278. Mistakes

Welcome to the Influency Podcast. I'm Hadar, and this is episode number 278. And today we are going to talk about mistakes. Hey. Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode of the Influency Podcast. And today I want to address an important topic that has been the source of controversy on my channel recently. And while I'm not going to go into the details, if you know it, you know it. If you don't, you don't. Of why I decided to record a podcast about mistakes, I will give you my reasoning for it. Well, first of all, I want to offer a more holistic approach to mistakes, one that is more aligned with what fluency requires and what English learning should be all about. And even though it might be a little controversial, I think it's a more realistic approach to, to mistakes, to making mistakes in a second language. And I think it's really important that people become a bit more aware to what mistakes really mean. But also the fact that not all mistakes are created equal and that there are some mistakes that could be problematic and some things that are considered to be mistakes that are not problematic at all. And as learners and as teachers, it's important to be able to distinguish between them and to approach them differently because that will create a better, healthier and safer space for English learners and speakers. As a second language, this episode is for you. Whether you are a learner, whether you are speaking speaking English on a regular basis, if English is your second language, this episode is definitely for you. If you're a teacher and trying to understand how to support your students, but also how not to prevent them from advancing when talking about mistakes. Now, I'm going to start with the first and main thing that I want to say that I think people misunderstood from some of my content that I have shared. First of all, no, I don't think that teachers should be teaching with mistakes. I encourage all content creators, native and non native speakers, to have a healthy process in place for checking their work. Okay. I have a very strict process when it comes to creating content. I have my editor going through my content and then three more people watching my videos and looking for places where it might be unclear, where it might be incorrect, where I am potentially making a mistake. So I have a safety net that allows me to double, triple and quadruple check my work before I release it. Because I, I'm a human and I know that A, I might be making mistakes, B, I might not know enough about what I'm teaching and therefore, might make a mistake in teaching or provide incorrect information. And C, sometimes I can't see it all or know it all when I'm recording it. And sometimes it's really important to have that external eye to be like, this works. This doesn't work. And you know, it has been the case where I created a video and people listened to it and watched it and said, hadar, it's just not good enough. And I was like, okay, let's rerecord it, or let's rerecord some parts of it. And I think, you know, I have a big team, so it's easier for me to say, hey, have a healthy process around creating content. But even if you're just starting out, it's really good to have someone reviewing your content so that you make sure that you are not compromising your work when teaching others. So that is the first and most important thing. It's not the most important thing I want to say, but the first thing I want to start with but. And that's a big but. Having said that, I need you guys to understand that mistakes are not the be all, end all of English. We have been programmed to think that correct English is the ideal, that flawless English is what we're striving for, and that what gets in your way is mistakes. And I beg to differ. I don't agree with that statement or belief. And I'm going to tell you why we're programmed to think about that like that. And it's because we live in a culture and society or a modern culture that is designed to create these vicious cycles of failure and hierarchy and right and wrong. And all of that really, really goes against the way our brain and body are built to thrive and succeed when it comes to mastering a language, when it comes to anything, really, when it comes to any skill that you need to develop. But when you are so focused on that hierarchy, on that binary assumption that there is right and wrong in a language, it is preventing you from thriving and succeeding. And thriving and succeeding, in my opinion, is what fluency is all about. Fluency is not about correctness. Fluency is not about putting the right preposition in or not missing an article. And I really want people's end goal not to be about getting that article in, even though I think it's important. I think it's important. I think it's important for you to be aware of what people expect to hear. And I'm talking about speaking, I'm not talking about writing, but I think it's important for you to be aware of the norm of English. But a, there are deviations inside the language. So what is considered to be the norm is the norm for one person maybe, but it might not be the norm for someone else who might be also a native speaker. Right? Not just the norm for non native speakers. So that's the first thing. The second thing, and I've said that before, is that some mistakes are considered mistakes by some speakers, but not by others. I'm going to say it again. There will be mistakes or there will be situations where you are taught that something is a mistake, but it's not really a mistake because other people might be using it. But when you're creating this environment where there is right and wrong and you can say this, but