Today, I’m doing something for the first time. I’m meeting one of you in real life.
I’m driving to New Jersey to meet Q. She’s been following me on YouTube for years,
she’s been a student in my Academy and I can’t wait to meet her. Come on this adventure with me!
I had such a fun day with Q, you guys are going to love meeting her.
Part of meeting Q and making this video here today for you is also announce that today starts
my Spring Sale on Rachel’s English Academy. You can get your first month for just $5,
sale ends Sunday. Now, I’m going to be talking to you about the Academy throughout this video
and I hope by the end you’ll love it you’ll absolutely come join me there.
Alright, let’s head. Head is short for head out which means to leave.
Scoop my chair up, buckle in.
Okay, here’s the thing about me driving: I hate it, I detest it, I am no good at it,
maybe you have seen the video where I blew out a tire because I was trying to make a
video while driving like I am now, uhm, but I have to it. Actually, David was going to come,
he was going to drive me and then he got Covid. Okay, here’s what’s very annoying
about my neighborhood. The Mail truck has just stopped in the middle of the street.
It just stopped there, everyone behind it just have to wait. Let’s take a picture.
So, when the mail delivery person is done, we get to start going again. I think the reason
why I hate driving is because there was a period of time, many years when I didn’t have to drive,
I took a bus and I lived in New York City and I just got bad at it. I got out of practice.
If you’re out of practice, this is something that requires skill and you haven’t done it
for a while. Maybe you’re playing golf for the first time in several months
and you’re not doing well. You could say, “Man! I’m really out of practice!”
While I’m driving to New Jersey,
let me show you what students get in the Academy and why it can help you.
There are thousands of hours of video and audio content here,
but don’t worry I have a daily plan for you so you don’t need to waste
any time deciding what to study or what order to use for the lessons.
These lessons are based on what works to get students to hear English in a new
way and change their habits. Leave the sounds, rhythms, and placement of their
native language behind. It’s not intellectual, it’s a body/ear/voice-based approach. You see,
I was an opera singer years ago. This is me in a production of Madama Butterfly at the Boston Lyric
opera. If you want to hear a clip of me singing opera, I’ll play one at the end of this video. I
sang all sorts of roles in various languages, and let’s just say I learned a thing or two
about the voice and how physical changes change the sound, also the joy in the repetitive work
of getting a new role, a new character, into my voice so I could sing that character with ease.
This is the background that I bring to my lessons in the Academy. You learn information in a video,
and then you work with the audio to transform your own voice. You’ve learned what makes American
English sound American, and now you give your body the opportunity to find that sound. The audio,
regular pace and slow motion; the audio lets you work with repetition to change your habits
so you can stop doing the double work of thinking what to say and how to say it. You
won’t have to think about your pronunciation anymore because you’ll have locked in the
habit. I call it the play it, say it method. This is what my student Alex said about it.
But you sound great!
Thank you so much, so that’s
because of Rachel’s English I learned a lot and started a lot of process.
Awesome.
That method Play and Say it method so it’s just awesome. First of all, when I heard about it,
I hate it, I thought what’s like, I don’t know how to do it is but then I started to do it and
that’s just awesome and I’m continuing to do it till this day so that’s great.
That’s awesome and I’m so glad to hear that because I know
it’s like people, when people learn what it it is, they’re like, “uh. I don’t want to do that.” And I
have so many people say I started the Academy and thought I’m too advanced for this. And then when
I actually started doing it, I realized how much I was changing and tweaking and how much better I
was sounding. And so I’m glad that you have that, thank you for sharing with everybody because other
people here might be having that initial reaction too like “uh, this repetition, this is boring..’
That’s the most important so this is a major thing.
And it’s what’s let’s your body find it and that’s what’s going to make it natural for
yourself in conversation so thank you for sticking with it and pushing thought that.
Thank you, thank you.
There are so many details to the American accent, and we cover them all. This is likely the first
time you’ll ever be working this way, with this method, and you won’t be doing it alone. We have
a community where you can post videos and get feedback from a teacher. This is personalized
feedback just for you. We also have something called office hours every week where you can
show up and chat with teachers to ask your questions. And we provide very thorough support
through email. You will not be alone on this journey. We’ll take you through all the sounds,
the rhythm, the melody, and the placement. You’ll learn vocabulary, phrasal verbs,
and idioms. We have a course that goes over all of the 500 most common words in English.
I want to share what my student Joel said.
So, in the time I’ve spent working with Rachel’s English Academy, I have seen a huge improvement
with my pronunciation. The way I speak English, the way I understand English and the way I feel
the language just feels completely different now than I feel a few months ago before I start
working in the Academy. Getting feedback from the teachers, working with courses,
imitating the conversations which are really great because you got a lot of audio and a lot
of materials to imitate real conversations between native speakers and that’s really
amazing. That has really helped me to get a better accent and most important, to feel more
comfortable when I speak English and to feel confident with the way I speak English. So,
I would definitely recommend Rachel’s English Academy to anyone who’s trying to get a better
pronunciation and to improve their accent because it has really worked for me. After
working with things like placement and stress which are concepts that I have no idea of
before joining the Academy but have a really big impact in your pronunciation when you start
working with them. That has really helped me to get a better pronunciation which is everything
that I ever wanted just becoming a little bit more clear to be able to be understood by
native speakers and that has something that the Academy has helped me to achieve. So,
I would definitely recommend Rachel’s English Academy to anyone who has the same goals because
the Academy can really help you if you’re really willing to put in some time to practice every day.
