Part 6: Why One-to-One Conversations are NOT ENOUGH
- Derek Newton
- Feb 15
- 7 min read
It’s March 2015 and I have my first ever job interview in Spanish. During the previous year living in Madrid I built my fluency from almost zero to a good, conversational level.
My friend Stuart, who already works for this startup, wishes me luck in the corridor outside the interview room. I’m wearing my ‘dress-to-impress’ overcoat that is a little too warm for this 18-degree March day, so I’m already sweating a little, and I have to remind myself to breathe properly.
But I feel ready for this.
Two polite but serious interviewers lead me into a small meeting room. They carefully study my face, then my CV, like I’m a wrong item on a supermarket receipt.
My interrogators start with a few basic questions.
“Cuéntanos sobre ti.” - Tell us about yourself.
Easy enough, I think to myself.
Next comes a question I hadn’t prepared for…
And another…
And another…
I try to answer each time, but when I can’t think of a relevant story from my work experience I panic.
Each time I go completely blank. I just sit there in silence, like a lost goldfish.
Oh God, this is embarrassing!
The frustrating thing is that I’m good at improvising like this in English. I can even do it in Spanish when speaking with a friend.
But despite my respectable Spanish ability, this was the moment I discovered that one-to-one conversations alone weren’t enough.
Something essential was missing.
The 3 Speaking Problems
In the years since that day in 2015, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on my Spanish learning journey.
And I see many of the same difficulties I suffered reflected in my English students’ experiences.
Here are, in my opinion, the 3 main problems we encounter as learners when speaking:
Problem #1: Comprehension (includes a lack of vocabulary and grammar knowledge)
Problem #2: Unfamiliar Speaking Situations
Problem #3: Stress
Problem #1: Comprehension
During my first 2 years in Madrid, my main problem was understanding other people.
One-to-one conversations became easy relatively quickly. The advantages of a one-to-one conversation were:
a) I could control the speed of the conversations
b) People were usually patient enough to listen to me
c) People often simplified their speech by using ‘foreigner talk’
Foreigner talk refers to the simplified and sometimes ungrammatical way native speakers adjust their speech when talking to non-native speakers. It often includes slower speech, exaggerated pronunciation, simpler vocabulary, and reduced grammatical complexity.
As soon as there were 3 or more people however, everything became much more difficult.
Instead of hearing learner-friendly ‘foreigner talk’, I was suddenly immersed in fully native conversations.
Without my girlfriend or a friend taking the time to make things comprehensible for me, my listening and speaking progress were close to zero.
I was in a situation of full immersion. Sounds good, right?
But, as we discovered in part 1 of this guide, immersion is only good if you can understand what people are saying.
That’s why a step-by-step approach to listening and reading can lead to faster progress than full immersion.
To enter 'flow', a task should be about 4% above your current skill level. Finding the correct difficulty level is the key to 'flow' and optimal learning.
To bridge the gap between my comprehension in one-to-one conversations and group conversations, my solution was to listen to more and more native material (shout out to RicharBetaCode - one of my unofficial Spanish teachers!)
If I had to do it all again today in 2025, I would carefully select graded reading and listening materials to accelerate the whole process.
Problem #2: Unfamiliar Speaking Situations
One-to-one conversations were great for building a speaking foundation, but as I discovered during my interview, alone they weren’t enough.
By the end of 2015, I finally understood almost everyone around me, but joining the flow of native-speaker conversation still felt like entering a Formula 1 race on a bicycle.
Group conversations were complicated. Messy. Unpredictable.
Often there were lots of little conversations happening at the same time.
I had to learn how to:
Quickly change topics
Join conversations naturally
Start and end multiple conversations
Use different levels of politeness and formality
Tell stories without getting lost or being boring
On the rare occasions I found myself among other non-native Spanish speakers, I felt like a diós of Spanish! I took more risks in conversation and often felt confident enough to speak in larger groups.
When I returned to my normal social situations (of being the only non-native Spanish speaker), I had new-found belief because I had already demonstrated my ability to myself.
Problem #3: Stress
It’s February 2010, and I’m about to step on stage in front of a TV industry panel, a live-streaming camera, and an audience of over 150 people at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow.