you cannot say that it is so incredibly inhibiting. And you're constantly left in this loop of am I getting it right or not getting it right? Is it okay or is it not okay? And that takes away all the freedom and fun of communicating in English because you cannot convince me that it is possible to express yourself fully and to listen to your impulse and execute on that and to, you know, you have a thought, you have a feeling, and you want to say that you cannot convince me that that is going to happen organically and naturally if there's constantly that part in your brain that, that checks you for mistakes, that monitors your accuracy of the language, because that is the external voice that you were exposed to all your life. And you know why they do it in schools? Because that's the only way they can measure your progress. How will they be able to say you are doing well or you're not doing well without testing it somehow? And how do you test it? With exams? And how. What do you test in exams? Do you test confidence? Do you test originality? Do you test creativity? In most schools. And you know, of course, depending on what stage you're in, no, they test it with are you making mistakes or not? Are you getting it right? Even with tenses, you can say one thing and you can use more than one tense to say that it might mean something slightly different. And sometimes that difference is not going to make a difference for you because both options will be valid. So obsessing over the tense. And I so remember it from school, I remember being terrified of making mistakes when it comes to tenses. Present perfect, past perfect, is it past progressive, is it future perfect, is it future simple, right? All of it. Like I had those tenses running in my head, not just in school, but also when I started to create content. And when you're constantly thinking about what's right, then you know, you're taking up this huge part of your brain instead of just communicating the thought that you have. And ultimately, you know, you. You might end up saying the same thing in one tense that could have been said in another. The message is still the same, and both are not considered to be mistakes. But in school, if you were to use one tense and not the other, you would lose points. And losing points means failure. And failure is a negative thing that people don't like dealing with. So we have learned to believe that if we don't make mistakes, we are succeeding. And again, that's the only way schools can measure your progress. But it's not because it's good for you. Now, again, I think it's important to know the right forms. And this is where I want to talk about prioritizing mistakes. You know, I usually teach pronunciation. I do not teach grammar, but I say that about grammar as well because I used to teach grammar as well when I was teaching one on one in my first years of teaching. There are some mistakes that are going to create lack of clarity. They're going to affect your intelligibility. They're going to get people's attention, so they're definitely going to notice it. And they may have what I call the cringe factor, where when you hear it, you're like, no, that's not how you say it. These are the big mistakes. These are the mistakes that we need to prioritize and improve on. Okay, so if you are replacing one consonant with another, for example, you might say light instead of right. That is a mistake that is going to affect your clarity 100%, and it's going to affect your communication and the rapport that you might create with the other person. And I would highly prioritize this mistake and make sure you are aware of it. And I'm going to give you all the tools that you need to know how to improve on that. If you keep saying he when you mean she, even though people might get it from the context, this is definitely a mistake that I will point out and say, you gotta pay attention. You're thinking he, but you're saying she. Something here is off and we need to figure out why. If you're not adding S's to your verbs when you're using present simple and you say he, play the car. Or maybe in the past tense, you still use the present tense. I work yesterday. Then yes. These are things that are going to get people's attention and it's going to be a little off. Okay, if you say I worked there instead of I had worked there or I have worked there, it's not as critical. It's not as critical. It's clear that you're talking about the past. It's clear what it is that you're saying. So this mistake is not going to be prioritized as high as the previous examples. Priorities of mistakes are important for you as learners, so you know what to focus on, but also for you as teachers, for those of you who are teaching so that you don't make everything sound equally critical and important because it doesn't serve the students. Talking about pronunciation. Let's say someone says Betty instead of Betty, that will not affect their clarity. If someone says modern instead of modern, that will not affect their clarity. That is not a problem. And making it a problem is creating extra stress, anxiety, and fear for learners and not helping them focus on what really matters. Calling something a mistake is a lot of responsibility. You want to make sure that when you call something a mistake, it is actually something that is critical for your students clarity, especially when teaching online. And why am I saying that? Because mistakes attract attention. Because we have been programmed to think that mistakes are not good, mistakes are bad, mistakes are a failure. And while we definitely want to avoid some mistakes or inaccuracies 100%, some are just irrelevant. I'm going to give you another