Hello Daring Learners,
For me, 2022 was a year of radical self-transformation in the most self-caring way.
I created new norms around what I look like, what I eat, how I workout, and how I teach. I realized that it was important to master the basics (sleeping, eating, and exercising habits) before moving on to more complicated matters, such as "native-like fluency", "healing", "mastering relationships", or "building wealth."
Many people do the opposite: they want to change their life overnight.
"I don't like what I see in the mirror, so I will spend three hours a day in the gym" or "I decided to improve my English, so I will study for two hours every day."These strategies fail to work again and again. They will always fail because a person doesn't have a system for creating a change. They simply want to get rid of what is.
The resistance (that they mistake for enthusiasm) may fuel some of their efforts in the very beginning, but eventually all their enthusiasm dissipates when they start making mistakes. No learning journey is without mistakes. Yet, people somehow believe that
they will be an exception.
There are no exceptions.
It took me 2,5 years to transform what's normal in my day. And I am going to continue supporting these new habits because if I stop now, my efforts will go to waste. If I continue now, I will continue investing in my new identity. I am a person who works out daily, write in her journal, has a practice routine to hone her English skills, lives into her values, and learns from her mistakes daily.
It took me 2,5 years to learn what I was supposed to know very well, like any adult. However, what I knew wasn't helping me to become the person I wanted to become. That's why it was so
painful.
When people complain that it took them six months to learn to pay attention to words or to listen more carefully, they say it as if they have failed. But in reality, they've made progress, they just refuse to see it.
What hurt them was their own expectations. They expected to learn something fast
so that they would never have to touch those exercises again.
Six months of practice is a very good start. It's where
understanding begins. Once you have understanding, you are inspired to keep going and make more progress because you
know that you can and
you know how. Six months of watching random videos will not do it. Six months of a deliberate practice routine can do a lot!
Try the following practice routine if you want to improve your presentation skills in English.- Watch the videos on how to present in English (you will see the link below)
- Choose one tip (what you need to practice the most)
- Choose ONE exercise that will help you get better at the skill
- Do this exercise for 2-4 weeks
- Ask for feedback in the community of practice (or ask the people who can give you high quality feedback).
For example:- Student A watched the videos below and realized that they don't know how to promote themselves and their ideas in English
- The focus of their practice for them to achieve better results would be: intonations, tone of voice, and clarity.
- ONE exercise that they can start with can be: "Thought Chunking." To practice delivering your ideas with different intonations, you should work with different types of content: news, personal stories, nursery rhymes, weather reports, business reports, poems, etc....
- They do only this ONE exercise for two weeks and receive feedback on their work. Once they've received feedback, they do another iteration to self-correct.
In two weeks time, this student will have tremendously improved their understanding of how and where to pause
(the first step toward mastering intonations is to master the pause).
Then they can start a new practice routine, which they will find a lot easier to do, once equipped with this new understanding.
The exercise I'm suggesting is free. Go watch the videos and choose what YOU need to practice ⬇️If you want to enroll in a course and invest in deliberate work, consider enrolling in the SPRINT!
"Thought Chunking and Pausing" where you will find a variety of exercises and content to improve your intonations. Each SPRINT! is organized as a practice routine so that you can repeat it when you notice that your skills are getting rusty.
And if you want to get serious with your English in 2023, join the Native-Like Fluency program. We begin tomorrow. Scroll down to see more.
I'll see you in class, Natalia ❤️
