Identify Where You Are Stuck

Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to day two of the spoonsu Festival. Welcome to the festival. How are you doing? I basically talked about the Make a Move challenge. I named a few people who made a difference and took the first step towards reaching their goals. So I'm very excited and very proud of all of you. And I think that this is a good opportunity for everyone to really take action towards something that is going to help you really reach your dreams. A lot of it has to do with English. So what I said when I was not heard that, basically we've seen a lot of people talking about overcoming fear around speaking with other people, joining conversation groups. We had people who actually made a video for the first time and posted it to the group, which is so incredibly amazing because you know when you take action, you are going to get to see different results. And we're going to talk more about that on day three. So day two has a lot that, you know, there's a lot that we're going to cover on day two. So I want to go ahead and talk first of all about today's winner, which is Susanna Moscala Zozel. She won the sprint master 2.0. Who she participated in our challenge. And this is. This is my announcement. Very fancy. So you're going to get the Sprint Master. Congratulations and thank you for everyone who shared a story or their moves on Instagram. It was amazing to see your engagement and what you were doing. Okay, so congratulations, Susanna. Okay, today's prize. Are you ready? We have three months inside of beyond our membership, our English practice membership. It's an incredible community there. You will also get daily sprints, but also a ton of other things like conversation groups and. And workshops with me and weekly content and all of that good stuff. So you can join the challenge. To win a prize, you need to follow me on Instagram, hadar shemesh.com share a story or a post from the event with the hashtag Fluencyfest. Fluency Festival. So whatever it is, you can share anything. And then you need to write the hashtag fluencyfest and tag me so I can see it at Hadar Accentsway. And every day we'll announce the winner of the previous day. So tomorrow I'll announce the winner of today. All right, so what do we have for you today? Today, I'm going to teach you how to identify where you are stuck. And this is what we're going to learn today. First, you're going to learn what is not working in your English learning and practice. Okay? This is the first Thing that we're going to talk about, then we're going to talk about the illusion of learning something that I've been talking about a lot. If you're new to me, then this is probably new. So we're going to talk about this because this definitely keeps people stuck. I'm going to teach you the three tools that will help you identify where you are stuck and how to get unstuck. Okay. And this is really important, so I would want you to pay attention here. And then we're going to talk about the relationship between fluency and pronunciation. And after that, I'm going to talk to you about your next steps, and we're going to leave some time for Q and A. We've gotten a lot of great questions inside the form, so I'm going to try to answer some of them today. You will probably have some questions. So I'll try to answer as many questions as possible. But if we see that we have a lot of unanswered questions by the end of the training, I promise that I will create a live Q and A just to answer all the unanswered questions. So yesterday we talked about the eternal English learner and that the, you know, the epitome of the English learner is someone who is not satisfied with their progress because they're not seeing results. So the question of all questions, and a lot of you identified with the eternal English learner, the question of all questions is, why is it not working? Right. Why is it not working? Do you have any guesses? Why is it not working? Well, we did talk about a lot of them. So one of the things, one of the words that we used yesterday that I used was overwhelm, right? I talked about it when I talked about the old way of teaching English, right? Just overwhelming the students, but also the experience of the internal English learner, like that feeling of overwhelm, you know, when you feel it in your chest, how does it feel? Right? Like, think about it. How does overwhelm feel? You feel it in your belly, you feel it in your chest, you start getting hot, right? It's just like you just don't want to do anything. And usually the next thing we do when we feel overwhelmed, what is it? What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? I can tell you what I do. The first thing that I do when I feel overwhelmed is I go on social media. There is something very calming, very automatic, very kind of like, you don't have to think. You just go and scroll, right? And that puts your emotions on Hold. But it's actually. It stuffs your emotions down, and then you're not really experiencing that emotion, and then you're not solving anything because you're just forgetting it. You're cooling it down. And. And then the next time, the same thing will happen. You will feel the same experience. Some people go to Netflix or tv. Some people go and eat, and others may drink, right? So overwhelm and resistance and all of that, like, that ends up leading us to doing things that are usually less productive for us. Yeah, overwhelm. Go for a walk. Which is an amazing way to deal with overwhelm, by the way. This is a healthy way. Okay. Anxiety. Adriana says anxiety. Why does that happen? First of all, we like comfort, right? And we like to stay comfortable. To remind you, we said, why is it not working? Because we like to stay comfortable. Yesterday we talked about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and usually it's the other way around. We're uncomfortable when we are. When we feel uncomfortable, when we're uncomfortable. Right? And we like to be comfortable. And what happens is that we develop habits that are not productive. For example, apps. It's just you and your phone, right? And all you need is just to kind of like, scroll up and down. I'm not even talking about social media. This is, like, real. You know, you're working on your English, right? Duolingo or Elsa Speak and all of that things. And, like, these are great apps, but, you know, what does it do to your confidence? What do you do? What does it do to your speaking abilities? Which is why we're here. We're here because there is a gap between the English that you actually know and the English that you speak. And do these apps help you memorize, minimize the gap? No. Right. But it's comfortable. You're not challenged. Why? Because it's just you and yourself. It's you and yourself, and you don't have to hear your voice. And that is the definition of comfortable. We also get sucked into watching a lot of YouTube videos, right? We think that we're learning. We probably are learning. But still, it's very comfortable because you do it at your own time. No one else is involved, right? No one judges you. It's just you. Maybe you might repeat the video and Listen. I'm a YouTube creator. I love the fact that people are watching my YouTube videos. But to say that just watching my YouTube videos will help you. Absolutely not. And I would not want you to spend hours and hours of your day watching videos. Right? I would want you to watch a Video and then go out there to the real world or do your thing and practice what you've learned. Because otherwise, what happens is that you fall into the trap of the illusion of learning. You think you're learning, you're doing the work, and most importantly, you're spending time, which is our most valuable resource, even more than money, right? Because you can get time back. Money, you can find a way to bring it in, but you can't get back your time. So you're spending all this time, and you're not seeing results and sometimes even money, right? When you subscribe to apps or courses that just kind of like, help you stay in that cycle of the illusion of learning. Now, what does that look like, the illusion of learning? What does it feel like? You feel like you're working hard, but you're not seeing results. Put yes on the comments. If you resonate with any one of the. Of the sentences that I'm gonna say here. There is a big gap between the English you know and the English you speak. And. And it's just getting bigger and bigger, right? Because it feels like, you know, all this, all this, all these things, all this stuff because you're learning and learning and learning, but you're not able to produce it back. It's stuck here or here, and there is a gap, and you're just learning more. Great. What good does it do to us? Constant overwhelm, right? It's just like, but what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? How do I learn? You find comfort in listening, reading, writing, and not in speaking, right? So speaking actually does not give you comfort, and all the rest does, right? So you're like, okay, I'll just go back to reading. I'll just go back to writing. Now, I'm not saying reading and writing is wrong. Do not get me wrong. I think it's fantastic. But you have to be wise about it, and I'm going to teach you how to do that. And you're spending long hours practicing without seeing satisfying results. Okay? Time, time, time, right? You're spending a lot of time, and you're like, for the time that I'm spending, I should be elsewhere, right? Yes. Okay, so we have a lot of yeses. Martha says, my English is there because I can write it, but it doesn't come to my mouth as it comes to my hands. Marta, this is so wise, and I so relate to that. And I'm sure that many of our students here are. Or the people watching can relate to that, right? Like, I know it, if I have a minute, I can write it, perfect grammar, but when I try to speak it, it's just not there. Right. And I'm going to tell you why that is and I'm going to tell you how to solve that. Okay? Yeah. Ayman is saying this gap is killing me. Really? Oh, the gap. The gap, yes. So good. I'm so like, want to be in the comments. Okay, so how to overcome this? Right. You're probably asking yourself this question, how to overcome this. So the main thing that I want you to remember is to be able to overcome the illusion of learning and that cycle. Like the hamster wheel, right? You're like running, running, running, running, running, but you're actually stuck in the same place. So not to be stuck on the hamster wheel, you have to take specific, clear and effective action. And I even have an acronym for you, sec. It's going to take you a sec. Not really, but it's easy to remember. So specific. And I'm going to teach you the fluency wheel today, which is the tool to get specific effective. I'm going to teach you my pronunciation confidence method. That is an effective way to practice. And clear, which is the communication flow, to identify in the communication flow where you are stuck. Okay? So you need these three tools to overcome this. Now you guys, again, like, if you're doing other things, if you're like also answering work emails, really pay attention here because like I said, I'm going to be teaching you three tools. And if it's the first time that you're learning this, it might be a lot. Okay. And a little overwhelming. So first of all, don't worry. We have the implementation workshop with Christina, who's going to review this with you. You have this video recorded and it's going to stay on the website, so do not worry about it. And you have the workbook. And the workbook of course, is limited. So you have to take notes. If you can, please take notes. It will help you remember better and stay engaged. All right? So stay with me. And I want to start by specific. Okay? And here I'm going to talk about the fluency wheel. Now I've talked about it a lot, so I'm not going to elaborate so much about the fluency wheel. If you know, a lot of you already know the fluency wheel. So most of the work around the fluency wheel is going to be done inside the implementation workshop. In short, the fluency wheel is designed to help you understand which elements are preventing you from reaching limitless fluency the six pillars of fluency are grammar, comprehension, understanding others, speaking time. So you have to have enough speaking practice. Active vocabulary, the number of words that you're actively using in comparison to passive vocabulary, the words that you understand. But that's like the gap. Passive, the words I know. Active, the words that are available for me to retrieve when I'm speaking. So we want more active vocabulary, confidence and mindset. Day three is all