Our awful mistakes in language practice

Hello! When I try to speak English I make a lot of mistakes, of course. I start to think about my phrases: Do I have to say it  this way or that way? Which one will be correctWhat will be right? I start to worry: Can my partner understand me? Is is the usual way to say it?It is not normal dialogue! How does one decide? Which way you decide this problem? When we write something, we can correct our mistakes, but it's impossible during a conversation the dialogue. Thanks a lot!

Many students come to me with difficulties stemming from a lack of attention to grammar, but everybody is different, and in your case, I'd say you are coming from the opposite place -- you've been doing an excellent job with your grammar (you forgot one or two articles -- not a big deal), and there are times when it would be better for you to just relax and pay attention to the ideas you and your partner are expressing. (It's fine if a little voice in the back of your mind continues to monitor your grammar -- in the back of your mind.)

One thing that might help you would be to focus on "spoken discourse markers." These are common words or phrases that you can use to "organize" your conversations -- opening the conversation, asking your partner's opinion, showing interest, moving on to a new point, changing the subject, agreeing and politely disagreeing, etc. For example "You make a great point, (NAME). That's a really interesting question, and if you're wondering what I think...." Although these phrases are devoid of "content," you use them all the time in your native language to make the conversation go smoothly. When you start learning these phrases in the target language, practicing them until you can deliver them easily with proper pronunciation, you'll find that they help your conversations flow, make you sound fluent, and give you more time to think while you're delivering your canned phrase.. all this, quite naturally increases your confidence, making it even easier for you to speak and understand while you're in a positive mental state.

I hope this helps. Feel free to contact me if you have additional questions.

--Phil

By the way, it's only your opinion that your mistakes are "awful" -- I'd suggest that you focus on the 99% of your English that you're doing right -- most native speakers of English would be thrilled if they could speak a foreign language half as well as you do. If you're not making mistakes, you're not practicing enough. You might consider that your mistakes are, in fact, awesome.