See what students wrote during the 7-min Creative Writing Practice last week. Click to read the post

https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/updates/students-write

Have you heard of the Pygmalion Effect?


The Power Of Expectations: The Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion effect was first established in 1965, when a Harvard psychologist named Robert Rosenthal approached the headmaster of an elementary school in order to administer a special IQ test to the school’s students. He got approval, and shortly thereafter reported that approximately 20% of the students were going to ‘bloom’ academically in the following year. Unsurprisingly, these designated students excelled when tested again almost a year later.

But here comes the twist. The IQ test Rosenthal used was nothing special, instead, it was just a standard IQ test. Not only that, but that 20% percent was chosen completely at random. It turns out that it was the teacher’s expectations that resulted in this difference, which is exactly what this experiment was trying to prove.

This experiment, named the “Oak School Experiment”, and the academic paper that came out of it, have become one of the most cited and discussed psychological studies ever conducted. The discovered effect has become one of the most prominent concepts in psychology and management, and it has been named “The Pygmalion Effect” ever since.

I use EVERY piece of content in English that I like as an exercise. Here is the exercise that I did with this text, and you can do too:

1. Condense the meaning of the passage in 1-2 sentences
2. Tell your story: do you agree or disagree with this? Have you experienced it in your own life?

And remember that you should not be practicing writing skills alone. Feeback is the most precious gift if your goal is to live up to your potential. If you want to learn writing with feedback, join our Creative Writing Sessions. https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/creative-writing-2-0

We wrote beautiful texts today!!! I’ll share some more. We had our first live editing session with a native speaker today, and 7 more are coming. If you still want to join the creative writing practice, do it. Hop on the left lane, and by Dec 2 you will have achieved more clarity and you’ll have accumulated beauty in you. People and their thoughts are just so beautiful ❤️

Session #1. Welcome to the creative practice. Here is a quick example of how a native speaker was helping students express their ideas in clear and natural English.


Consider joining the practice if you need to learn to express big ideas and tell your stores to English native-speaking audiences.

We will be working on improving our writing skills for the next 8 weeks.

Here are 2 of the texts that Leila and I wrote during the practice yesterday. I will be doing every writing assignment myself too. If you have feedback for me, please leave a comment 🙂

What’s amazing is how much you can write in just 9 minutes, and how deep and profound people’s thoughts are.

You can join us! The next session is on Oct 21.

The writing assignment for week 1 was published only last night, and you can start it with everyone else.

The participants have lifetime access to the replays; you can watch the replay of session 1 and do the same exercise any time. You will receive feedback regardless of when you submit the work.

https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/creative-writing-2-0-3a9db9

You can’t buy a bridge to a better life. To move from point A to point B you need to live your life and not hope that someone will take care of your success while you’re meditating or scrupulously following the instructions that you purchased.
To achieve better fluency, you need to start a practice routine and stick with it for some time. What should you be doing every day to create the confidence that you want when speaking English?

I choose to create deliberate practice routines for myself, and I share both my process and my results in the community of practice.
You can join too. https://cutt.ly/ACNAepY

P.S. I made a mistake at the end of the video. I should have said “what are you going to do with it”, and not “with this”. I use my own videos as self-correction exercises. The reason for my mistakes is not that I don’t know what’s correct. Mistakes often stem from my inner state. When I’m agitated and consumed by my own ideas, I may miss some words or fail to make the right connections between ideas, which shows in confusing phrases that I say.

https://nataliatokar.minisite.ai



This week, the focus of practice in the Community is STRONG VERBS.

Click to download a list of good VERBS. I'll be sending a newsletter tonight where you will find a creative exercise and step-by-step instructions to help you USE the file that you will download.

P.S. If you're already on my mailing list, you can skip this step. You will get the direct download link tonight.

Keep an eye on your inbox! I think you're gonna love thsi exercise ❤️

A new exercise for everyone https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/updates/strong-verbs-and-how-to-use-them

❤️Make writing personal❤️

Here are some thoughts after today's Creative Writing Practice session.

Thank you so much for your work!

You can join the practice if you would like to learn to learn pain-free self-editing and if you need to write more and faster in English.

Learn from the best.
Get professional.
Get serious with your practice.

Self-discipline is the recipe for life satisfaction if you use it to improve your life and not the English language.

https://community.nataliatokar.me/c/calendar/creative-writing-2-0-084520

A new episode of Natalia Reads

I was so blown away by the beauty of this message that I had to read it out loud.
Find the link to the transcript in the description box on SoundCloud. A video episode of this reading is coming up in the community of practice very soon.


P.S.
In 2018 I was confident that I read very well in English.

In 2020, I was confident that I read OK in English. I could already feel that I had to improve my flow, intonations, pauses, and a lot more things...

In 2022, today.... I can hear such a big difference. My pronunciation, my enunciation, my vowels, my pitch, my intonations have changed dramatically. Now I enjoy reading out loud even more.

As a side note.... in 2012, when I graduated, I was overly confident that my English skills were amazing 🤣

It all depends on who you're comparing yourself with...
When I decided to raise the bar for myself and practice sounding like an audiobook narrator, I took on a different perspective on reading. I realized that I had to learn to share the beauty of the message with the audience who doesn't see what I see. They don't see the text. All they have is my voice.

https://on.soundcloud.com/D1VJx