about that. So we definitely have to understand where we're at, right? And pronunciation, because pronunciation is also essential for fluency. And we're going to talk about it more a little later today. So this helps you understand where to focus. Someone asked me yesterday, like, how do I know where to focus? This is how. Now, what I usually recommend for you to do, and again you will be doing that inside the implementation workshop, is to rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 and kind of like try to identify where you're at in each one of those pillars, right? So for example, grammar. How satisfied are you with your grammar? Now in the workshop, she'll give you a bit, a few more questions, guiding questions. But the idea is that you know, right? It's how you feel about your English and about yourself. You don't need a teacher to tell you your grammar is 6.5, right? You know, if you're not happy with your grammar, if you're obsessing over it, if you feel frustrated, if people don't understand you, then give yourself a three or a four. If it's not not an issue, and then you make mistakes here and there, give yourself seven, eight or nine, right? If you don't have enough English speaking practice, give yourself zero or one, right? If you speak English all day, give yourself a 10. The idea is that all of those elements should be around the same level. You don't need to have all of them at a 10. But if grammar comprehension and active vocabulary are 3 and all the rest are 7, then you know what you need to work on. So once you rate yourself, you have a better understanding as to where your focus should go. And this changes, right? Like you can do it every month and every month you can reevaluate your needs. So this is the tool that is going to help you be more specific about your practice. Specific is like when you really, really zoom in and you try to understand what you need to do. Okay, now how to practice that goes into effective. I'm going to teach you the pronunciation confidence method, but I'm actually going to take you to the next one, which is clear the next. The next tool. And now I want to introduce you to the communication flow. My students inside of New Sound, they already know this, but this is new. I don't talk about it usually on my YouTube channel or other trainings. So pay attention because this might be new to you. And in this way, I'm also going to help you redefine what we call English levels. Because I don't believe in levels. I believe in experience inside the language. So let me walk you through this. So we talked about specific. Just, you know, the things that you need to learn, the theory or the practice. But this is all about understanding how the language is transitioned inside your body from the thought level to reaching someone's ear. So when we think about it, how do we form speech? Right. First of all, there is a thought. And I would even go back and say it's not even a thought, it's an energy like that. Something like you have an emotion that is transcribed into a thought. Right. So now we're at the thought level, and the thought needs to be formed into words and structure. And for some people, that thought could form first into their first language. And for others, it could be formed into English. Right. Sometimes if you speak many languages, it could be a bunch of different languages, right? But first of all, you have the thought, and then you form the thought into words and structure, but it's still in your head. And from here, it goes directly to the utterance, what comes out of your mouth, like when it's connected with the voice, so the words and structure, they form into speech. And then there is the. The stage of speech. But that's not enough because that's not when the. When the communication flow ends. Because then you have the interpretation, right? Because it's always about the other person listening to you or people. Right? Because the thought starts here and the utterance ends up here. But if you're. Usually we speak to reach other people, so it has to include them. And will they understand the utterance that I'm using? Because if I'll be speaking to you in Hebrew right now, right. It would be hard for you to understand me. But if I speak in English, it's easier for you to understand. Unless you speak Hebrew, of course. So. Right. So you, like, we have to take into consideration how our voice hits. Also, if I speaking like this, right, you won't hear me, like, in the beginning of the session, and I speak really slowly. So utterance has to do not only just with sounds, vowels and consonants, but also with my voice and how I Use my voice and how I project my voice. And that is a, a natural, organic part of the communication flow. Because we have to take into consideration what happens when the voice hits someone's ear and how they feel it. Because if I'll be speaking like this, they're also going to feel a certain emotion and that will affect how we communicate. And if I speak like this, right, then they're going to also experience something else. So I can use the same words but have a different communication experience. So interpretation is an important part of it. So let's talk about challenges that we might come across. And I'm first going to talk about the challenges that we might come across between thought and word structure. So again, to gain clarity, you need to understand where you are stuck, okay. What gets you stuck. So yes, there is like pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary. But I'm saying, okay, let's take it, you know, it's even deeper than that. It's even deeper than that because it's all about what happens between the thought level and the interpretation level. So when we face challenges at this stage, right, at the thought level, structuring the words, what you would normally see is or feel is that you are translating in your head, not knowing really what to say. There is like blank space here. Maybe you might be feeling uninteresting. So even if you have opportunities to speak, you don't speak. Not because you don't like, like how you sound. It's just because you feel like you're not interesting. Because there's a problem with like structuring the thought even. Not enough passive vocabulary. Remember that we talked about ac active vocabulary? Maybe you don't even understand the words that you're hearing. Lacking grammar knowledge, right? Maybe you just don't know how to structure it because you have no idea how to structure it. Everything is confused in your head, on and at have has, right? So if you don't have the foundation to create a basic sentence, you might still struggle at this level. Now here is something that I want to introduce you to because it's usually that stage is for people with lack of English speaking experience, okay? It usually happens to people who are not, who do not have enough English speaking experience. They might have learned, right? A lot, they might have not learned, but they don't have a lot of English speaking experience. And the experience is also with learning. Maybe they just started out okay? And the reasons for that is lack of exposure. So, for example, you might live in a European country. If you're around my age, right, around 40, I'm 42, you're around my age, then if you grew up in European countries, you're less likely to have been exposed to a lot of English. And that's because a lot of the. Of American TV or English shows are dubbed. And then lack of exposure will affect your English experience, right, and how you perceive it and pronunciation. But you could also be at that place because of lack of theory. Maybe you've never learned it. Maybe you just picked it up somewhere and you're lacking the theory behind it. Because theory is important. I'm not gonna lie. Like, we didn't do need to know grammar. Not all grammar, for sure, but we do need to know a little bit of grammar to be in syntax, right? How we structure things. So usually if we're thinking about this as the fluency path and the fluency journey is, as you can see, the line is exponential. Like we. It just goes on and on and on towards the clouds, right? There is like a stage when you're just starting out where you still feel at a. At a place that you know is like, you don't feel confident about the place. And you are at that level of thought to speech. And this is the reason now how to improve now if you feel that you are struggling at that level, Put yes in the comments. Okay, I'm reading some of the comments here. Yeah. So Noemi. Noemi says something. I've been in the US speaking English for 24 years, and people still have much difficulty understanding me. But Noemi is the challenge. Is there a challenge around forming the thought, like knowing what to say? Because if not, then maybe the next stage is where you struggle with. Or even further than that. Yes. Okay, so we have. Okay, we have a lot of yeses here. A lot of yeses. Lack of speaking experience. My friends join the practice groups. How to improve. Here are a few tips. Write it down. My friends journal or write in English every single day. It helps you think in English. Practice actively thinking in English every day. Spend time thinking in English. If you want to get better at thinking in English, you got to do more of that thing that means to think in English. Speak out your thoughts. I call it the stream of consciousness exercise. Okay, now I'm really hungry and I have to go out. Oh, what is this weather? I'm so hot right now. It's too bright in here, right? Like all the. Every thought that comes to your head, just say it out loud. Even if it takes really, really a long time. Right? If. Even if it takes you a long time and then increase your Speaking time significantly, a few ways in which you can do that, of course, speak with others, record yourself, and speak daily. The reason why we want to record ourselves is because it creates, like this additional intention that we don't usually have when we don't record ourselves. And that simulates the closest experience to speaking with others when you are on your own. But you can also teach something in English, right? If you are an expert in finance and you want to help someone build a budget, right. We have some beyonders who do that. Then offer your services to someone who can only communicate with you in English. You add value. You do that. It's an opportunity to speak and you teach them. So these are a few suggestions on how you can increase your speaking time. And if you're not in the influency community, our free community, then I highly recommend for you to join because we have our speaking club and speaking groups and we have our weekly discussions and challenges and it's a lot of fun. So if you're not in the influencey community, you should join. Okay, next up, are you interested in the next stage? So for some of you, the challenge is not transforming a thought into structure and words. It's actually what happens between once the thought is formed to releasing it out of your mouth, right? How words move into the utterance. Now, how does that look like? Could be repeated grammar mistakes. You know the. You know how it should be. You actually know in your head it's different. But when it comes out of your mouth, you go back to old habits. You say she instead of he, or you say you know on instead of it, on instead of in, right? So like, you have those repeated mistakes. Even though you've learned a theory over and over again, it's still not helping. And then you have a lot of forgotten words. That's what I call the passive vocabulary. You know a lot of words, but you can't retrieve them. It's hard for you to remember them when you need them. And then pronunciation insecurity or fear when you're like, you want to say something, but you're afraid that you're not going to say it right or that people are not going to understand you. So Noemi was mentioning about people not understanding. I'm sure that it creates for you this, you know, fear or like, uncomfortable feeling around pronunciation or speaking. Maybe not, but other people do influence our experience. So, like, we need to take that into consideration also getting stuck right like that when you're, when you're speaking and you're like, you want to Say something. You have all these thoughts in your head, but it just like something happens, whether it's like your. Your tongue gets tangled up or all of a sudden you black out. So that is something that happens at this stage. Stuttering, stammering, you know, like, you repeat words. You're like. All of a sudden you feel like you need to reset the system. Right. You use a lot of fillers, like I did. I did right now. Right, right, right. But fillers are sometimes good, but you feel like