Surround Yourself With English ALL the Time!

By Robby

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Hi guys, hello my dear fellow English speakers and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog! In today’s video we are going to look at the following topic: full English immersion and its importance in your spoken English fluency development. And sometimes you may think “what’s the big deal? Why would I have to necessarily surround myself with English 24/7? Surely, if I want to improve my English I can just do certain things and that will improve my spoken English, right?”

Well, you’re right to a certain degree. Yes, you will definitely improve it because doing something is better than doing nothing, right? But here’s the deal: if you immerse yourself in English 24/7, it’s going to provide even additional benefits for your overall spoken English fluency development.

24/7 English Immersion Is ESSENTIAL!

And I noticed that, a few years ago, when I went back to my home country, obviously when you land in the airport, you exit the aircraft, enter the airport and you immediately get surrounded with Latvian which is the language spoken in Latvia, right? And that’s the country I come from.

That is my home country and I noticed that it’s a bit more difficult for me to focus on my inner thoughts. Obviously if you have been following my blog you know that I’m doing constant spoken English self-practice, I’m trying to think in English when in public and speak with myself in slight whisper when there’s no one around and I find it a bit more difficult to do it when in my country because I’m surrounded with all things Latvian.

And like with a wave of a magic wand, when I land back in Ireland in Dublin and I exit the aircraft and I’m walking along the corridor in the airport and I read all the posters in English and everything, everything is sign posted in English obviously, like with a wave of a magic wand, my ability to think in English clearly and speak with myself in English returns back.

And I think it’s all because your surroundings determine a lot when it comes to your own performance. And it’s not necessarily a language performance, it can be a lot of different things.

Your Surroundings Determine an Awful Lot!

For instance, I think one of the reasons why people fail to exercise at home is because the home setting doesn’t necessarily evoke the necessary emotions associated with working out. When you work out in a gym, it’s a whole lot different story. There’s other people working out, you see all these different machines, there’s up beat music going bam-bam-bam-bam.

So all those surroundings make you want to work out yourself and makes the whole process more enjoyable and more sufficient. Whereas if you want to work out in your own room where you’re mostly used to watching TV, right, that’s what you want to do in that room. You don’t even want to work out so you’re forcing yourself to work out in your room but it just doesn’t happen for some reason.

So it’s all about the surroundings, right?

I actually like drawing parallels between the fitness world and your language performance because I strongly believe that your ability to speak is just another practical skill. Just like your ability to perform physical exercises for example.

Anyway, going back to full immersion and being surrounded with all things English, is definitely beneficial because just as I said, if you’re surrounded with all things English, it will facilitate your English performance.

You are so much more likely to speak better, to understand better, to write better, read better, if you’re surrounded by English the whole time. And obviously, what I mean is not sticking posters on your wall in English or things like that. Well, to a certain degree, yeah, is true. If you’re sticking post-it notes on a whiteboard in front of you, obviously, do it in English. Do as much as you can in English.

But I’m not saying you have to totally redo your whole environment and go great lengths but things that you do on a daily basis, I strongly and warmly suggest you to do in English. If you keep a diary, if you keep notes, a simple notebook, do all your notes in English.

If you read fiction, choose English fiction.

If you read news websites, go for news websites in English. If you watch some TV, why not watch English channels? And the list goes on and on. You get the drift, right?

But obviously you don’t have to tear down posters that are on your wall in your native language and a calendar that might be hanging in there which is all in your native language and things like that, right? You don’t have to go extreme but all I’m saying is you have to make sure there’s a little bit of English everywhere and that will facilitate your own English performance and that’s why the full immersion is of the utmost importance if you want to maximize your potential as an English student, English learner, English speaker, right?

Alright my friends. That’s about it for today! I really hope that you enjoyed watching this video and if you have any comments, please feel free to publish them in the comments section below. Thanks and talk to you soon! Bye-bye!

Robby

P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out the English Harmony System HERE!