Good morning! Here is an interesting tip for those who are learning to give structured responses to people.

We’re finishing a 6-month program and I’ll be happy to welcome a new cohort.

Two new groups this time!
And a slightly new approach, which is inevitably going to be better 🙂 (I always adapt and innovate).

Apply here https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/native-like-fluency-2022

Here is one awesome free tool to practice better writing skills in English (available only for IOS unfortunately) https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/daily-prompt-writing-app/id1448668946?l=en

Some brilliant examples from history...
Do you also find that sometimes you would rather die than be politically correct🙂?

Learn to express the full spectrum of your emotions in English. Don't learn new words to be only polite and "empathetic". People are obsessed with "empathy" and "vulnerability in business communication, even though they mistake vulnerability for oversharing, and empathy for sympathy.

Learn to be direct, even blunt at times. Learn to be honest, serious, playful, straightforward, open, clear, kind, silly, funny, and learn to talk like YOU in any language.

So many people just copy paste good phrases never moving past that stage.

We learn a second language to understand more about our own identity and to learn to express ourselves. Go for it! Expland. Express yourself. Explore.
Play. Chase your Joy. Ask questions.
Learn every day.

We begin accepting applications! Join the next cohort of the FREE course "9 essential skills to achieve Native-Like fluency"
June 1, 2022 - August 1, 2022

Application deadline - May 28, 2022

https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/9-skills-june2022

⬇️⬇️⬇️A fragment of a meeting with students.
When you think you know what "rally" means and you try to change the meaning of the entire sentence so that it matches your expectations of what you think it should mean....
Don't play this game. Check again.
You're not supposed to know everything.
You're not supposed to be right, it's not the point.

Get it right - that's the point. The faster you can get it right, the more advanced you are as a learner.

"Only focused energy creates anything" - a universal truth

Conflict is the fuel of any story. If you 're planning your presentation and you're thinking of introduding a story, make sure your story has conflict. EVERY good story has a conflict. Take any story and deconstruct it - Cinderella, Gone with the Wind, Rapunzel, Sherlock Holmes, The Lion King - each one has a conflict.

Your learning journey is also a STORY. You put yourself in uncomfortable circumstances. You discover your polar opposite (for many people it's feeling stuck and confusing it with laziness and procrastination), and this "infringement on a character's cushy life is the essence of story". You're the main character of your own story. If the only thing you want is for it to feel good, you avoid conflict, which means you avoid creating and telling your own story.


https://youtu.be/9Rffc3veslM

For those of you who did a SPRINT! on thought chunking and pausing, watch this video and practice again with Jill.
You have many exercises in the program that you could do with various content.

We did a whole episode on the rhythm of English with Jill earlier this year. Did you see it?

https://youtu.be/F5GPTwXD97A

https://youtu.be/3dZuIXHMFHc

Here is our conversation about rhythm, stress, pitch, melody, and intonations. We give plenty of examples.