you're using too many fillers just because you need to compensate for the moments where you get stuck or for forgetting words. And that's actually the result of all the things that we talked about. Yeah. Someone says, I frequently forget words, and that drives me mad. Okay. We have Halida from Syria, and she says I don't have a chance to communicate with people speaking English. So in the influency, it's a free community. It's on Facebook and Zoom. If you have Facebook and Zoom, which I assume you have because you're here, then you can join our free community and practice speaking with people again, absolutely free. And it would be an amazing opportunity to kind of like go back and. And don't be afraid. Right. It's okay if you get stuck at the beginning because you don't have a lot of experience, but you've got to take action, make a move. All right, now this is the stage where actually you've had like this nice growth, right? Because you've gotten better and better and better. And then you feel like there is a slight regression and even a plateau. And this happens when you're actively speaking or practicing for a while. So who here has been practicing and speaking for a while? And there was a point in their English journey where they felt like they're actually going backwards instead of moving forward. Have you ever felt regression even though you were practicing? So I'm not even speaking about a plateau, which is obvious and happens to everyone. Have you ever felt like you are actually regressing? Okay, am I back? Yes. Okay, good. So, yes. Right. So I just first of all know that it's a natural part of the English learning experience. There is like this fast growth when you gain. At first, you don't have any experience. I can do this at first, you don't have a lot of experience. And then you start improving more. Let's be fancy here, right? Like, you start improving, improving. You feel like you're getting better, and then all of a sudden you have more speaking practice. You're doing the work. And you feel like you're regressing, you're going backwards. Backwards. At this point, what usually happens is that you have lack of pronunciation confidence. I'm going to teach you that in a sec. Lack of effective practice. So this is a stage where you usually go into the illusion of learning, and that ends up with feeling afraid to speak or kind of like inhibited or crippled that you want to speak, but you don't actually do that. So how to improve this stage? Again, if you resonate with this stage, take a pen and a paper and a notebook and your workbook and write those things down. First of all, build pronunciation confidence to improve pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and confidence. Pronunciation confidence is basically my method that I'm going to teach you, and it's all about under, identifying your priorities and repetition. And then, and this is essential mindset work, which is crucial for this stage. Because when you start developing fear around speaking, which is what happens is that you start being very reluctant and resistant to. To practicing and to really learning and to changing. And that part is really important. I'm gonna go big again and tell you this resistance is going to ruin everything for you. It takes no prisoners. I'm just reading a book about resistance. And this is what he says there, right? It takes no prisoners, and it's going to do its best to ruin your life. And what happens is that at this point where you feel like, you know, you're not seeing results and you're stuck in a plateau or you're regressing like we've seen in the previous slide, then what happens is that, you know, you'll start developing resistance towards English or towards practicing or. No, no, no. I've tried it all. It's not working for me. I'll just stay with how it is right now. Right? So this is something that we will talk a bit more about. Mindset. We'll talk tomorrow. Pronunciation confidence in a second. Now, this stage, utterance versus an interpretation. And this is really interesting right now at this point, we're talking about what happens between the stage where the sound comes out of your mouth and goes into someone's ear. And here are some of the challenges that you might be facing at this stage. The first one is lack of clarity, right? So people may not understand you. Unaligned tone of voice. So how you feel is not aligned with what they think you feel. Something about how you express yourself or your voice is not aligned with how you're actually feeling or your intention. Right. You want to see something in a casual, friendly way. And they ask you, why are you angry? You might come across as monotone. You feel like your voice is boring. You might feel like you know, you're saying something, but people don't get it. And it's not a pronunciation issue. It's just like, how do you deliver your message? And people who use English in the workplace usually suffer from it, because if they try to make a point or to argue against something or to present or to speak in public, and they feel like their message is ineffective, and in their own language, they might say, but I'm so good in my first language. Why is it so different? Right? Usually the challenges between the stage of utterance and interpretation, how we produce it, and, like, the intention that we have. And then sometimes we have voice shame. Now, without even explaining what that is, if that resonates with you, just put me in the comments because I want to know. I. You know, for my students, they. They know me. I talk a lot about the voice. But if you're new to this, if the Fluency Festival is the first time that you are hearing my teaching, tell me if voice shame is something that you're experiencing. Voice shame is where you. First of all, you do not want to hear yourself recorded. You feel awkward to speak. You avoid speaking because you think that you sound too childish, too quiet, too loud, too nasal, right? You have, like, these ideas about your voice that makes you feel. Feeling. Feel certain feelings, and a lot of them are shame. And you try to hide. Yes. Yeah. So we have a lot of yeses here, right? Voice shame. And by the way, this has nothing to do just with English. Like, we can definitely experience voice shame in our first language. The communication flow happens in all languages. It just happens to be that in a second language. Unfortunately, we face more challenges. So where is that? This stage is usually when you are perceived fully fluent by others. People tell you, oh, my God, you sound amazing. I wish I could sound like you. You are so fluent, right? Like, I didn't. You know, your English is so good and all of that, but you still don't feel all those feelings, right? So you are improving and you are in this growth track, but you're still feeling some challenges. And that, like, the reason for that is where you. When you lack advanced speech and prosody knowledge. Prosody is the intonation, rhythm, stress, phrasing, connected speech, tone of voice, all of those things. Lack of vocal training. Our voice is like, the one is such a essential tool for communication, and we never learn how to use it. And most of you start Manipulating your voice. Most of us, us start manipulating our voice at us, like, very early on, right. We start having opinions about how we sound, how we need to sound. We're influenced by the people around us. And that creates like, that determines the voice that we'll end up using. But sometimes we are not using it in an optimal way, so we might even abuse our voice. And sometimes it's just not like, you know, we're not using it in a way that is. That expresses who we are. That feels authentic. It feels like a different person. Feels like I'm speaking, but my voice is of a different person. Right. And that is usually the stage. Now, again, as you can see, the three stages that I like, that I explained here, you could perceive it as beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Right? But I don't see it like that because I really think it has to do less with the outcome of your English. Because beginners identified as beginners could be very fluent when they feel confident and when they're in the right environment. And advanced speakers can feel, you know, very limited and like, they can't utter a word if they feel very inhibited and fearful or they're in an unsupportive environment. And then the outcome is just, you know, it's going to be very different from where they're labeled. So I recommend looking at it from an experience, perspective, experience and practice, experience in exposure and experience in speaking, How to improve this stage. All right. The utterance to interpretation, building pronunciation, confidence, prosody work, vocal work, mindset work. Identifying a deeper reason. Right? This is really important, and it has to do a little bit with what we talked about yesterday. What are you here for? What do you want to do? How are you going to use your voice to get there? How do you. How are you going to use your voice to make an impact? How are you going to use your voice to leave a legacy behind it and taking action to make an impact? Going back to the make a move challenge that I'm inviting you to take advantage of. All right, good. What is vocal work? Vocal work is mainly to understand how your voice works and how your voice can be more aligned with your feelings and with your attitude. So, for example, if you. And so there are a few levels for to that. And I'm gonna again, so vocal work is, first of all, make sure that your voice is not strained, right? No effort. You're not working too hard to speak. And that happens a lot because we don't learn how to use our voice. And then you speak for a little Bit, and then you're tired, and then you just avoid speaking or you lose your voice. And a lot of times it hap. It could happen in our first language as well. And sometimes it's just because of habits that we developed in English that where it happens only in English. So that's the first thing. The second thing is to see if your voice can actually convey how you're feeling. Right. So, for example, if you're feeling like, you know, you want to create this feeling of welcome, like, I want to make you feel welcomed, and I don't want to stress you out and, you know, so then I would use this voice. But if I use this voice, right, you might not feel welcomed and at ease. Usually with my daughters in the morning, you know, like, it takes us forever to get ready. And sometimes I get really short or just like, I'm doing other things. And then, you know, my daughter comes to me, is like, mom. I was like, what? It's like making sandwiches, cooking pasta. It's like, what? Why are you saying it like that? Like, why do you use this voice? And really, like, she's asking me, why do you use this voice? Why are you angry at me? I was like, I'm not angry. I was just asking. Wait, what? I'm just trying to kind of, like, move the day along. So. So it really wasn't my intention to be angry. I wasn't angry. I was just, like, busy. But that's how it was perceived. So, like, being conscious of our emotions and knowing how to get our intention out. Right. So that is a lot of it has to do with vocal work. And yes, in new sound, My program that is going to. We're going to open doors for it next week. Week, there is an entire module about voice because I do think it's so fundamental to understand your voice and to learn how to be more expressive. So if you want to find out more and if you're thinking about it, then know that I'll talk more about it towards the end of the festival, and you'll be able to learn how. How to do it in case you want to continue. All right, moving on to effective. Just to remind you, we had sec. Specific, effective and clear. We covered specific and clear. And now we're going to talk about effective. And in this, we're going to talk about the pronunciation confidence method. Before that, let me see if you have any questions. Arthur is like, I see that coming in the future. Arthur has a daughter as well, for sure, though I don't think you're going to be as short as I am with your voice. Thank you. Kinder than me in the morning. Can you tell us more about prosody work? Yes, I will tell you about prosody work. How can I get access in the fluency community? Okay, on YouTube. Amar, there is someone on YouTube asking about the influency community. Honestly, you can just go to Facebook and type in in fluency community and ask to join. Make sure you fill out all the questions and that you're probably. Profile is not. Does not look. Looks like a profile of a real person. Okay, so prosody work. Prosody work. You know, when we think about speech and pronunciation, we usually