March 27, 2022. Petroff Palace Moscow - Join the reading practice session
https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/reading-march27-2022

When native speakers transcribe my videos and say they’d wanna learn with me, I know I’m doing something right.

Watch the video here https://youtu.be/23CNh6yKbd8

Community LIVE CALL.
On March 19, I’m inviting all the community members to join our call “Tools and strategies to self-correct your speaking habits”

In February we explored a number of resources to self-correct our writing.
This month, we’ll look at our speaking behaviour.

Native-like fluency means changing your norm. The way you normally speak is a reflection of your identity, your thinking skills, and your attitude to life.

Most people need to learn to be attentive and aware of what their norm currently is. It’s because people are delusional about where they are and who they are that they suffer so much from self-correcting exercises. In fact, they bring a lot of joy, because each time you self-correct an old persistent pattern, you break free from old thoughts, which means your actions change. Actions are always fuelled by thoughts.

It’s FREE for the members of the Community of Practice. If you’re not a member, sign up and start your free trial today.

There WILL BE NO ZOOM LINK!!!
We use our own software for video calls. Once you’re a community member you can RSVP. The link to the video will be in the in the event description. You will also receive a notification when we go live.

https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/live-call-march-19

We offer special payment terms for all the community members from Russia. You guys can pay in RUB.

Feel free to cancel your membership on the platform (your Visa/Mastercard won’t work anyway since it’s a foreign website). Reach out to me directly or message our community manager, and we will send you the right link.
Thank you for choosing to practice with us!

If you live outside of Russia, everything stays the same for you. Everything works seamlessly too🙂 Enjoy your practice.

Today, silent reading is the norm. The majority of us bottle the words in our heads as if sitting in the hushed confines of a library. Reading out loud is largely reserved for bedtime stories and performances.
But a growing body of research suggests that we may be missing out by reading only with the voices inside our minds. The ancient art of reading aloud has a number of benefits for adults, from helping improve our memories and understand complex texts, to strengthening emotional bonds between people. And far from being a rare or bygone activity, it is still surprisingly common in modern life. Many of us intuitively use it as a convenient tool for making sense of the written word, and are just not aware of it.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200917-the-surprising-power-of-reading-aloud

preview of the Final SPRINT! session on Clarity. Level #1. Precise wording

What we learned during the 14-day SPRINT on Clarity. Level #1. Precise Wording. What you see on the screen is what students defined as learning outcomes.
1. Resources to find precise words (and how to use them)
2. Mechanisms to balance inner state
3. Exercises to prcatice clarity (precision)
4. The structure of delivering clear explanations
5. Stategies to work with text/audio/video content


We had only ONE clear focus during this SPRINT! We did ONLY the exercises that served the purpose. And yet, there were so many new discoveries. Thank you for your work! If you want to continue working on Clarity., consider joining Level #2. Strong Verbs and Adjectives. At this level we will be learning to tell better stories, because every story needs good action verbs🙂 https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/clarity-sprint2

Read fiction in English.
You don’t have to be an avid reader. You don’t have to read a book a month or 50 books a year.
Sometimes one paragraph is enough to learn something.
Reading for pleasure is one thing. Reading as a practice is a different thing.
I talk about reading in the context of deliberate practice. It’s an exercise to improve your fluency in English.

To make the best use of this exercise, limit the number of pages you read, the amount of time you’re ready to devote to it, and create a certain set of criteria to measure your progress.

➡️To access tons of exercises where we use reading as leverage to achieve better fluency, go to the Resource Library (available to everyone who’s taking the Listening course and members of the Native-like fluency group). https://courses.nataliatokar.me/courses/listening-course-how-to-hear-every-word-in-english

➡️To find creative exercises where our focus is READING, go to the Community of practice (start your free trial if you’re not a member yet). https://pages.nataliatokar.me/community

➡️To practice for free, go to my SoundCloud account and work with the playlist “Natalia Reads”. All transcripts are available in the description box. See if you can beat me and read better🤗 https://soundcloud.com/natasha-tokar/sets/natalia-reads-out-loud

How to practice Clarity. Level #2

We begin on March 25, 2022.
10 days of real-time practice. Only 30 min a day. Only ONE focus.

I identify five Elements of CLARITY, and non-native speakers need to practice each consistently:

Precise wording
Strong verbs & adjectives
Structure (identifying facts)
Connections & Transitions
Intonation

This SPRINT! is about the second element. We will practice replacing weak verbs & adjectives with strong and precise ones.

➡️Daily 30-min live sessions where we practice replacing weak & generic verbs & adjectives with strong & precise alternatives. Short, digestible, result-oriented lessons. Replays are instantly available.
➡️Participants will CREATE homework for themselves and others. We will pay a lot of attention to the skill of being spontaneous in English. I will show you how 🙂Homework is optional. You don't have to do it, you don't need to report to anyone or show your work to anyone if you don't feel like it.



Read more and apply here
https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/clarity-sprint2

Btw, I made a mistake in the video. I should have said “how to PUT/ INCLUDE/ LIST soft skills on your resume”

And how to ADD xyz experience TO your resume.

This is Self-correction. Admitting your mistakes and correcting them.

I am receiving a lot of requests from people who want a new writing course.

The NEW writing course is not ready yet, but we can do a writing SPRINT! - a short writing challenge with just ONE focus.

➡️Level #1. Creative writing. FOCUS: sentence structure, coherence, precision, flow, clarity of the main idea.
➡️Level #2. Business emails.
FOCUS: emails that help the relationships, not hinder them.

“Creative writing” is a prerequisite for writing better emails.
When we write emails, we don’t just send people numbers and files; we communicate our thoughts on the matter. We build business relationships.
Creative writing teaches you exactly that - to articulate your thoughts.


Only a small group❣️

No pressure to write daily ❣️

Individual video feedback on every piece of writing ❣️

Real-time practice sessions weekly where we examine your texts together ❣️

No strict curriculum except “BETTER WRITING SKILLS”. I always adapt the tasks for each participant ❣️

What do you say?
Who needs a new writing challenge?
It’s small, approachable, doable.

I’d suggest 4 weeks of creative writing (so that everyone writes a minimum of 4 texts and learns to build vibrant and clear sentences)
Followed by 4 weeks of email writing.

Who needs it? Raise a hand in the comments?

We will decide on a schedule together with the group.

P.S. you need to have experience writing texts and emails in English. We will be using resources and books created for native-speakers who aspire to become better writers.
If you have grammar issues, I’ll help you identify those and suggest exercises to correct your mistakes. However, this is not a grammar course. You need to be ready to self-correct your grammar and immediately implement what you’ve learned in the texts you write. Thus, there will be feedback on your grammar. But there will be no grammar exercises in the writing challenge. You’ll have to do them yourself. I’ll show you where to find them if you need me to 🙂

I found this text today and it feels like someone read my mind.



"Just as the long-term improvements from taking tiny steps every day are hard to notice on a day-to-day basis, the long-term harms from cutting back on everyday positive habits are hard to notice on a day-to-day basis.

The key takeaway is this: when we achieve success in an area, this is not the time to take our foot off the gas, it’s the time to double down hard on what we’d done to get there because, clearly, it had been working!" https://www.gomethodology.com/blog/2020/1/7/how-to-achieve-sustained-success