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Why You Should Make Mistakes When Learning English

Hi everyone, my name is Danielle from speakingenglish.co.il

In this video, I am going to be talking all about mistakes and why you should be making them!

I used to hate making mistakes. I always wanted to be right, and I didn’t want anyone to judge me for not knowing something. But then, one day, I realized that the things that I do the best now are the things that I used to mess up before. The more I thought about it, the more the pieces started to come together.

Making mistakes is the best way to learn! I can’t remember ever making the same mistake more than ten times, can you? No, because we learn from our mistakes.

When you really think about it, you wouldn’t expect to be able to play a sport without practicing, so why would you expect to be able to speak a new language without a lot of practice either?

Even Michael Jordan has made many mistakes throughout his career. He once said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Mistakes teach us more than any textbook ever will. If you let your concerns about getting something wrong stop you from participating in class or answering questions, how will you ever learn? If you limit yourself to only using the words that you already know, then you will never get to develop your vocabulary, and your English will never get any better. Don’t ever deny yourself the opportunity to further your education simply because you are afraid to make a mistake. Take a moment to think about a time when you made a really big mistake and how that mistake had an impact on your life. I bet at the time it seemed like the end of the world, but now, you are stronger, happier, or smarter because of it.

Wouldn’t you rather make a mistake than do nothing at all? Mistakes mean action, and action typically means progress. A year from now, you don’t want to be in the exact same situation as you are today. We are always striving to be better, and in order to be better we need growth. Next time you are confronted with a question that you do not know the answer to, try to answer it anyway. If you get it right, great job! If you don’t, that is great too because next time, I am sure you will know the answer. Why is that? That is because you learned from your mistake. Get out of your comfort zone and make some progress!

Before you head out into the world, ready to make some mistakes, it is important that you consider the emotional impact that these mistakes might have on your personal development. So you have overcome the fear of making the mistake, but after it happens are you going to be upset? If you beat yourself up about the mistakes that you make, it is going to start to affect your language learning experience. Instead of being excited and happy to learn, you’ll get sick of feeling like a failure and eventually quit altogether. The same thing can happen if you can’t handle criticism from your teacher or peers. It will ruin your experience and likely end in you never wanting to learn another language again.

How can you avoid this? Remember that everyone makes mistakes. Even native English speakers like myself make mistakes all the time. We are all human and no one is perfect so when you speak to a native English speaker like myself, we are so impressed by your effort that a lot of the time we won’t even notice the mistake!

We understand that learning a new language is hard. I don’t know how to speak Hebrew, so I would never judge someone else for not being able to speak English. It is important to remember that no one will ever be focusing on your mistake as much as you are. We all have our own problems that we are worrying about.

It may seem like the whole room is judging you, but I assure you, they’re not. Lastly, remember that the people giving you criticism are doing it to help you, not hurt you. Don’t take it personally. Someday you’ll be the one doing the correcting!

If you are having trouble accepting your mistakes, try making a list of the mistakes that you have made and the lessons that those mistakes have taught you. Then, the next time that you do something wrong, you can take a look at that list and remember the progress that you have made because of those mistakes. They are not a bad thing, and should never be viewed as if they are.

John Powell once said, “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

I hope that you enjoyed this video! Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for additional tips and updates. Also, please take the time to comment a mistake that you have made and lesson that you have learned from that mistake on our Facebook page.

As always, we love hearing from you. Thank you, and have a great day!