Speaking English with AI Chatbots: Game-Changer or Trap?

Hey English warriors! Love it or hate it, AI chatbots are here to stay, but are they really preparing you for real-life convos?

🧸Disclaimer:
This post is based on 17+ years of teaching experience and psycho-linguistical background (Msc Psychology, Cambridge Delta) & 2+ years of tech management at Yandex Practicum
@EnglishForImpact’re tech optimists. We LOVE and ecnourage AI adoption*, but this post is written purely from a teaching & learning perspective

🪴 Pros of Practicing with AI:

📌 Unlimited access: chat anytime, anywhere
📌 Low or no cost: democritising access to learning opportunities
📌 Infinite patience, no judgement. Bot won’t roll its eyes if you ask "What is the present perfect?" 100 times
📌 Prompt-based feedback. Say: "Only correct my pronunciation!" & and it obeys

⭐️AI makes English practice accessible to everyone, and that’s AMAZING.

😐 But… The Dark Side of Learning Exclusiveley with AI Bots:

🚬 The downside of infinite patience, no judgement is no communication skills training
🚬 Zero pressure. You don't learn to adjust*, impress, get your message across: AI will accept you just the way you're
🚬 Emerging unprepared to face real life interactions & a bit... egotistical ;)

⭐️AI = great gym for your brain. Real humans = the real battlefield

What About You? Do you use AI chatbots? Does talking to real people in English still feel awkward? Share your thoughts in comments

P.S. This post was not written by AI… or was it?

*Post Glossary
🫧Adjust (verb) – To change something slightly to make it fit or work better
"She had to adjust her glasses to see clearly"
🫧 Adoption (noun) – The act of starting to use something new
"The adoption of smartphones changed how we communicate"
🫧 Roll (one’s) eyes (idiom) – To move your eyes upward to show annoyance, disbelief, or sarcasm
"When he told another bad joke, she just rolled her eyes"
🫧 Emerging unprepared (phrase) – Coming into a situation without being ready
"Many students are emerging unprepared for job interviews because they don’t practice speaking"

🪴Now go practice, with bots OR humans!

📎Learn more about S2S (Human first)

📌Public Speaking 📌The Ego Trap in Pitching

One of the biggest misconceptions among early-stage founders and managers is this: “I must appear flawless. My presentation must be perfect, professional, and polished in every way”

Sounds familiar? While this mindset might feel right, it often leads to the exact opposite of what a good pitch needs. It creates tension, stiffness, anxiety. Worst of all, it turns your focus inward, on yourself

You become centered on yourself: How do I look? Do I sound smart? What will they think of me? This is ego. And ego kills connection.

What makes a pitch actually work is everything opposite of ego: relaxation, openness, a genuine focus on the audience

Ask yourself: Is what I’m saying clear (not impressive, but clear!) to them? Is it useful for them? Can they follow what I’m trying to express?

It’s not about “how perfect I am,” it’s about “how well they understand”

🪴 Watch this video of Jensen Huang (founder of Nvidia) fumbling in his pockets during a keynote (at 1:26:25). If he can afford to be human on stage, so can you

☺️ Think back to the moments when you truly convinced someone: a friend, a boss, a client. Were you trying to be perfect? Or were you simply present, focused, connected?

🧸 Why Borat? Because Borat is a parody of forced formality. Also a symbol of radical freedom, irony, and authenticity. He may be controversial, but he moves people. And that’s what great communicators do. A great presenter isn’t someone who pleases everyone. A great presenter is someone who ignites* their crowd

*Post Glossary
🫧to ignite a crowd — to excite, energize, or inspire them (as if starting a fire)
"The speaker’s fiery words about justice and freedom ignited the crowd, turning them to thunderous applause"

📎 Pinned post about our PitchUp club here

👁‍🗨Side hustles from an unexpected angle 👁‍🗨S2S users' topic for discussion this week

While most of the employers remain protective of their employees time and focus in efforts to retain their top talent*, some most forward thinking* ones (or most cunning & manipulative?) encourage their teams to get side hustles!

Vedika Bhaia, founder of Growth Square and Social Capital (LinkedIn), flipped the fear of losing workforce on its head* and said she not only supports but encourages her employees to pursue side hustles, even if it means watching them outgrow her company someday.

The entrepreneur made it clear that this isn’t about letting go of people, it’s about setting them up to fly higher. “It’s a success if my mentorship helps someone build something beyond the boundaries of* my own company,” she wrote.