I love this, but it didn’t happen overnight for Joel. Joel dedicated his time to this learning,
this habit training. Bravo, Joel, for your effort. You sound absolutely amazing.
Please check us out and see if we can’t help you find your American voice and transform
your spoken English. It’s just $5 to start, RachelsEnglishAcademy.com this week only.
People DO get results. My student Tom said this: “I currently live in Toronto. I have
been with the academy for 13 months and tried to practice at least one hour each day. My boss
recently told me that my pronunciation has improved substantially and I was promoted
to Assistant Vice President at the beginning of this year.” I love the real results and
increased confidence my students get. Ok, so, let’s see if I made it to New Jersey.
Okay, so I made it to New Jersey. No accents. Let’s go find Q.
Q picked this really cute little spot in New Jersey
where we sat on a heated patio and had views of the lake and flowers.
Hello! I have decided on that salad that you talked about with no meat additions.
Okay.
Yeah. And I’m just going to stick with water for today.
When you say you’re going to stick with something, that means you’re going to keep
using what you have. You’re not going to choose anything else or anything in addition. I didn’t
order another drink, I said I’m going to stick with the water that I already had on the table.
Or let’s say someone asked you if you’re thinking about changing jobs. You could say,
“No, I’m going to stick with my current position for at least one more year.”
I coach students live in the Academy every month and I can get to know students through
our community group but getting to know a student in real life was such a treat.
She has great suggestions for how to make the Academy better and I always
love thinking about ways to improve the student experience. One thing I can tell your right now,
is that the Academy is not a magic solution. The students who succeed
are the students who set aside time to train with the method and the material most
days. Are you motivated to do the work? What goals might you reach with better
spoken English? Don’t worry, I’ll make sure the work is worth it. You will see results.
Then I ordered tea and dessert.
I would like to have the white Pani. And which dessert do you think is the best here?
Pani is my favorite flower so I was guessing I would love the tea.
What kind of red pudding?
Lemon.
Hmm.
I always love to ask the servers at restaurants what they like on
the menu. Sometimes it gets me to order things I wasn’t considering.
Is that your favorite?
Okay, I’ll have that.
Thank you.
After dessert, Q and I walked around the gardens and got some pictures with the sculptures.
Then we sat down and I got to hear more about her experience in the US
and improving her English. Q is a high school teacher and she’s getting a master’s degree.
What made you sign up for the Academy in the first place.
Most importantly is I have those thoughts,
a lot of thoughts that I would like people to get in English.
Right.
Some communication.
Yeah, I totally get that.
So people can understand me easier and better and
definitely have more confidence while I’m talking to people.
Which is so important at work right?
Yes. Not only to work but also to you know, like everyday lives as well.
RIght. Social life too.
Yes. I, my native language, Chinese quite choppy so sometimes I have to remind myself to say it
very slow and put everything together in an American way. That took me for a while
but again definitely worth it so every time before an interview or some important meeting,
I will do the placement exercise. Like on the way here today, I was doing uhuhuoh.
Uhhmuh.
While driving I was talking to myself a lot.
And I love how you said that it does take time but it’s worth it because
it’s totally true. People who don’t put in time don’t really get anything out
so you do have to commit to putting the time in but then you get those rewards.
Yes.
You can only access the Academy courses, teacher feedback through the community,
live classes with me, and the teacher office hours through a subscription. With a subscription,
you are automatically charged every month, and after your $5 first month,
the price goes up to the regular price of $37/month. I want to stress, you can cancel
at any time. We also offer a 30-day money back guarantee so if you don’t think this
method works for you, just email us within the first 30 days letting us know you’d like
a refund and we will process that for you. Drop any questions you have in the comments.
The whole support not only about you know, the Academy wise but also its emotion support
that you, we have a community that we can grow together and you know,
all those teachers and classmates and people in the community are there so.
I love that you feel that.
I do, I feel that I’m not alone.
That’s awesome and it’s very important to us that people,
I don’t know, feel seen that they feel apart of something.
Yes. In the Academy, you can find a lot of interesting people just like you.
And when those people are together, it’s such a nice group and community and connection.
Q and I are hoping to have another meet up sometime soon, this time with other students
from the Academy. Also, this is amazing. Q has her own YouTube channel where she teaches Chinese.
She made this to supplement her classroom. I love this. Follow her links in the video description.
I promised you the opera, here is the opera. This is ancient,
before it was so easy to get a good audio recording,
and so it’s recorded on a little audio device during rehearsal when I was in graduate school.
If you’ve seen this opera before, let me know in the comments. If you have
any questions about that Academy, drop them in the comments. Thanks for watching. I love
being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.