My task is to sell, or ‘pitch’, my idea for a new TV documentary to the BBC Scotland Commissioning Editor, Tern TV, and Synchronicity Films - big players in the Scottish TV and film industries.
My college lecturers encouraged me to take part in this competition. And they seem to think I have a chance of winning.
If I do win, not only will the industry learn who I am, but there’s also a chance my idea could be made into a real TV programme!
I have almost zero public speaking experience, so I’ve spent the last 3 days meticulously preparing my materials:
Target market - defined.
Suggested time slot - done.
Characters - strong.
Story - a bit weak, but I’ll focus on the characters.
My whole pitch is contained in 3 precious pages of A4 notes which I plan to take on stage with me.
As I watch the other participants’ pitches I can feel my nerves rise and fall in waves.
When the waves rise, it’s like I’m being suffocated by an invisible, terrible force. And in those moments even saying my name feels impossible. When they fall again I regain enough composure to believe I can at least speak.
“Just follow my notes” I whisper as I try to calm myself.
Suddenly, my name is called, and with no more time to think I step onto the stage, into the lights, and in front of 300+ watching eyes. I quickly check that my notes are in order as I take my seat in front of the panel.
I don’t remember much about what happened in the next ten minutes. Almost nothing in fact, except for one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
It happened somewhere in the middle of the pitch.
I’m reading long sections of text from my notes, occasionally looking up to check the reaction on the three panel members’ faces. But with my mind focused on reading, I’m not able to think and improvise in the moment.
“I hope they don’t ask me too many questions,” I pray silently.
Then suddenly, it happens.
The worst thing that could possibly happen.
I lose my place in my notes.
In the silence that follows I say absolutely nothing.
Zero.
Nada.
My mind has gone completely blank.
For a full 10, 15, 20 seconds (I’m not sure how long) there is complete silence in the theatre.
I frantically turn the pages of my notes looking for my next point.
Where was I!?
What is the next part!?
Think you idiot! Think!
My hand and the notes it is holding begin to shake uncontrollably.
Note to self: a shaking sheet of A4 paper means everyone in the room can see how nervous you are.
I didn’t win the competition.
But there is a happy ending to this story.
The following year I went back to compete for a second time.
This time my idea was better.
I kept my brain ‘active’ during the pitch and Q&A.
My notes were much shorter - no more shaky sheets of A4.
And even though I still wasn’t an experienced public speaker, the experience from the year before resulted in a MUCH more competent pitch, and I felt MUCH more confident.
So confident in fact, that I decided to pitch my idea again on the same day to a radio panel.
I didn’t win either competition, but I did manage to get an internship with a TV production company a few months later.
And guess what my main job was there? Yep, to create ideas for TV programmes and pitch them. Something I’m sure would not have happened without my 2nd attempt.
The Effect of Stress on Communication
Under stress the frontal lobe activity of the brain is limited. This part of the brain is responsible for:
Emotional expression
Problem solving
Judgement
Short-term memory
Language
For years I thought the only way to overcome stress like this and develop confidence was to expose myself to hundreds of uncomfortable, real-life situations - just like I did when I pitched my ideas to the TV panel.
So that’s exactly what I did while learning to speak Spanish (I have the grey hairs to prove it!).
And to be honest, it worked.
But after discovering how the public speaking experts at Ultraspeaking do it, I realised there is another way.
For them, public speaking isn’t only standing on a stage and delivering speeches. Public speaking is any difficult speaking situation where stress affects your performance.
In a comfortable one-to-one conversation, your performance may be close to 100% of your current ability. But introduce stress, and your performance can drop dramatically.
Parties
Meetings
Presentations
Romantic dates
Group conversations
They all qualify as ‘public speaking’ in Ultraspeaking’s view.
With the right coaching, lots of practice, and by speaking in groups to replicate real professional and social situations, you can accelerate the time-consuming process of becoming comfortable in these challenging situations.
The thing I love about all this, and one of the reasons I want to offer similar training soon for my students, is that it’s possible to avoid most of the embarrassment you face when your only choice is to do it in real life.
And speaking of training, you can be the first to hear about our new speaking training when you join the waiting list! ;)
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