example. If you tell someone that long time, no speak, just. Just an example that I came across the other day and you tell them that it's a mistake, where in fact it isn't, because people actually use it. Use youglish to see it. Maybe it's not that common. Maybe it's not the actual phrase, but it is used by native speakers. Is it a mistake? It's not a mistake if it's being used. It's not a mistake if it's a takeoff. It's not a mistake if you have freedom in the language to use certain phrases in a way that are clear and communicate what you want to say. I don't know. Do we need to make a big deal out of it and make people feel yet again fearful about everything that comes out of their mouth. And also, again, remember that mistakes depend on the person talking about the mistakes. Because what might be a mistake for some people might not be a mistake for others. For example, if someone says axe instead of ask, is it a mistake? Not for some people, but for others it will be. It's all in the eye of the beholder. And if it is legit, if it is used by speakers, you cannot say that it's a mistake. You can say that that's how you use it, that that's what's common for you or for this group of speakers, or if you want to use that for standard American, which is basically what power sounds like. And that's a funny thing. Like, someone who says ask might say axe is wrong. Someone who says axe instead of ask, and that is common in African American vernacular English, by the way, for those who don't know. Those who say axe will never say that ask is wrong. They'll just accept both as legit pronunciations of the same word. And I want to say that even though we're talking about dialects, once you say that one dialect disappeared to others, it's a problem. And it just reflects the power structures in society. And we want to break that, because when it comes to speaking, we do want diversity. We do want this variety. It's not that we want. That's what we have. Not acknowledging it is the mistake. And the same thing if we add variety of non native speakers of English. And this is why I'm saying, yes, there are some mistakes that need to be addressed, that need to be fixed. The critical mistakes, whether it's grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary. But there. There is this gray area of what is considered as mistakes in English schools and online. And I know it's controversial what I'm about to say, but they're not really mistakes. Or at least you have to acknowledge that there is a stage in your learning journey where these mistakes are not relevant. To say that flatten is a mistake because it's usually pronounced as flattening. First of all, it's incorrect because people will say flatten native speakers as well. To say that it's a mistake is a mistake. That's it. That could be easily proven, by the way. So why create this additional fuss and anxiety around something that is not helpful for learners? All this. Stop saying. Stop saying this. Stop saying that. Stop saying very. Stop saying thank you. Stop saying hot. Stop saying fine. Seriously, that creates this feeling like you are making a mistake when using something that is common and popular in the language. Is this what you want to teach your students? Again, another restriction, another limitation. Aren't you tired of making people feel not enough? Yeah, it attracts views. Yes, I could have had a lot more views on YouTube and a lot more subscribers if I subscribed myself into that type of teaching. But I refuse to do that because it's not serving My students, if you say this and that, you will sound unintelligent, it is not true, and that can be proven. So why create this toxic experience around speaking? And I'm going to tell you something else and pay attention to me, because this is important. I think pointing out mistakes and correcting them are overrated. Because here is the thing. Just like we don't learn the correct form, but by hearing it over and over again. Because it takes a long time for the brain to process a new concept. What is a mistake? Let's talk about grammar mistakes. For example, a mistake is when you have a clash between your grammar and the grammar of English. If that is not aligned with their native grammar, they're not going to be able to get it unless they practice it intentionally and they become aware of it when they're speaking. And they might need to repeat the mistake several times, repeat the correct form several times until they get it, and they might still make mistakes. Same thing with sounds. I can teach you from here until eternity how to pronounce the R. And you might even be able to pronounce it properly with me as I show you how to do it. Do you think that after knowing how to do it once, you'll be able to do it again and again and again? Do you think that just hearing people using R instead of for example, is enough for you to be able to make that correction? No. But changing those speaking habits requires more than just hearing it once. And just like that, hearing a mistake once, even if it's taught. Now, I don't endorse it, but I'm just saying, you guys, acquiring a language or acquiring mistakes is a lot more complex than we think. So hearing something taught with a mistake is not enough for us to pick up on that mistake and start using it. Just like the correct form that is taught to us is not going to be that easy for us to pick up on it. So while I don't endorse teaching videos or with mistakes, I also don't think that the impact is that detrimental unless someone actually takes the content and repeats it and intentionally practices it, which unfortunately is not usually the case when it comes to YouTube videos. So, yeah, do your due