think about sounds. But honestly, there is a lot more that goes into that because prosody work is sounds just form. Like, it's like the building blocks, right? It's the elements of space, speech. But prosody, if you think of music, then sounds are the notes and prosody is the rhythm. It's the tempo, it's the volume, right? It's like how the entire work of music. So I think that it's so important and sometimes we don't think about it. And the main thing that things that go into prosody work is one intonation, the melody of our speech. Really the music, Right? Really the music. That's what I just said, right? And into that there is also rhythm, right? Words that are longer and words that are shorter. So that would be rhythm. And in English, there are a lot of that. In other languages, usually words have the same rhythm and then also stress. And then also stress the words that you choose to emphasize, the words that you choose to stress. To stress words, we use melody, pitch, and we use length, which affects the rhythm. And ultimately. Right, that's how we stress. Things like intonation and rhythm basically are a reflection of what we want to say and the words that we want to stress. Okay? So notice now as I'm speaking, what are the words that I'm stressing? How do I stress? By changing my pitch all of a sudden or lingering on the word that's now like. It's like a. I'm talking about speech while I'm thinking about how I'm speaking. So you understand what I'm trying to say, right? So prosody is how I put it together. And this is really like how I deliver my message. Okay, Now I. I do think that this is an essential part of communication. It's not here. It's not at this stage. It's not in the thought to words and Structure, but it's more in the utterance stage and the interpretation stage. Now there is more to that. Like there is connected speech. Now there is more to that, right? I separated every word. Now there is more to that. Like I'm connecting one word to another. What do you want? It's not what do you want? So that's connected speech. But also when I'm speaking, you'll notice that I'm taking breaks, right? Where do I take breaks? Is it between every word or between groups of words? Right? That's called phrasing. That's how I phrase my speech. If I didn't take any breaks at all, it would be really, really hard for you to understand me and to. For me to allow you to understand and like to deliver my message. Also when I take breaks, it helps me to organize my thoughts. So all of that together is really important. And usually again, when we focus so much on writ, reading and writing, we don't think about those things. We just expect ourselves to be expressive by knowing the theory. But without the actual practice of the speaking and awareness and understanding how English is different from your first language, without all of that, it's going to be really, really hard for you to succeed and feel successful. All right, so you know, like, for example, my native language is Hebrew. Hebrew is very monotone. It's very fast. The rhythm of the words is the same. If I were to speak Hebrew, if I were to speak English, like I speak Hebrew, I would probably speak something like this, right? So no melody, right? And understanding, that really gives me more power. So it's not about sounding like a native. It's not about like, because you can still understand me. But if I want people to be interested, to be engaged, to want to listen to me and to deliver my message so they. So I get what I want. Prosody is an excellent tool. And again, like, this is very foundational. This is what I teach, you know, like inside of new sound. We have two very long modules around prosody because I think it's such an important part, really doesn't just. And inside in pronunciation. Now, if you want to find out more, I have a lot of videos on my YouTube channel. And if you want, we can. We will create. Not if you want, we will create a playlist with all, you know, everything that I talked about, I mentioned a lot of things. Some of those things are also like, I go deep on my YouTube channel into like the aspect or the topic. So we're going to create a playlist for you if you would like, to kind of like go a little deeper and to learn more and to practice more. I have a ton of prosody practice videos on YouTube. Okay, yeah, that's a problem priority in reading. Do you think we should all do things step by step? I mean, if I'm stuck in the words and structure stage, do you think I shouldn't work on prosody work? This is an excellent question, but it's about focus, right? Clarity. I don't think you shouldn't work on prosody work because, you know, a lot of times we could be at two different stages at the same time time. And also, like, our emotional state does affect it. And I think that when you work on prosody, you understand better, right? Like, you understand people's intention. It helps you understand reductions, which is also at the stage of, you know, like, it helps you with the communication flow, less about you speaking, but also. But more about you communicating with others. But in terms of focus, right? Remember when I said overwhelm in terms of where you need to focus, you need to get more practice in like the, in the thinking stage. And honestly, I think that that needs to happen simultaneously with you speaking as much as possible. And when you practice prosody, you're anyway speaking. So it kind of like serves the purpose. When you practice prosody, you practice. Remember, that's not the focus. But you need to understand that that stage is challenging for you. And you should like, you should understand that that this is where we, like, we want to improve that stage, but it does not mean that we shouldn't think of the utterance at all. Right? I think pronunciation should be taught since day one because it's like, it gives you so many tools, right? But having clarity around where you're stuck is really important. Effective practice you can do. You can, you can use all stages if you want, if it interests you. The most important thing is that you're interested and engaged and you're enjoying this. I hope I answered your question. What is that? When you start to dream in English, you know what you can do? I like, it's called joy, right? Like when you're like, I just had a dream in English and I was so fluent. Start thinking in English before you go to bed, before you fall asleep. Right? You go into bed and then practice your English speaking before you go to bed, before you fall asleep. And then see if you start dreaming in English. Okay, let's go back to talking about, sorry, I'm still here. Audio is still here. We're good. I just Muted myself for a sec. Okay, now I want to teach you or talk about the pronunciation confidence method. Now listen, because there is a lot to cover today and I still want to answer questions. Then a lot of this is going to be covered inside the practice groups and implementation workshops. The pronunciation practice groups are designed to help you go deeper when it comes to pronunciation. And the implementation workshop will go through everything else related to the pronunciation confidence method. Or you'll be able to answer. Christina and Jelena will be able to answer your questions. The pronunciation confidence method is a method that I created based on my experience and what has worked for me when I was learning sounds and when I was improving English unintentionally when I was studying acting. I'll explain later. But first, pronunciation. The pronunciation confidence method is designed. Let's do it like this, right? No, it's too small. Yes. The pronunciation confidence method is designed to help create new speaking habits in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. So here's the main thing and the main idea behind the pronunciation confidence method. A language is a set of habits. It's not just something that happens. It's a set of habits. What are habits? Something that you do automatically, without thinking about it. When you speak in your first language, you don't think about the words, you don't think about the grammar, you don't think about the pronunciation. It's just something that is there because you've developed a habit throughout the first five years of your life. You don't have that in English. In fact, English and English pronunciation interferes with your habits. And people don't like to change habits. We like to stay in our comfort zone and within our old habits. This is why it's so hard to quit smoking and drinking and, you know, social media and all those things that we get addicted to because it's a very easy, easy habit to acquire. So it's hard to change habits. And then here you are trying to change your pronunciation and change your grammar. Because really, speaking a second language is changing the grammar that is in your head and change your vocabulary. Because these are totally different words does not mean. Does not matter that it's like the same concept, but it's a totally different word. And you're expecting yourself to speak as fluently as you speak your first language without building the habits. Right. So you have to create new habits. And what creates habits? Repetition, repetition, repetition. That's all there is to it. I mean, there are like. There is more. You can talk about consistency and you can talk about intentional practice, but repetition, do something Enough times, brush your teeth every morning. It will become a habit if you don't, you know, you run once, like once a week or four, or you run three days a week and you're like, ah, it's not for me. I don't know. Right. Like, it's not a habit. It takes around 30 days. And to be more specific, between 18 to 60 days to acquire a habit. Now, it's different with speaking habits because our, you know, our speaking habits are so rooted so that it's hard to change and because also we have so many words that you can't Repeat each one 30 times to be able to acquire it. But if you're focused, you can know you know how to use the tools of building new habits when you're trying to learn new things. So this is why the pronunciation confidence method, you can use it with practically everything related to the elements of speech, pronunciation, confidence, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and even confidence and mindset. Because when it comes to confidence and mindset, it's all about repeated thoughts. So we have to create new thoughts, positive thoughts. More about that tomorrow. So practicing English without building pronunciation confidence, this is my favorite part in the trainings is like expecting to run a marathon after reading a book about running. Possible. No. Same thing is that you can't, you know, watch a video about the R sound, practice it a few times, and expect yourself to use the R sound spontaneously and consistently. It's like buying ingredients for a cake and wondering why it is not ready. Why aren't you ready? Cake or it's like trying to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata after listening to it a few times on Spotify. Right? It's like, ah, But I'm listening to a lot of podcasts. How come I can't speak? Because you haven't built the habits, my friends. You haven't built the habits. So sorry. I keep playing with it. I just want to make sure that you're seeing it clearly. The pronunciation confidence method is rooted in the idea that intentional repetition, priority prioritization, and building muscle memory are effective not just for sounds. Right? Obviously it's for sounds, but for new vocabulary, grammar, and even listening. And like I said, thinking. Because language is a set of habits. Now, when I was in New York, quite a few years before this photo was taken, when I was in New York, right? I did not know all of that. When I was 21, I was, like, working and I got accepted to this acting school and my English was okay. Like, I was communicating pretty okay, right? Okay. Ish. I had a distinct non American accent, non native accent. And, yeah, I was working in English. I applied for school. I got accepted. And the thing is that the reason why I'm teaching you all of that, because at that time, what was happening is that I started. I went to acting school. I started learning speech and pronunciation, which, you know, kind of, like, taught me the method of changing sounds or acquiring new sounds. And the way I kind of, like, started to acquire new sound was through, first of all, learning how to form it, but then through repetition. So I used to repeat a lot, lot sounds, words, phrases, sounds, words, phrases. And then I had to memorize a lot of scenes and monologues, right? Because we had a bunch of acting classes, and we had to memorize a bunch