👩‍💼What about your company? Does it have a stance towards side hustles? What do you think about Vedika's declaration?

*Post Glossary

🫧 to retain top talent — To keep the best and most skilled employees in a company
"Offering flexible work hours is one way to retain top talent"
🫧 forward thinking — Innovative, future-oriented, and open to change and progress
"The company thrives under forward-thinking leadership that embraces new technologies"
🫧 to flip the fear on its head — To completely change the perspective on a fear, using it as a source of strength or motivation
"She flipped her fear of public speaking on its head by joining a debate club"
🫧 beyond the boundaries of — Outside the limits or scope of something, often suggesting innovation or exploration
"Their creativity went beyond the boundaries of traditional marketing"

Want to check if your level is sufficient to discuss topics like this one fluently in English? Text 'S2S level' to @ybeymlina for a checkup

📎 See the pinned post about S2S

⭐ PitchUp Shameless Brag* ⭐ Meet Oksana Kalashnikova, MD, co-founder of Bloom AI (smart weight loss), a startup using AI to help users win the fight against weight loss and empower doctors to engage patients in lasting behavioral change

Oksana joined PitchUp during her fundraising sprint. She already had a pitch deck but wanted to refine her confidence in English, focusing on precise vocabulary, storytelling techniques, stage presence, and voice modulation

🇧🇷Her training culminated in a standout presentation at Web Summit Rio, one of the world’s premier tech events. Its attendance totalled 34,000–35,000+ (entrepreneurs, investors, media). Among keynote speakers, you could find Marcelo Claure (SHEIN), Justina Nixon-Saintil (IBM), Marcio Aguiar (NVIDIA)

Check out Oksana's testimonial in Russian (screenshot above) or English (LinkedIn)

5️⃣0️⃣🔣 We’re proud to be the go-to choice for founders like Oksana. At the same time, half of our members are just starting their entrepreneurial journey and don’t yet have a clear idea. Pitching others’ projects is a smart way to build confidence and shape their own visions

*Post Glossary
🫧A shameless brag — a confident, unapologetic way to highlight your achievements, skills, or wins, without downplaying or apologizing for them. It’s about owning your success while staying engaging

📎 Learn more about PitchUp in our pinned post

🌷 1 quick pronunciation fix that can deceive people into believing you're 1 CEFR level higher than you really are

Video Glossary
🫧 a stepping stone (Something that helps you move toward a goal)
🫧 to set someone to fly higher (To empower or enable someone to achieve more or go further than before)

🪴 Share with 🤍 We're only 8 learners away from our first toddler milestone of 500 🤍 Higher res videos & new features will follow

📎Pinned post about S2S

⭐️ Meet Lourdes Ortega —
A Top Voice in Language Learning 2025 | Researcher at the Georgetown University

As promised, @EnglishForImpact continues to introduce you to top people in the language learning industry nowadays

Why to care about Lourdes Ortega?

💓She's the world's top 2% most-cited researcher according to Elsevier Data Repository. Which means her ideas reflect the mood of the many and good at least to be aware of
💓 Lourdes's acknowledgement of how multilingual (ours!) brains work differently (=basically being twice activated all the time) gives us a chance to appreciate our achievements
💓As she shifts the label from 'making mistakes' to 'expressing things differently' for multilingual speakers, she removes the stigma often associated with non-standard expressions.

Bascially, she would treat the translation of "to be spread thin" into Russian as «быть намазанным тонко» not as a mistake, but as an alternative saying.

💅 How we at S2S use Lourdes Ortega’s ideas

We make sure to expose our users to* diversity — a new speaking partner, another high level learner, every week. This way, our users learn to accept the differences and communicate with diverse people

At the same time, we remain proponents of the standard expression. Due to this, our teachers supply feedback reports with error corrections after each speaking session (based on the Zoom recording)

🍿Resource
Youtube video where Lourdes Ortega pitches Multilingualism to teachers and learners (22min)

*Post Glossary
🫧sloppiness (see the image) — Lack of care, organization, or attention to detail
"His sloppiness in writing caused him to lose marks on the exam"
🫧to expose (users) to (different people) — To introduce or make users come into contact with a variety of people
🫧to reflect the mood of — To express, show, or be in harmony with a particular emotional atmosphere or feeling
"The soft lighting in the restaurant reflected the mood of a quiet romantic evening"

🪴 Share the 💓 for langage learning with a friend today — forward this post

🔫 Quiz time 💅 Let's check if you've been reading our Glossaries attentively this week...