diligence and learn who is a teacher that teaches you in a way that is clear and accurate and aligned with how you want to learn. But I'm also saying that mistakes are overrated and corrections are too. Because even if you correct someone publicly or not publicly, even if you correct someone on their own speech, the chances of them hearing that correction and implementing that correction from that moment on are so slim. And I'm saying that having the experience of having worked with thousands of students, thousands, I'm not kidding, thousands of students over the past 13 years, you know how many times I've given a certain feedback and had to repeat the feedback? And again and again and again and again and again until some of them got it and some of them didn't. So even if you get feedback on your own speech, that's not enough. Unless you are intentional about changing that, let alone when you hear someone else corrected. I think it's fun, I think it's interesting. There is a way to do it could be beneficial. I'm not saying no. I know a lot of people like that type of learning. But I'm just saying that if you want to learn that and to really implement it, it's not enough to listen to it once. You need to hear it several times in different context. And then maybe you will be able to implement that and use that more often. So as a content consumer, it's important that you're aware of that, not because you need to change anything. It's still okay to consume content. And if you love those videos where mistakes are being corrected, great. Just know that it's not enough to watch at once. And also, don't worry so much if you were exposed to someone who doesn't speak correct English. By the way, I have a community of non native speakers, the influency community, by the way, in all my students, in all my courses are non native speakers, of course. And I hear a lot from people who just joined the community or from others that there is no point of practicing with non native speakers because, you know, they might pick up on their mistakes or their accent or whatever. And what I have said here in this episode is proof to why it's not going to affect you. On the contrary, you will feel more at ease, you will feel less judged. The focus is going to be on communicating and you are more likely to develop your fluency when doing that. So here's the thing. Like, I don't say that you don't need to practice your grammar. I think you have to, especially if you make those critical mistakes that we discussed at the beginning. But there is that. And there is the aspect of speaking where you just have to trust that what you have learned is going to be there for you. And after that, you can review your progress, you can listen to yourself and you can see what else needs to be improved. If you don't have a teacher to do that for you. All right, so I want to start bringing this to a close. And this is why I want to repeat some of the key ideas that I have discussed in this episode. First of all, not all mistakes are created equal. And as we're learning and as we're teaching, it's important to prioritize mistakes. When I teach pronunciation, I have the critical mistakes that is at the top. And this is where I would want my students to focus. Then we have high priority mistakes, medium priority and low priority. And I would always focus on critical and high before I focus on low, even though it might be fun and easy to teach, but it's not serving my students. And even when I'm teaching those elements, I tell them, you know, if I teach the flap T, because I do think it's fun and people are aware of it and they want to acquire it. But I will say it's not that important if you say Betty and not Betty, not that important if you say flatten instead of flatten. Not that important. I'm teaching them the nasal T. Not that important, because people will still understand you. And actually, there are some dialects who would pronounce it exactly like how you pronounced it. So don't worry about it. Focus on not substituting the R and L. Focus on the primary stress of a word, right? Critical. Critical challenges. So that's the first thing. Second, remember that what is a mistake for some people is not a mistake for others, especially when it comes to phrases and how you say things and pronunciation. So also take into consideration who is the speaker. Also remember that if you are constantly thinking of English in the sense of right and wrong, right, this binary distinction between with mistakes and without mistakes, it is preventing you from thriving. It is preventing you from having freedom, from expressing yourself fully, from feeling authentic and following your impulses to speak and what you want to say. When you focus too much on mistakes, it's more about the how and less about the what. And as communicators, at the end of the day, it's about the what. What you want to say, who you are and what you want to say, not so much how you say it. Now, if the how prevents you from delivering your what, it's a problem. If it doesn't, it's not that much of a problem. When you're writing articles or blog posts or academic essays, accuracy is really important, right? Whatever I'm saying is not about writing. It's about speaking. There is a big difference. Writing, you know, first of all, you have a lot of Tools, especially now with all the AI tools that are available to us. And also you have time and you don't have the pressure of someone looking at you, observing you, evaluating you, because all of that is what's preventing you from feeling free in the language. And all of that has to do with what we've discussed about how we approach mistakes. So we said that it's important to understand who