of different texts. And because English was not my first language, it was a little harder for me. Everything was a lot harder for me than to my fellow classmates who did not even have to struggle with any of the things that I did so they could focus on their acting. But. But I was just like, how do I make it sound like it's me? So anyway, I remember that I was walking and kind of like spending a lot of time repeating phrases and sentences and dialogues and monologues, right? Like a lot of speech elements. Right. If we think about AI, there's this great tool for writing called wordtune, and it's based on, like, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of sentences that are in. That are in the system. So in a way, it started to be inside my head. I started having all these structured sentences in my head and a lot of repetition, because that's how I memorized. And what happened was that I started recognizing that my English is improving, my grammar is improving. I'm starting to use, with friends or with, you know, my teachers, more complex grammar and syntax, like structures. I started creating, Building better arguments. My speech has improved because I was repeating and listening to myself all the time. And my confidence has improved. I started using a lot more words, right? Because in those different texts, I had a lot of different words. And back then, I didn't think about it, but that was really the tool that has helped me learn, because I've never learned grammar. Never, right? Like, so sometimes over the years, I was like, oh, I need to teach it. How do you explain it? Exactly. But I never learned grammar in school. So ultimately, this has helped me understand that the repetition of words, phrases, and sentences has helped me not only in pronunciation or to memorize something, but really with understanding English on a deeper, subconscious level. So that when I had to Say something. I would, would use the structure that was already ingrained in my head and just change the nouns and verbs. Right. But everything was already there now. And, and, and, and then I realized that it's the same when you're trying to learn the same when you're trying to learn different things. So obviously I'm not going to go and expect you and tell you to start memorizing a lot of texts, even though wouldn't be a bad thing. But, you know, we do that. My students love it. But I don't think that's the method to learn English. Right, Because I spend so much time. So I'm trying to save you time and tell you how you can do that in the least amount of time. So when it comes to vocabulary, repetition is crucial. Now, I'm quickly going to go through the steps. I explained it yesterday as well. But remember that I'm going to share with you a playlist of videos where I teach you just that. So know that this is coming up in your email tomorrow, and it's going to be in the Facebook group as well. But when you want to learn vocabulary, when it comes to the pronunciation confidence method, first of all, it's prioritizing. You have to understand what are the words that you need to focus on. And in vocabulary, you want to focus on, on words that you know, but you don't use. Okay? This is how you turn passive into active. So those words are the words that you want to collect, and then you collect them. You have to start collecting words. The secret is not to overwhelm yourself. I do not want to see notebooks with 30, 40, 100 words. Now you want to always. I mean, you can collect, you know, you can collect words that you'd like to practice, but when you're focused on practicing, just focus on one word at a time. I know it sounds frustrating, but that's the secret, my friends. That's the secret. So one word at a time. What does that mean? You take a word, you first of all figure out how to pronounce it. Clarity is really important. Understand how to pronounce it. Then you say it out loud 30 times. Okay? Again and again and again. Continuous, continuous, continuous, continuous. You build the muscle memory, you build the habit, the speaking habit. You trick your brain into thinking, oh, I'm using this word. This word is going to be more available that way. And then you want to use it in context. But before that, you want to see how it's being used. So you want to look at tools like youglish or like Google to see how people use this word usually. And then you want to say it out loud. And then when you say it out loud, then you want to start creating your own sentences using that word. And everything is out loud. And this is the cycle of one word. Now, I have a pronunciation planner, not a pronunciation, sorry, a vocabulary planner that is attached to my video that I'm going to be sharing with you. So if this is something that you want to work on, make sure you download it and follow it. Now, the same thing with grammar. Why do you always make the same mistakes? It's not because you don't understand the theory. You just don't have the habit of using it. And more importantly, it clashes with your own grammar. That's what happens. Like this is how grammar mistakes are formed. It clashes with your own grammar, right? You don't have articles in your language, so using a and the this, it's just not natural. So you might drop these, right? But English needs it. So the end result is what we call a mistake. But you're just going back to old habits. Your habit is to use a sentence without articles, right? So ultimately, you know when you want to use the right grammar, it's the same process. And again, I have a video that I'm going to share with you. So if you struggle with grammar, make sure you follow all those steps. But you want to identify the challenge and make sure it's something that you actually need, right? And then you want to use examples, a bunch of sentences that are that use, you know, this grammar structure. Let's say articles and. And prepositions, let's say. And you want to say it out loud. And then you want to use it actively when speaking, right? So it's the same thing. Repetition, repetition. This is why we created the sprints. The sprints are based, and I hope you're doing them. Do you like the sprints? I hope you're doing the sprints. So sprints are based on the pronunciation confidence method. You take a structure that is new, that is not implemented, and you repeat it again and again and again. And in the practice groups, you will see that we're using this method to improve pronunciation and pronunciation confidence method in pronunciation, right? So first you want to identify the sounds that you struggle with. Then you want to understand how to form it, right? What exactly you do with your mouth. Then you want to repeat it to build the muscle memory, right? So we repeat it in words and phrases and sentences, and then we start kind of like evolving as we go. And Then you want to make sure that you're using it intentionally, right? That you're actually like, speaking and thinking about using that sound. Because otherwise it's not going to happen. You're going to go back to old habits, right? And then that is the stage where you can use it effortlessly. Okay? So again, if this sounds interesting, join the pronunciation groups because you are going to love it. It's like an hour long sprint. And she's going to, like. Both Christina and Jelena will go through this. Now, pronunciation is my thing, as you may or may not know. And you know, throughout the years, I focused more on pronunciation. So I first developed the pronunciation confidence method, teaching just pronunciation. For many years, I was teaching one on one and I was teaching groups just pronunciation. I wasn't talking about the methods and the theory and mindset and, you know, like limitless fluency. All of that I wasn't discussing. It was just teaching pronunciation, which was amazing. And I think it was very, very effective. And I saw how effective it is on people's fluency, and then I realized that some things are missing. But then, you know, and at first I even focused on pronunciation with the agenda of helping people sound like native speakers. Why? Because, you know, I came from acting, and for me it was all about acquiring fully and immersing myself in the American pronunciation, the American accent. But then I realized the impact that pronunciation had on my students, right? When it was taught properly and not with the obsession of following the nuances, you know? And again, I evolved as a teacher as well. So I realized how important it was not just for. For how you sound, but also how you think about yourself, how you feel about yourself, the confidence that you have, the clarity that you have, and all of that good stuff. Because I believe that pronunciation and fluency are intertwined. I think that understanding pronunciation is fundamental for reaching fluency. Because like I said, when you understand pronunciation and this idea of repetition, you can apply it on other things like grammar and vocabulary. And this is why, again, in my programs, I first teach pronunciation fully and prosody and all of that. And then we take that habit, that method of practicing sounds, and we apply it on vocabulary and onto grammar. Okay? Because I think that first of all, this is like the physical element of speech. And then you can kind of like apply everything on top of that. Now, here are a few things that I've been seeing over the years. Some wrong reasons why people. People actually learn pronunciation. Because some of you may say, I don't need pronunciation, right? Because a lot of it, a Lot of times you might have a false perception as to why you should learn it. So here are some wrong reasons. And this is definitely not the reasons why I teach pronunciation and why I am so in love with it. They believe that sounding native immediately grants fluency, which is wrong. Like, a lot of times people think about fluency as how you sound. And usually that could not be more opposite because sometimes even if you have a native like accent, but you are, you don't feel fluent. It can create a bigger challenge. Like you might feel like an imposter. People expect of you to be fully fluent because you sound like a native, but then you're not. So the experience is like, you always need to make up fluent for that gap that you're feeling. They believe that their success is dependent on how they sound and not sounding foreign, right? So they think that they will succeed in life and at work and they'll be promoted or get that job if they don't sound. If they stop sounding like a non native speaker. Now I get it that there is discrimination and bias. And especially over the last few years, I've seen it with my students. I hear it all the time. I hear my students telling me about, like, you know, being on the phone. They work at call centers and people hang up on them or ask to speak to someone who speaks English, right? So I fully, I am fully aware of the external circumstances that make these beliefs exist. However. