4 Tips for Kids Who Start the 1st Grade

Happy Day of Knowledge, Love you all ❤️

My students prepare for IELTS, but they get this on top

This year, I’ve prepared 4 students for IELTS, and I’m preparing 2 now.

Their results range from 6.5 till 8. When they come to me, they expect to boost English. However, by the time they take IELTS, they also get this:

🫧 The sense of control:

When you see a numerical breakdown of your 4 skills (2 receptive: reading, listening; 2 productive: writing, speaking), you can measure it. What’s more, what you can measure you can also control.

🫧 Diplomacy:

A big part of IELTS prep is PC (politically correct) speech:

ugly = not the most attractive
lazy = lacking motivation
stupid decision = not thoroughly thought out

A useful skill for work and business, motherfuckers!

🫧Thinking on their feet:

In speaking section, you must expect a cornucopia of questions, ranging from your favourite colour to birdwatching. Yes, birdwatching! 🐦 Moreover, you need to give cohesive well-framed answers, as if you’ve spent all of your waking hours thinking about god-damn birdwatching.

Once you have prepared for this shit, no small talk can scare you.

🫧 Precision:

In both writing and speaking, you must avoid words such as “stuff,” “like,” “people,” etc. You have to be specific to get a high band:

people > residents, account holders, tourists
stuff > equipment, tools, materials
something like that > and other methods of this kind

Speaking with precision wins you trust, promotions, clients. What a lucrative soft skill!

🪴 Have you ever taken any international standardized exams? What did it teach you besides the core subject?

@englishforimpact's Quiz No. 59: variable or versatile?

Variable/versatile confusion's popped up during an IELTS prep lesson this week. Let's get down to the bottom:

🫧Variable (adjective) = keeps changing

Variable weather
Variable speed
Variable prices

🫧Versatile (adjective) = many uses, many abilities of 1 thing

Versatile softwre
Versatile actor
Versatile knife

Now, you're ready for the quiz🪴

3 x 3 about @ybeymlina, the author of this channel

Once a year is a good pace to remind you about who I am, I guess. To prevent this post from taking too many screens, I have selected 3 facts under 3 categories. Further questions are welcome in the comments ❤️

Education

🫧Bachelors in Pedagogy & Linguistics (English, French)
🫧Masters in Psychology
🫧Cambridge Delta (Master's equivalent in methods of English instruction)

Professional highlights

🫧Graduated from the Antler startup accelerator
🫧Worked as a PM at Yandex Practicum
🫧Was a guest in "Zapusk Zavtra" podcast with Samat Galimov. This brought 700+ leads to my ex employer Yandex Practicum and pushed us to hire an additional sales person.

Personal

🫧Hosted an improv comedy show in English
🫧Been to 11% of the world (22 countries)
🫧Speak English, Russian, French; Learn Vietnamese

Anything else you wanna learn about me? Let me know in the comments.

Feel free to DM @ybeymlina to ask a question about your English learning journey, join S2S, or check if there is a spot for individual training.

@englishforimpact's Quiz No. 60: Shouldn't VS Don't Have to

A mistake that 3 (!) students of mine have made this week: saying they "shouldn't" do something, while there was no negative advice, in fact.

Wow, let me simplify 🤓

🔠 When you say: "You shouldn't have all of the skills to get the job"

You actually say: It's a bad idea to have all of the skills

But you mean: It's great to have all of the skills, but not necessary

🔠 So you need to say instead: "You don't have to have all of the skills to get the job (only some)"

Now, you're ready for the quizzzzz 👇

3 High Level Speaking Materials for S2S & 1 Demo

Approximately once every quarter I disclose a handful of speaking materials from the S2S community exclusively to subscribers of @englishforimpact.

This fall is no exception, and I am happy to share 3 speaking plans (in Notion) with you all. It was quite a pain to select 3 out of 12, as all of them have been truly outstanding. What helped me was shifting the selection criterion from "quality" to "variety."

So here are 3 Intermediate+ - Advanced plans shwcasing the range of topics and vocabulary that S2S users discuss weekly

🫧Denied the Stay after Paying $4,663
🫧How Polymarket Works
🫧AI Shock VS China Shock

⭐️ BTW, if you're available this upcoming Thursday (Sept, 17) at 11AM Moscow time, and willing to practice the 3d plan, I have a free trial S2S spot for you!

DM me @ybeymlina to get details and sign up for a demo 🪴

What I Learned from Getting 1K on YouTube and Shutting Down and Offline Group in Da Nang

2 milestones are worth mentioning this September:
🫧I reached 1K subs on YouTube (celebratory short)
🫧I closed my offline English group in Da Nang

Here're my insights:

1) The joy of gain (YouTube) is much greater than the discomfort of a failed experiemnt. I guess I am one of those rare lucky people who derive more pleasure from wins. This helps me to be less risk averse & more entrepreneurial

2) What helped me to get over the closure is that I framed it as an experiemnt in the first place. When I was opening it in May I didn't tell myself that was going to be a top project. I told myself: "Let's play around and see"

3) The cause of the closure is that back in May I didn't have a defined portrait of my target audience. If you follow me attentively, you remember that last year I was focusing solely on S2S & PitchUP, and went back to teaching only in March. After such a gap in private practice, it took me a while to rediscover who my students are and are not. The Da Nang group helped to speed this discovery process a bunch.

Bonus insight: Classic & timeless. Do not mix the personal & the professional. I thought it would be fun to bring people offline together and make friends off screens, but that was confounding the oranges and the apples.

What's in it for you:

If ypu're starting out in a new place yourself, hope my post has helped you to be more daring. After all, starting and closing things doesn't hurt. What hurts is the regret of not even testing what's possible.

Let me know what other insights yoy want to learn from me in the comments 🪴

@englishforimpact's Quiz No 61

When Russian speakers want to say they're trapped in a place with no easy way out, they usually say:

• I'm standing at the bus stop
• I'm standing in line
• I'm standing in the traffic jam

"Standing" is just about the physical action of standing though. As opposed to "sitting," or "lying."

To convey the idea of being trapped, it'd work out better to say:

• I'm stuck at the bus stop
• I'm stuck in line
• I'm stuck in the traffic jam

Now, you're ready for the quiizzzz 👇