat.
An English immersion vacation will fill your heart with happy, carefree English experiences, from which confident language skills will grow.
That’s the foundation you are investing in with an English immersion vacation.
And it is the secret of success.
Wherever your English takes you in the future – it’s yours.
Arrive as a salmon – and leave as a sailboat.
Further Information
Blue Noun Language Hub
Learn how we can help you find the online English teacher best for you.
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