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow. But however, like it's. It does not matter what happens outside. What matters is your own personal experience, right? And if you believe that your success is dependent on your speech, then you are really limiting the. Your opportunities and limiting your potential. They think that people will perceive them as unintelligent if they have a foreign accent, right? So they want to work on it. And then all this time they just feel unintelligent. They don't want to be singled out. Where are you from? I'm sure a lot of you have experienced that, a lot of you who might have worked on their speech and have reached like an amazing level, and then you're like, you're still getting there. Where are you from? And you want to avoid it. And they strongly believe that sounding native is just better. There's this hierarchy, right? And native speakers are at the top of the pyramid, okay? But here are a few right reasons why you should learn pronunciation. The first one is to express yourself clearly and to be understood right? To, To. To help you kind of like work on that element between thinking like the Having the words and structures in your head and the utterance and between the utterance and the listening to understand other others better. Because it's a huge part of when you practice sounds. When you practice reductions, you become more aware of them. So if you have a hard time understanding speech of certain dialects, right, Then what happens is that when you practice those sounds, you are more likely to understand them. All of a sudden, the brain opens up. You want to build confidence and simplify the speaking process. Learning pronunciation, what it does is actually help. It helps you not put a lot of effort into your speech. Okay? You're not investing a lot of time and a lot of energy into your speech, and then you can speak better. You can feel effortless to create ease and effortlessness in their speech, right? So if you want to feel effortless, if you want to feel natural, whatever that means. But we all like when we think of natural. It's just like. Like myself, right? Like how I feel in my first language, then pronunciation can really, really help. And then to build the foundations for the pronunciation confidence method effectively, because then you can use it and prove everything else about your English. So these are the right reasons why people should use. Should learn pronunciation. And another reason, and that's the last one. Sometimes it's a personal desire and goal. Sometimes. And I have a lot of students that. That's their case. They are just in love with the sounds of English. So if they have reached a certain level and they can communicate properly. But now it's just like a personal achievement that they want to have, right? They just want to, like, really have that flow of English, to feel like everything is like butter and on the toast. Right? So then I say go for it. As long as it doesn't prevent you from focusing on all the other things. As long as you know your focus, as long as you feel confident, as long as you feel that what you're doing is effective. All right. How are you feeling? We're going to get to the Q and A in just a sec. Hello. Where I'm at work during these meetings. How can I practice pronunciation at this time? I recommend that you post it in the Facebook group as well. This question, and maybe you can find practice partners. So, a recap, just so you know you can ask questions. Even though I'm not looking at the chat, my incredible team is helping me collect all your questions. And. And I have them in a doc. Let me see. Yes. All right. So Yelena and Amar are in the chat, and they're going to collect your questions and Add them so I can answer them at the end. Let's recap what we've learned today. All right. We talked about the illusion of learning, the rabbit hole of learning and thinking that we're doing a lot, but we're actually not improving because we're not focused. And to be focused, we said that you'll have to take specific, clear and effective action that is going to help you see results in a sec. Not really, but specific. The fluency wheel. Effective. The pronunciation confidence method that we just talked about. And clear, which is the communication flow you under. You need to understand at what stage you're struggling. And again, it's possible that you struggle at all stages. If you're. If you struggle at this stage, then, yes, you will struggle in all other stages for sure. Right? And then that's why, like, this is why we have the fluency wheel. Because the fluency wheel helps you gain clarity around where you need to focus. But you also have some practice recommendations. Right. That I've shared with you here. And then you can go back and watch it. Christina is going to talk to you about it in the implementation workshop and understand how to practice. Not what to practice, but how to practice. We talked about the fluency wheel. We talked about. About pronunciation confidence method. Okay. How to implement what you learned during the festival. This is just a quick kind of moment. Let's take a moment and think about. Okay. We've learned a lot so far. Today was probably like the busiest day in terms of the content and how can you kind of like, process it? So like I said, first of all, download the workbook and write your insights and answer some of the questions there. You don't have everything there, but you can add everything that was relevant for you. Join the implementation workshop with Christina to learn about the fluency wheel. Okay. And practice it and understand your focus. Then join practice groups to practice pronunciation. The practice pronunciation using the pronunciation confidence method. All right, we have reached the stage of questions. How are you doing? I'm looking forward to the implementation workshops. Good. And you know, even if you can't join live, like I said, you can definitely, definitely watch the replay even of the pronunciation practice group. All right, so a few questions. Let's refresh. All right, so, Yellen, I'm not sure where would be. If you can put. It's kind of like, side note, if you can put the questions from today's live and on at a different place. So I know what's from today's Live and what's from the Q and A form okay, good. Let me open it up. So a question that we got through the form. Sorry, I can't see the name. Okay. Ibeth. How can I improve my vocabulary and grammar? So basically we talked about it, and the thing is, again, you need to identify the main challenges and then build pronunciation habits. Right? To build the speaking habits. And speaking habits, they have to do with pronunciation. So identify the challenges. Create like the. Create for yourself the structure to practice. So, like, sentences of the grammar rules that you want to learn or the words that you want to learn with examples, and then repeat it out loud quite a few times and then use them intentionally. All right. Another question. Jim is asking for typical mistakes for Spanish speakers. And again, like, you guys can ask questions in the chat. Typical mistakes for Spanish speakers. I actually have a video, so I'll share it with you in the. In the email and the resources. I have a video about pronunciation mistakes for Spanish speakers. So I will share it with you. You'll get a lot of tools there. And there's actually a PDF and an audio recording that you can practice with. I have that for Spanish, Russian, Korean speakers, Mandarin Chinese speakers, Brazilian speakers. I think that's it. So we have those. If you're a speaker of one of those languages, then we're going to collect those guides, pronunciation guides for you. Okay, let me look at the chat. I'm enrolled for New Sound. Where do I know? I'm in. Okay. So as for New Sound, we open doors. We officially open doors on September. September 12, which is next Monday. So if you are on the wait list, you will know because we will send you a few emails to let you know about it. And just so you know, if you join, like in the first 24 hours, there's also a bonus for Fluency Festival members. Iman is asking, I'm a beginner in English. How long would it take me to be perfect in English? How much does your course cost? I truly. I trust your abilities to help me return my confidence. So first of all, I'm honored and it's a huge privilege for me. Just so you know. Um, and first of all, from how you phrase yourself, it does not sound like, you know, like, it sounds like you have a lot of experience. And, and usually a lot of times people say, oh, I'm a beginner, but they have a lot of knowledge. They just don't have the speaking experience. So we kind of like, I want you to start thinking about it in that sense. So how would it take? First of all, I would like redefine the goals Because I think to become perfect, it's just like, almost impossible, possible. There is no perfect at all in any language, even our native language. And I think the most important thing is that you clarify for yourself. What does fluency feels, feel like for you? Right. What would it feel to be fluent? How would you know that at this stage you're fluent? You have to, like, create measurables to be like, okay, if I have reached this, if this is what I'm seeing, then I know that I'm fluent. So I want to again rethink this whole, like, fluency thing, because there is no. When you say I'm, I want to be fluent, what's fluent? A lot of times what you perceive to be fluent is not the experience of the person. Like, you've seen. Okay, so what does it take? We're going to talk about it on day four, right? I'm going to take you through all the components that are required to reach limitless fluency. So that path is going to be discussed, that strategy. And I'm going to invite you to shift your strategy and include all the things that I'm going to be sharing with you. Would you train me to ask for a salary raise and to open a channel to inspire people? I love that. First of all, I'm challenging you, Andrea, to open a YouTube channel. So yesterday I saw you commenting in the chat. I think I'm not confusing the names, but I saw you commenting that you are considering it. You know, this week is all about making a move like I recommended. All you need to do is to just open it. You don't even have to upload everything, but that brings you closer to having a YouTube channel. Because technically you will be having a YouTube channel. If someone says, hey, do you have a YouTube channel? You can say, yes, I do. I'm not uploading videos, but I do have a YouTube channel. In terms of practice, I think it's a great idea, actually. I'm thinking. So I think that what could happen is that you can actually. I'm getting you to take action. You can actually create a group where you practice asking hard stuff for hard things, like for a salary raise or for changing going back to working remotely and not going back to the office. So think about how, like how to talk about hard things. But I'm taking the challenge and I'm going to think about creating something around that. How to talk about hard things. But opening a YouTube channel you can just do soon. Okay. Mohammed is saying, why I get nervous when I speak and I lose the Words. This is awesome. All about confidence and mindset. Because here's what you're saying, and I lose the words. So you had them. You had them when you were on your own, but now you lose the words. And usually it has to do with people around you. We are so much more fluent when we're alone and no one sees us and nothing records us. And then we're so fluent when it's just us in the mirror. Right? Put yes in the comment. Put an emoji that describes this, right? Like, that if you agree with me or not. Like, find the emoji that kind of, like, fits into that. We are so fluent in front of the mirror. But, you know, when it comes to other people, we have to leave just ourselves, right? And all of a sudden there is, like, we face criticism, we face judgment, we face, like, not being good enough and all of that. And then what ends up happening is that we start, like, anxiety starts. We lose the words. We get stuck more often. We don't say what we mean. So all of that. So we'll talk about it tomorrow. What is the methodology of your work, Erica? So just to be upfront, in terms of my teaching experience, I've never learned, you know, how to become a teacher. I became a teacher from just sharing my own personal experience and from the experience of teaching. I've never learned any theories for teaching. I did study linguistics and I studied pronunciation, so I've studied as an acting student. And I've also studied, like I said, linguistics and phonology and all of that and the theory around language acquisition. But I've never learned a certain method to teach anything. I think there are amazing methodologies out there. It was just not my thing because I was busy just doing. And even, you know, I didn't even finish my bachelor's degree because I got busy teaching. I got a lot of students and I got, you know, I had kids, and I ended up being just like, okay, let me focus, helping people, sharing with them what I know. And that ended up being, you know, me doing what I'm doing. But throughout the years, I have developed my own methodologies because just like, trial and error, seeing what works, what doesn't work, and including my own experience. And this is how I came up with the strategy, the fluency pronunciation framework that I'm going to be teaching you tomorrow on Wednesday, on Thursday, day four would. Which would be Thursday. And that's the framework that we've been using for the past two years, actually year and a half. And it has been worked like, it's. I think it's kind of like the. It's. It's. It's the most precise method that. That I've ever used because it's just a result of. Of a lot of things that we tried, and I tried and worked and then didn't work. So I eliminated the things that didn't work and only kept the things that worked and also included a lot of things not related to teaching. Right. So it's not about theory or theoretical methods, but mostly about what does it take to become, you know, a confident speaker? And a lot of it has to do with personal work, personal development work, mindset work. Learning about it, learning from it, and including it in my work habit. Work. Right. Like learning what it takes to build habits, not just in speaking, but also I took it from there. Like, a lot of things clicked when I