Are you looking for effective ways to enhance your English learning journey? This episode reveals three key strategies that can significantly accelerate your progress.

First, the importance of persistence is highlighted; many learners give up too soon, forgetting that proficiency comes with time and practice.

Next, consistency is emphasized; even short, daily study sessions can lead to substantial improvements. Lastly, focusing on activities that align with your language goals will keep you motivated and help you make the most of your practice time.

Join me to hear some insights from a fascinating interview with a polyglot, offering practical tips to conquer the challenges of learning English and preparing for the CELPIP exam.

Takeaways:

• Learning a new language takes time and persistence; giving up too soon hinders progress.
• Consistency in your study routine, even in small increments, yields significant long-term results.
• Focus on activities that directly contribute to your language goals for better motivation.
• Adapting to a new culture while learning a language can be a challenging journey.
• Surrounding yourself with speakers of your target language helps to improve fluency.
• Utilizing daily activities to practice English can fit language learning into your busy life.

I will address the common struggle of language learners who seek quick solutions to improve their English skills. I will begin by acknowledging the frustration that many feel when progress seems slow and you'll discover that while there are no shortcuts, there are effective strategies that can enhance the learning process.

Links referenced in this episode:

• cellpipsuccess.com/resources Grab today's free resource worksheet.
• The 3 secrets of adult language learning with Elisa Polese From the Story Learning podcast that I referenced.
• You cannot manage time - by John Maxwell. (Youtube.)
• Time Flies - by John Maxwell. (Blog post).

Mentioned in this episode:

Let's work together to prepare for the CELPIP Exam

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Are there secrets out there that will help you to learn English faster or more effectively? Like a cheat code or some sort of hack that if I found it, I'd make faster progress?

Boy, if I could tell you yes to those questions and then actually have the cheat code or hack to offer you, I don't think I'd need to work another day in my whole life. So that kind of means no, I don't think there are any of those hacks or cheat sheets or cheat codes out there, and I'm really sorry about that. But.

But yes, there is a but.

There are things that are not secrets that, if you begin putting them into practice, can make a dramatic difference for you as you prepare for the CELPIP exam. Or if you simply just want to be developing your english skills, do you want to know what they are? Then please sit back and enjoy today's episode.

I'm going to be sharing my take on a fascinating interview I heard by someone who has studied, and get this, 25 languages and teaches 13 of them. I still can't get my brain around that. But if you're interested to find out what I learned from that interview, then please sit back and relax.

Enjoy today's episode as we take a look at some of the secrets that are not so secret that you can use to dramatically make progress with your English. Well, hello there, and welcome to the speak English Fearlessly podcast.

This is the podcast for motivated english learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam.

I also love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people, people just like you, who are working towards becoming fluent in English so we can learn from their experiences together. Who am I?

My name is Aaron Nelson, and I've been an english teacher for over 17 years, and I now help students prepare for the CELPIP examined through online classes.

So, as I mentioned in the intro, today we're going to be spending some time talking about an interview I listened to over on the story learning podcast, which is hosted by Olly Richards. In that episode, Olly is interviewing Elisa Polese, who has studied 25 languages and teaches 13 of them.

And in that episode, they're talking all about the different strategies that she has employed that has helped her to be able to learn and and use all of those languages. Specifically, I'm going to be focusing on three of the strategies, three of the secrets that she shares that I feel are the most important.

And I'm just going to give you my reaction to some of the things that she had to say so the first secret that Elisa points to that is not really a secret. She says this, and I quote, people give up too soon.

She goes on to say, people are used to being good at what they do, and they rarely accept the discomfort of not being able to express themselves in a language.

Elisa goes on to say, and I think very correctly, that they forget that they are good at what they do because they've been doing it for a very long time. We should never give up, ever. Perfection does not exist when it comes to learning a language. You get better over time.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about giving up too soon.

In the last podcast, I shared with you the story of my wife's co worker who gave up too soon on her goal of establishing a new life for herself here in Canada. Now, what makes this story so. Well, I don't know. Frustrating is the right word exactly.

But I, what really struck my wife and I as we talked about it together, was that this person already had what many of you are fighting to obtain. She had her permanent residency. She already had it. Now, I'm not trying to knock her. I'm not trying to judge her.

I totally get that it's a difficult process.

It's absolutely difficult to start your life all over again, basically from zero, which is what happens when you immigrate from one country to another. I know that you know this. In this case, in our conversation, that country where this lady was trying to adopt herself was here in Canada.

It is so challenging. It is difficult.

And once that initial excitement of being here wears off, you find yourself needing to battle with loneliness, homesickness, finding work, adapting to the new culture and the weather and so much more. It is so not a simple overnight journey. For most people. This process takes years. It takes patience and perseverance and faith and lots of hard work.

And the same thing is true about learning to develop your skills with a language. It does not happen overnight, and people tend to give up too soon. Like what Palisi was saying. It's so easy to feel not comfortable.

It feels so easy to be uncomfortable with discomfort and say to myself, I don't want to do this anymore. It's too difficult. Instead, I'm just going to surround myself with people just like me who speak my first language. I'm not going to even try.

It's already hard enough as it is. And again, believe me, I understand where that is coming from. I've done it.

