Hadar Shemesh shares five methods that helped her lose her accent and become fluent in English after moving to New York at 20: immersion, learning speech methodology, taking on challenging speaking opportunities, deliberate practice like shadowing and recording, and actively seeking out conversations.
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Hey, it's Hadar. And this is the accents way. Today I want to talk about the five elements that helped me become a confident and fluent speaker. And I'm going to invite you to join my challenge that is going to take you out of your comfort zone and help you become a fluent and confident speaker as well. When I moved to New York when I was 20, I had a fairly strong accent and, and my level of English was, let's say intermediate. I could express myself and conduct basic conversations, but I couldn't go into deeper conversations without feeling self conscious or insecure. And when I'm looking back, I'm trying to detect the few elements that really helped me become a confident speaker. Doing what I'm doing right now, that is teaching American pronunciation, coaching English. And I discovered five things, five things that were essential in helping me become who I am today. Now, the first one was immersion. I immersed myself in an English speaking environment. I surrounded myself with English. Now, I know this may not be an option for many of you. This is why you need to join my challenge to discover how to do that when you're not living in an English speaking country. But for me, that was the one thing that really helped me own it. Eventually, I surrounded myself mostly with English. I watched television, I read books, I read the newspaper. I had American friends and I was working in English. So all I did was speak English, listen to English. I lived English. The second thing is methodology. The method and the technique of what I'm doing today and actually of what I'm teaching today. I, I learned it myself when I was in acting school. We had speech classes in there. We broke down English language into sounds and melodies and elements of speech that when you understand every single one of them separately, it's a lot easier and you're so much more in control when you put it all back together. So for me, it wasn't about what I learned in school anymore or what I thought I was hearing. It was clear and I had an answer for everything. And I KN what my weaknesses and strengths are. And I knew what to focus on and what to let go of. The third thing was challenging myself. Every situation that made me feel uncomfortable, every situation that I was intimidated by, I jumped on it, I took it. I took any speaking opportunity, I took any part that was challenging. I mean, at the end of my second year, I played Lady Macbeth in a Scottish accent. So think about it. Two years before, I had a foreign accent and I was self conscious about my English. And there I was getting this offer to Play a role, a Shakespearean role in a Scottish accent. I was terrified about it. I freaked out. But you know what? I worked hard. I challenged myself, and I was actually really good at it. The fourth thing is practice. I practiced. I did the work. So first I had my assignments from school. I had to practice sound. So I would drill the words, repeat words and phrases and sentences with the same sounds. I would take my speech book and sit and read it aloud and record myself with a tape recorder and play it and listen to it and play it again and repeat it again and again every single day. I'm lying because it wasn't every day, but I was supposed to do it every day. Don't tell my speech teacher anyway. But I did it a lot, and I felt the change, and I felt the difference immediately. And then I leveraged situations into practice opportunities. So, for example, if I watch television, I would speak back to it. I used to hear people, and I would repeat them right after. I would echo them. I would read aloud whenever I could. I would memorize texts and monologues from movie scenes and television series, and I would just go over it in my head, and I would practice and practice and practice. I loved it. I enjoyed it. Because every time I did it, I felt a little better than I did before. And I felt that I'm actually making a change. Because those small steps that you take, they empower you. And when you feel empowered, you feel capable, and you feel that you can actually make a change. And. And that's the one thing you need to remember when you know that you can do it, you can do it. If you feel that you can't do it and it's too difficult, then it's going to be really hard to get to that breakthrough. The last thing is communication. I would talk a lot. Even if I didn't want to talk, even if I didn't feel comfortable talking. I talked. I talked with people. I talked to people. I would take any speaking opportunity that I could. I used to wait tables. So I remember that the introduction and talking about the specials was a thing for me because it was an opportunity to practice. And I would make a big deal out of it in a friendly and fun way. And I saw what worked and what didn't work, what activated people, what helped people connect to me, what motivated people to ask questions. And I took all this information and used it again and again every time I communicated. And when I moved back to Israel and I had less opportunities to communicate in English, I mean, there's a certain amount of tourists that come into the city a year. Then that's when I started teaching. And let me tell you, this teaching was also a game changer for me because that's when I understood everything clearly. Because to explain something in a clear way, you have to be very clear about it in your head. And I think that's what made the difference for me. And of course, speaking in English and teaching in English helped me become the speaker that I am today. So that's it. These were the five elements that helped me become a confident and fluent speaker. And these are the five elements that I included in the challenge that I prepared for you today. In the challenge, which is a free challenge, you'll have access to live video lessons. You'll be able to interact with me and ask me questions, and you'll receive a daily email with a PDF sheet with instructions for the next day. You'll receive tasks and assignments, you'll make videos of yourselves, and you'll communicate with other people. We will lay out all the conditions to help you succeed and help you make a change towards becoming a fluent and confident speaker. To join the challenge, all you need to do is just click on the link below and get instructions straight to your email with a link to our private Facebook group. Look, those five days are going to pass anyway. Question is, what are you going to do in those five days that will help you reach your goals? Don't miss the opportunity and join us for the challenge. Also, share this video with your friends. If you don't want to do this challenge alone, have a wonderful week. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