started learning more about habits. High performance. Right. How to get maximum results in the minimum amount of time and stay consistent with that high performance. So it's not just peaks and lows. So I've learned all of that and incorporated into my training and my teaching. So that ended up being my methodology. Okay. George is saying, as an English teacher, I sometimes feel stuck. Like, I'm the only. I'm only at the level of what I'm teaching. I love that. It's so beautiful. How to overcome this mindset and have better results. Challenge yourself. Challenge yourself and start teaching different things. Start creating content. Start speaking about the process of learning. Start a podcast. Start creating content. Put yourself out there outside of the classroom. Challenge yourself. You know, I often talk about me, like, starting a podcast, that. That was a big challenge for me because I felt I'm leaving my comfort zone. No longer talk. Videos are easy to edit. Right. And I can have a few takes. But in podcasts, it's true that you can actually edit podcasts, but I had this perception that I cannot edit my podcast before I started my podcast. It's like I have to speak fluently for, like, 60 Minutes because that's how it sounds when I listen to other people. So I had this. You know, it took me two years to open a podcast because of that fear. And that was in 2020, right. Not too long ago, just to show you that challenges are always there. But ultimately, you know, that really, really helped me reach the next level because I started sharing more complex ideas at ease. It's different than YouTube videos. Right. And that, like, in a way that I. It's not temporary, like what happens in our coaching sessions. My students so Challenge yourself, my friend. Do things that are very scary because I know that you have some aspirations that maybe you don't even dare to think about. To think about out loud, right? Definitely not to talk about. So you wouldn't write it here, but I have no doubt that you have bigger plans for yourself and for your students. So I say take action. Don't wait until you improve. Start doing things that are going to be more challenging for you personally and professionally. Right? And that's when you start seeing growth in your English. Your English is there. It's just that you keep, like. It's like trying to remember the story, but it's like, you know, think as if you're growing up and you have, like, a very low ceiling, and you're used to kind of like walking low because you're used to having that low ceiling. And one day the ceiling is gone, but you still are in the habit of walking low because you haven't even noticed that the ceiling is not even there. Right? It's not there. Stand up. Okay. How do you know where to put the accent in my words? Okay, so let's clarify Accent, Right? Accent has. In my head, like, when I'm hearing you asking this question, I'm thinking, one primary stress. And that's probably what you mean. Like, where is the primary stress? In a word, do we say confidence or do we say confidence? Right. Do we say attribute or attribute? That's the primary stress. I have a video about it, so I'm not going to because there is a lot that goes into it, but I'm just going to talk about the challenge. The challenge is usually when the stress patterns of your native language are very distinct. Sometimes even when you know it's. The words in your language are very similar to the words in English, but the stress is different, so you can't even hear it. So. And I realized that I forgot to talk about something really important. When it comes to the pronunciation confidence method, like, the first thing is perception, like, being able to hear it and understand it. Thank God that we have our coaches to help me out in the practice groups, and they will teach you about perception. But, like, you need to be able to hear it right? And to understand it. So that's the thing you want to make sure. You want to make sure that you are able to hear the stress in the words, and then that would be what make it easier for you to repeat that. But you also need to know what to do with your voice to stress the word. Right? To stress the syllable when it comes to stressing the right word in the sentence. This is prosody work already. And that's a little different. Usually we stress content words, the words that have meaning, like nouns, verbs, action, adjectives and adverbs. And we reduce everything else, like prepositions, verbie, articles, conjunction, conjunctions, and all of that. All those small little words that connect content words. In short, there's more to it. We'll share with you more resources. Okay, Mirage is asking. I can write anything, but I forget even a simple word while speaking. How can I overcome this, this problem without knowing you, without knowing your practice habit? I can sign on a paper that says you are not speaking enough. You have a lot of experience writing, but you don't have a lot of experience speaking. And it's rooted in you, A, not taking action and B, because you have this fear, because you've already have this limiting belief that when you speak, you can't think of the words. But writing is okay. So you will always, always go into writing. And speaking will always be hard because you have this belief that you can't speak and eat. And I have no doubt that you can, because if you can write it, you can speak it. You just need more experience speaking and mindset work to let go of that inhibiting, limiting thought that you can't speak. Okay? Because you can. If you can write it, you can speak it. So practice more, A lot more. Speak to yourself. Record yourself every day speaking for three, five minutes. Join conversation groups at least three times a week. You just have to speak more. Andrea is asking at the moment, I'm with my English. Is it normal that some days are super duper good and some days I sound like a child? Why? Because this is. This is good. It's just like the. To. To dismantle this perception that you're always fluent, right? Or like you have a certain level, not always fluent, but you have a certain level. And that is your box, that is your level. Oh, I'm advanced, so that means that I always have to sound fluent. But hey, I don't feel fluent in today. I feel like a child learning the language. So really like the outcome or the output of the language, your performance really depends on your state of mind. If you're very pre. If you're preoccupied, if you didn't get a lot of sleep, if you're hungry, if you need to pee, if you are, you know, if you had a fight with your husband, like all of those things will affect how you speak, right? If you have to go to an important meeting, make sure. That you create the right circumstances for you to succeed. Succeed, which means, you know, to take care of your well being. To take care of, you know, like the. Some peace of mind because the brain is just. Is responding to what's happening inside of it. And if you're preoccupied, then it's going to take up a lot of space for English to, you know, to be created in a. In an. In an effortless way. How to become a better reader. Just read more. Just read more. If you want to get better at something, do that something. And I feel like I didn't finish what I, you know, would like. Really answer the question. But I just say embrace it because it's part of the speaking experience. Right. Sometimes even in our first language, we just feel. And we don't want to talk to anyone. It's the same. Right. But when it comes to speaking in English, blame English. No, it's just us. So it's okay. And us affects our performance. Okay. Alexandra is saying, sometimes it's easier to understand if I'm reading all the words in English than when people are speaking. What can I do? Again, this is the challenge between utterance and interpretation. So. So sometimes we need to work on our interpretation because the problem is not with the words and not with English. It's with your listening skills. Now I think that we're going to be adding a listening practice group with Christina. I think you're going to love it. And she will teach you a method that is going to be teaching you how to practice listening. Because if you want to improve your listening, you got to practice listening and doing it actively. Okay. So this is something that we've been doing in beyond and New sound. And our students have seen great results with this method. So we'll be sharing it with you today and you can do it on your own. Okay. Just reading some of the comments. Natalia is asking Hadar, when you're teaching kids, can you use the repetition like with adults or what do you recommend? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Yes. Especially with kids because they don't care to repeat it. And I do it with my girls a lot. Like, I teach them the sounds, I add the sound, I teach them a word. We try to say it again and again and again. Now I have to make it interesting. Sometimes it's more playful, maybe back and forth, maybe sing it. But repetition is very important with kids. And they're quick to pick it up, but they cannot remember words if you just say it to them once and then they repeat it once and then they use it once and that's it. They're not going to remember it next time. But if you turn it into something that is repetitive, then their mouth is going to remember it, which is what we want. Okay? I don't know. Okay. Foneska is asking Fonseca, sorry, I don't know how to put words in my mouth so that they are heard correctly. My son corrects me and I repeat the word, but I hear that it's fine, and he tells me that it is not. So this is the stage of perception, right? You've got got to practice understanding the difference between the sound that you think about and the sound that you're actually hearing. There is actually a big difference between perception and hearing. What you hear is not necessarily what your brain analyzes, right? So you might be hearing they, and you're hearing day. Okay, now this is an obvious example. So you might say, no, but I hear they. But let's say I say ship. And then you're like, okay, wait a minute, is it the animal or is it the boat? Right? What did I say? And sometimes it may be like, okay, I don't get it. Because it's perceived as both. Because in your head, maybe if you speak a certain language that has only one E sound, then you don't hear the difference between E and E because it doesn't exist in your language and you don't need it, right? So this is why your brain is like, I don't need to care so much about the difference between E eat sheep and ship. I will just put it in the same category, sheep. And then in your brain, you're like, I can't hear the difference. So to be able to pronounce something, you have to learn to hear it. And this is why, you know, in the practice groups and in my lessons, when I teach and in my video lessons and inside my programs, I first teach you to hear the difference, because only when you can hear it, you can make it. And this is why reductions, when we learn about reductions, that's the same thing. You have to be able to hear it, recognize it, and then you'll be able to produce it. Do you have small group training? So what we have is that inside of new sound, we also have an option to join a coaching pod. It's an amazing opportunity to work in a small group with up to five people with a pronunciation coach and get feedback and have a lot of guidance. So. So that is our group training that we have. But I do work with students inside my programs on Zoom. Okay, I'M Bulgarian, and I have a hard time pronouncing the T at the beginning of any words. Sonia is asking, any tips? Yes, pronunciation tips. Come on. So first of all, I wonder, what is the challenge? First of all, perception. Right? Let's think of the pronunciation confidence, method. Perception. What is the challenge? What is it that you are making that is different than how it's supposed to sound? Now, the T at the beginning of the word is could sound in different ways. When it has a vowel right after, it's aspirated, like in the word take. Take. Now, some people might replace it with a TS sound, like take. Okay, I'm not saying that you do that. I don't know. But okay, I'm recognizing that I'm doing something differently. If there is an R right after, it actually sounds like a ch sound in English. Train. Listen. Train. Take. It's. It's. It's different. Okay. If it's after an S, stay, the T is not that dominance, just like regular. So you have to understand what exactly is the challenge in which sound? Because there isn't. There is one letter, the T, but there are several different T's. So we need to identify which one. I intuitively think that you're talking about the aspirated