“I’m just not good at English.” It’s one of the most common things parents hear — and one of the most damaging beliefs a young person can carry into their exams. The good news is that confidence in English is not a fixed trait. It’s built through specific experiences of success, and those experiences can be engineered. Here’s how.
Confidence Comes From Competence, Not Praise
Telling a child they’re good at English doesn’t make them confident — it makes them feel good briefly and then vulnerable the next time they get something wrong. Real confidence comes from genuine ability developed through practice and specific feedback. The goal is to give children real, earned success experiences: things they actually did well, which they can do again.
Start Small and Make Success Concrete
For a child who believes they can’t write, a full essay is an overwhelming task. One paragraph is less overwhelming. One sentence is manageable. Start where success is achievable and make the success explicit: “That sentence is really good — look at the word you chose there.” Specific, earned praise for a specific thing the child did builds more confidence than general reassurance.
Reframe Mistakes as Information
Children who are anxious about English tend to experience mistakes as evidence that they were right all along — proof that they’re not good at it. The reframe that changes this: mistakes are information about what to practise, not judgements about ability. A child who makes the same error repeatedly needs to practise that specific thing; the error is showing you exactly what to work on. This is useful, not shameful.
Show Progress Over Time
Keep a piece of writing from early in the year. Six months later, write about the same topic and compare. The improvement is almost always visible and often striking — and seeing concrete evidence of progress is more persuasive than any amount of verbal encouragement. Children who can see how far they’ve come have a foundation for believing they can continue to improve.
Find What Interests Them
Children who feel they aren’t good at English often mean they aren’t interested in the texts they’re studying or the writing tasks they’re being set. A child who claims to hate writing might write pages about a video game, a football match, or a TV show they love. Starting from genuine interest builds the fluency and habit that transfers to other writing contexts. It’s a legitimate pedagogical strategy, not a shortcut.
Thorogood English works with students at every confidence level — including those who’ve convinced themselves that English isn’t for them. Join the waiting list for January 2027.
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