By Kevin Batchelor

Hello everyone! Kevin here.

An EASY way to stop criticising your English

We all criticize ourselves from time to time – I certainly do!

And what does criticizing myself get me?  Not a lot!  And probably nothing – except feeling bad about myself.

I have criticized myself for not being good enough in many things.  For example:

Not being good enough in French

Not being good enough as a “teacher”

Not being good enough at tennis

Not being good enough in my communication

Not being good enough at spelling in English!

There are so many things to criticize myself for – but I have given that up now!

How?

I “reframe” how I represent my experience and then I feel so MUCH BETTER.

So……

On Monday mornings most people arrive at Pilgrims saying, “My English is bad”, “My English is not good”, “I am not good at learning English”.  Notice if you say this you don’t always feel motivated to do something about changing your English – you sometimes feel hopeless.

But there is a very easy way to “reframe” your English.

Here it is!

Would you criticize a child aged 3 years old for the way they speak?

Would you criticize a 5-year-old child for they way they speak?

Would you criticize a 7-year-old child for they way they speak?

Probably not because we all know and accept that language is a process of time and learning.  But why not?  It’s simple – because you know they are YOUNG and young children haven’t had enough exposure and experiences to be “perfect” in their first language yet!

So….  Have you noticed the “reframe“?

Just reframe your “bad” English to “YOUNG” English.  Then your English is NOT your fault!

You don’t have a level in English or bad English or intermediate English – you only have YOUNG English.  And when you really get that your English is YOUNG you relax your self-criticism – and RELAXING creates motivation to “Mature” your English – free from your own judgement.

Have fun with your “young” English.  Come to Pilgrims if you want to “mature”.

Until next time…..