is deciding that something is a mistake when it's not those critical mistakes that are mistakes across all dialects and Englishes. And then we also said that just like you can't learn a language by listening to the correct form, you cannot learn a language by listening to the incorrect form the that easily. This is why practicing your English with non native speakers, or God forbid, being exposed to an English video with a mistake in it, the outcome is not going to be as detrimental as you think it might be. Because it takes a lot more than to just hear a mistake to be able to make that mistake. That's just how it is. So in order for you to thrive in English and for your students and for your fellow learners and colleagues, we have to understand that the environment we provide them with has to be a safe, proactive, positive environment. And when you are talking about a mistake, you got to give it context. You got to say, this is when it's okay to use it, this is when it's not. This is okay to be used by some speakers, but by others it may be perceived as a mistake. It's not that detrimental. We never say this. We always say that no language is fluid. That's the beauty of it. Why not leverage that to help us become more fluent and more happy in the language instead of using that to make us feel more restricted and limited? Because that's not how it really is. As content consumers, it's really important to understand that you want to have a positive feeling when learning a language. And when that doesn't happen, it will affect you and your experience overall. And also when you learn something, you have the responsibility of repeating it again and again and again and being intentional about using it and learning a lot of small things at the same time may not allow you to do that. So focus on what matters. Focus on the 20% of the speech needs that you have to be able to see massive results. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Give yourself permission to learn from your mistakes and have fun while doing it. Because otherwise, why are we even here? I want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this conversation, to everyone who is going to be a part of this conversation whether you agree with me or not. I think this is a healthy and important conversation to to be had. Because it's not easy to challenge the status quo. It's not easy to say mistakes are bad, but they're also good. It's not easy, but I know from my own experience being a non native speaker, creating content consistently, that is the only. Only thing. Not grammar lessons, not learning more vocabulary. No, that is the only thing that has allowed me to show up the way I show up now. And while it's not perfect, it is helping people and it is helping me fulfill what I feel I'm here to do. And that is enough for me. Happy to learn from my mistakes. I'm happy to learn from things that I do that I could have done better and expressed myself better in this whole YouTube drama that I've been a part of over the last few weeks. I could have said things in a way that made more sense for everyone, not just the people who know what I'm talking about. I could have. I could have been less personal. 100%. Do I regret it? No. Because I think it's an important conversation to be had and I think it's important to not be quiet when you feel like something is not right, even if you don't articulate it in the best possible way. And I also learned that if I always want people to agree with me, then I'm never going to be able to make the change that I really want to make. So it's okay to sometimes have people not agreeing with me and being angry at me. And I'm saying that because I know that there are some people watching this right now or listening to this who are afraid to show up publicly because they don't want people to disagree with them. And no one's winning when that happens. You might be safer, but you won't be fulfilling yourself. You won't know what it could possibly be like if you dared to show up publicly and vulnerably. So always remember that your voice matters and that people did not bring change by saying something that everyone else wants to hear. And sometimes you will be wrong, but you're still doing it. You're still pushing to be heard and ultimately to help others. All right, I think that's it. I think we have covered everything related to mistakes today and I would love to hear what you think. So let me know in the comments or send me a DM on Instagram Hadar Accentsway if you are listening to the podcast on your favorite platform. I would appreciate it if you could rate and review the podcast. That would mean the world to me because it's going to help people find out about this podcast. If this type of conversations is something that is useful to you, I want you to know that I'm working on a new training program that is all about mindset and it's going to be comprised of 30 daily mini lessons of 10 minutes every day about different aspects. Mistakes is just one of them. There are many of them and I'm gonna address 30 of them in this mini training. It's going to be really cool, really affordable and if you wanna make sure that you don't miss out on when I release this training, it's going to be released in January. Then I'm going to link in the description to a wait list where you can sign up to be the first to hear when we release this training. And as always, thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for being a part of this conversation. I love you all. Take care. And finally, remember, don't be afraid of making mistakes because that is the only way to learn. I'll see you next week and talk to you next week in the next episode. Bye. Sa.