T. Talking, talking. The teeth, that has a little bit of an H. So to pronounce it, the tip of the tongue needs to touch right behind the teeth like this. Now, the T is created by bringing the tongue up and releasing it, and the air comes out abruptly. When the T is at the beginning of a word, what happens is that we wait a second before we release the air, but we push the air out, so. And it's blocked here, so there is pressure, and then we release it all at once. Take. It feels actually like there is a little H after the T. Take. Take. Can you hear that? Good. So that is how the T is pronounced in English. Now, to say that, if you were to say take, can you hear the difference? Take versus take. There isn't a big difference, but sometimes we are aware of the difference, and that creates some challenges in how we communicate or how confident we feel. So you just want to become aware of the difference and then think how important it is for you to work on it and then to understand what to do, practice it effectively, repeat it, and then use it intentionally when speaking. But like I said, it's most important that you perceive the differences, that you understand what is the difference in what you need to work on. I do have a video about the T's. So we'll share that. Luz is asking, what is the clue to understand native speakers? Well, first of all, to listen. A lot of times when we speak to Native, like when people speak to people that they already think that they're going to have issues with listening to them, then they might feel some anxiety or stress and that affects like, so we go internally, we think about ourselves, we think about what, you know, what if I don't understand, how do I react? And we get so nervous that we forget to actually listen, right? And be present and look at their lips and look at their face and really try to kind of like be present in the conversation and pay attention. So that's the first thing. And not to think so much about that fear about what's going to happen if you don't understand. Second could be that you don't have a lot of exposure or intentional listening experience or practice. And again, in the practice group, we will be sharing with you some tools on how you can improve your listening. Because listening is one of the pillars of fluency. So if you are, if you have challenges there, yes, you definitely have to practice it. So it's not just, let's switch it on and I'll understand it. At the same time, when you learn prosody, you understand what it means to speak effectively. And what happens when people try to stress words and you learn to pay attention to the cues, right? The words that are more stressed, the high pitched words, the words that are longer. And even if you don't understand every single word, which is totally fine because you're not supposed to, it's like when you're reading, think about how you read in your first language. You skim through the text when you're reading, you don't read every single word. That's how it is when we're listening. So don't focus so much on understanding every single word, but getting the main message and hearing the stressed words in a sentence. And when you hear that, you're able to make sense of all of it, even if you didn't understand all the words, right? So yes, you can practice it, you can approach it differently, and you can focus on listening. These three things are going to help you understand native speakers. How to avoid fillers while speaking. Shreya is asking. A lot of it has to do with intentional practice. Practice. So more speaking time. Fillers come when you are missing out a word. Maybe you're afraid of silence, which is not a thing to be worried about. Maybe you don't take pauses, so you use fillers to give your brain a pause. But you can do that with, you know, an actual pause. And. And like I said, speaking practice if you want to get fancy. Because sometimes we have fillers in our first language, so sometimes it's not even about English, it's just a habit. You could practice speaking intentionally and recording yourself and actually check how many times you use fillers and then record it again and try to use less fillers. So it's really all about that awareness, effective practice, and speaking experience. If English is your second language, How to overcome Buddhi is asking how to overcome pauses while I'm recording a video. Because sometimes when I don't prepare answering a question, I tend to think while I'm recording and I lose track of my thoughts. I would say just prepare better. Before recording a video, write bullet points of the things that you want to discuss and make sure you stay on track again. Making more videos will help you get better. That's the secret of public speaking, of making arguments in any language. It's not just English, right? So practice just making an argument and speaking about things and remind yourself to stay on track. Have an idea about like the. The points that you want to hit and to cover and make sure you move from one to another. Do not write a script. Do not write a script. There is no need for that. But more public speaking practice is going to be beneficial for. Okay, where do you recommend to open a podcast? It's so easy, it does not matter. Like, you can just record something on your computer and then upload it to Spotify. Like, basically what needs to happen is that you need a platform to upload it too. I use Cast Us, but you have many different platforms. You need a platform and then that platform kind of like distributes it on all different podcast platforms. SoundCloud is easy to manage. You don't need even a platform. You don't need to pay. You can do that. But honestly, you have so many free and paid tools that, you know, like that make it super easy for you. I think I opened my podcast like in 2020 and now it's a lot easier. So you just kind of like drop, drag and drop. You record it and you drop it and then it does all the work for you. I don't know, I'm guessing, like, I think I've seen some new tools. Okay, I think we're going to wrap up. We have a lot. Like, we have other questions as well. Let's see if there is anything. Yeah, we have a lot more questions, but some of them are Very similar. Oh, cowboy is asking. In some jobs like call centers, they ask you to have a neutral accent. How can I have it? First of all, it's discrimination, plain and simple to have. As for what is a neutral accent, there is no such thing. You can't define it. Like, it's. It's just based on the perception of the person hiring you. So when you see that, and if you have. If you've seen a job posting like this, please send it to me so I can share it and comment on how inappropriate that is. It's pure discrimination and native speakerism. But a neutral accent, I think it's just like having clarity. They could have easily. They could have easily written a clear speech, right? That's it. Because native speakers could have, like, also different accents. It really depends on the listener and where they're from and how they identify. Clear. Because for someone from, you know, South Scotland, American pronunciation would sound totally unclear, but someone from South Scotland would be very clear for them and vice versa, versus. So it really depends on the listener. And this is so 1980s, but I think clarity is key. So first of all, to all of you watching, if you see this in a job posting and you're like, oh, I can't do it because I don't have a neutral accent, go apply for the job anyway. Don't mind it. Like, just do it anyway. They don't know what they're talking about. They're gonna hire you if your speech is clear, if you know, like, and you can, you can communicate. And you, you will be clear if you follow all the steps that I shared with you today and mainly practice speaking. So to reach a neutral accent is just to be able to communicate. Like, confidence has to do with it. Making sure that you're not replacing sounds, right? You're not using certain sounds, let's say an M instead of an N, an R instead of an L. If you replace sound inside the language, that is going to cause you to be unclear, that you're not dropping sounds, that you're not adding sounds. Because all of these things are high priority challenges that will prevent you from being clear. So if you find yourself doing all of that, then this is something that I would recommend for you to work on. If you're not distinguishing between the important and not important, then this is something that I would recommend for you to be working on to gain clarity. Okay. Okay. Thank you for the great questions Noemi's asking. I can't stop. That's the last one. Okay. Do we have to change our Articulate articulative organs when practicing or just the same as in our native language? Well, we do change the position of the articulation organization organs for sure. Right. If you're used to saying with the tongue touching the upper palate and in American English, the tongue is at a totally different place. It's all the way inside your mouth. The sides of the tongue are in a different place. The tip of the tongue is not touching the lips. Round versus er. So yes, you're using all your muscles differently. And this is what I'm talking about when I talk about building new speaking habits because you need to change what you know about using your articulation organs. All right, my friends, Anna is asking, what platform would you recommend to open a website, podcast and social media? You are already making some moves here, girl. Okay, first of all, we can talk about it in New York, but I, I recommend it really is about what's easy. So find the easiest platform that you don't have to maintain. I have a team, so my team can go into WordPress and make some changes. But if you're on your own, then I would recommend something like wix or Squarespace or something that is really easy to manage. Right. And a podcast platform, like I said, something that is closest to drag and drop and do some research. Pat Flynn has a lot of information about starting a podcast, how to manage a podcast. He has his own platforms that he recommends. So I totally, I would totally follow what he says because I think he's very knowledgeable and sensitive and considerate. So he's not just trying to sell Pat Flynn. And as for social media, just choose. Choose One platform like YouTube or Instagram or two or TikTok, whatever that is, and stick with it. Like work from within the platform. If you have a Facebook page, then you can manage Instagram from there as well. Talk a little bit about business and digital marketing. Why don't. Why don't we. How can I overcome? Sujith is asking how can I. What can I do to overcome and get rid of the fear when we speak speak in English. Well, that's easy. Just show up for day three of the English Fluency festival. All right, my friends, we're gonna wrap it up. We're almost two hours since we big we have begun. It's been wonderful and beautiful. What is your biggest takeaway from today? Let me know in the comments so I know. And so before I read your comments, just a quick reminder. Later today, we have a practice group at 6:00pm EST. Not a practice group. Not a practice group, a conversation group. We have a conversation group at 6pm EST and then tomorrow we're going to have our first implementation workshop and we're going to have some training. We're going to have in the implementation workshop and later on we're going to have the practice group. So look, go to the calendar, check it, schedule it in your calendar. Make sure that you show up. It's only one week a year. Take advantage of it. Every event is valuable. If you feel like you need to speak more, join the conversation groups. Be vulnerable. Be open for changes. Make a move. All right, very good. We're going to add some events because we have seen that you are really enjoying conversation groups. So we're going to add a few more, hopefully, if it all works out. So check the calendar for updates. Everything that is already there will stay there. And on Sunday, Remaru, we have two coaching sessions, so we'll have plenty of other opportunities to work together. Day three is all about mindset. Wait, I think I still have. The slides. Yeah. Let's reminding you that you have workshops with coaches. You can submit your question. A lot of people did Q and A at the end. And if you share, share a screenshot from the festival. If you're watching this, share a screenshot to your Instagram account, tag me hashtag Fluency Festival. Then you might win three months inside. Beyond tomorrow, we have the real reason why you're not fluent, my friends. You got this. Thank you so much for being here. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day and I will see you tomorrow. Bye.