When I used to live in Mexico, I found myself surrounding myself with people who spoke English because it was already challenging enough to be in Mexico on my own, trying to establish myself in a completely different country. It was tough. So if that's you, I feel your pain.

I know what it's like to be trying to start your life all over again and then add to it the difficulty of trying to learn a second language.

That was hard for me, and it did take me years of hard work and practice and perseverance and lots of failures in order to develop my skills in Spanish. I wanted to give up many, many times, and I needed to try to unlearn some of the things that I learned to do.

I'm thinking specifically of building around myself an english bubble. I've talked about that in other episodes, so I'm not going to go into it again today.

But needless to say, I know exactly what this person was going through, and I know probably a little bit about what you're going through to when you are struggling just to keep your feet under you as you are develop or as you are trying to establish your life here in Canada. I know it's not easy, and I also know it's not easy to be developing your english skills, but we need to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

And we need to learn to not to give up that there are lots of things in our life that we need to push for and persevere for if we want them to happen. And your pr, your permanent residency is one of those things. Your language skills in English is one of those things. They don't just come easily.

You really do need to push hard for them. So don't stop. Don't stop pushing. The second thing that Elisa points out, or the second strategy that Elisa points to is consistency.

And she says, if you study consistently, and I'm quoting here, if you study consistently, even for five or 20 minutes, you don't need lots of time to learn languages. But what you do need to be is consistent. I love Elisa's point here.

Being consistent is so important when it comes to developing your fluency skills or when it comes to preparing for the cellpip examined. Even if you're working with a super tight schedule, and I know many of you are, you can make space for practice, if that's what's important to you.

John Maxwell, who is a very well known writer and who spends a lot of time talking about leadership and management skills, has this to say. He says that it's impossible to manage our time. I don't know if you've ever heard that expression before, time management.

It seems to be very common here in North America, where you'll hear people talking about, oh, I just need to manage my time better. John Maxwell has something interesting to say. He says, you can't manage time. Take a look at. Well, take a listen to this quote.

He says, and I quote, it seems that everyone's busy these days and life shows no sign of slowing down. Are your efforts effective or do you sometimes feel like you're spinning your wheels?

Now more than ever, we seem to have more work than time to do it in. But time, according to Dennis Whately, is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day.

So since we can't increase the amount of time we have, we need to learn how to control our use of it. And again, that was by John Maxwell. So what he's saying there is we can't manage time, but we can measure what we do in that time.

We can manage what we do in that time. It's our priorities.

Those are the things that we need to be constantly managing and making sure that we are doing what we say is important for us to be doing through each day. Now, I'm going to freely admit that this is challenging for me.

It requires us, it requires me to be aware of what I'm doing each day and making sure that I'm actually doing the things that will help me move towards my objectives. And am I doing those things consistently and on a daily or at least frequent basis? So, as Elisa says at the beginning, consistency is so important.

Even if you're carving out little tiny spaces of time on a daily basis to be practicing your English, being consistent about those little pockets of time are vital. The third secret that's not so secret is this focus on activities that bring you closer to your language goal.

And I'm going to share a quote by Elisa Polisi. She says, and I quote, make sure you are doing things in your practice time that are moving you towards your goal.

If you focus on the right activities, you will stay motivated and this has a very positive impact on your language learning. Am I doing the right things to achieve my goal? I think we were already kind of talking about that in that previous secret, right?

But this one is so sneaky when it comes to developing your fluency skills.

If your objective is to improve your speaking skills in English, maybe for the self up exam, then take a moment today to review, maybe at the end of the day, what you've done that day that had you actually speaking with someone in English. Are you actively engaging with the native english speakers around you.

If not, then that's a big reason why your speaking task scores are not where you want them to be. I know you have a packed schedule with work and maybe with your family after work. I do too.

But are you also including activities in what you're doing already during your day that are moving you towards your goal? I'm a big believer in that taking advantage of what you are already doing and using it to help you develop your fluency skills.

Like listening to an english podcast while you're commuting or exercising, or like making a point of having lunch with your english speaking coworkers so that you can practice talking with them instead of being all by yourself or joining with people who speak your first language. I don't think you need to be adding more to your already busy plate because, let's face it, our plates are already too full.

Instead, we need to be always thinking about what you're doing each day and how you could switch that over so that you're doing it in English. So, to quickly summarize to increase your effectiveness in learning English, make sure that you don't give up too soon.

Make sure that you're being consistent. Remember, even 1% improvements each day add up over time.

And finally, make sure that you are doing things on a frequent basis that move you towards your goals with English or the selp up exam.

Okay, so I know many of you listen to this while you're on the job or commuting or out walking, so you might be thinking, I hope I can remember all this. If that's you, I've got something great to offer you. I've got a totally free summary of today's podcast for you.

This worksheet will have the key points I mentioned, the links I refer to, as well as some activity questions to help you make sure you're actually applying it each day.

To grab your free worksheet, just head on over to cellpipsuccess.com resources and when you sign up, you'll be directed to my growing bank of resources. You're welcome to grab any or all of them that you like, and you'll also be able to grab the worksheet resource I'm offering for you today.

It's totally free. Just go to cellpipsuccess.com resources and subscribe. Thank you for listening to today's episode, and I hope that you'll join me again next Tuesday.

Bye.