Good morning, good afternoon and good evening! Welcome to Smashing English!
Before we start this video be sure to subscribe because we make new videos
all the time and I don't want you to miss any! So with that said let's get on with the video!
Hi I'm Laura - and I'm Bez, and we're English teachers! Now we know why you're here you want
to improve your English quickly, now learning a language does take time there's no shortcut,
you can't take a little pill and be fluent in a language but there are some things you
can do to really speed up the process so we have a five day challenge for you, we will
give you an activity to improve your English on Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday.
(Saturday and Sunday you can take the day off) If you repeat this five day challenge
for a whole month, I promise you at the end you will notice some improvement in your vocabulary
and your confidence and your fluency. And why stop at one month? Why not continue for the next month
and the next month and the next month and the next month and the next month and the next month
and the next month? And the best part is, all we are asking for is 15 minutes a day, that's it. 15
minutes. So let's get started with your 15 minute exercise for Mondays. Mondays! We hate Mondays,
so I've given you the most fun activity to do on Monday just to brighten the day a little bit.
I want you to go on to YouTube or any video streaming platform that is available in your
country and type in something like silent movie clip or silent comedy or short movie if you're
struggling to find some of these videos I will link a playlist down below that has some videos in
it that I recommend for this activity. For all of these activities you will need something to write
on so that can just be your phone it can be your laptop it can be a notebook something to write on,
okay so get the video and press play and I want you to watch 30 seconds to a minute of this,
okay? Just watch it, enjoy then pause, okay, now out loud I want you to say what you just saw,
so let's say it's this clip and we see Charlie Chaplin running into a cage and he gets trapped
in the cage and he realises that there's a lion right there, so I want you to tell this story out
loud try to give as much detail as you can. How is he running? What does he look like? Now if you get
to a place where you want to say something in your language but you don't know how to say it
in English, maybe it's a word or a phrase, Google it, go onto the internet find that word and write
down the definition, okay, then carry on, once you've got all of the words that you want you
can carry on, press play again watch the next 30 seconds- minute and then do the same thing again,
tell the story of what you've just seen and if there's any words that you really want to use,
go on the internet, find them, write them down, okay? And keep doing this for 15 minutes. Now
by the end of this activity you should have a list of new words and their definitions,
keep it safe, don't do anything with it, just keep it, you will need it later on in the week.
But you don't need it now, just forget about it ,forget about it. Now, our methods are a fantastic
way to practise but let's talk about another way to get you to English fluency! - Oh hey,
sorry to interrupt, I'm doing the Lingoda Sprint challenge, clearly. Lingoda is an online language
school where you can learn English 24/7. Hi! They have certified native-level teachers, there's a
maximum of five students per lesson, this enables an interactive classroom experience, it's great!
Now what is the Sprint challenge? The Sprint is a two-month intensive learning challenge,
there are two options for this, there's the Sprint or the Super Sprint, the Sprint challenge
is where you take 15 lessons per month for two months, if you complete this successfully you
will get 50% cashback or 40 lesson credits! Now what about the super Sprint challenge?
Well the Super Sprint challenge is where you take 30 lessons per month for two months and
if you complete this one successfully, guess what? You will also get 50% cashback or 75
lesson credits! So what are we waiting for? Let's start the sprint challenge! Yeah yeah. Oh, hello?
I'm doing the Sprint challenge, clearly. What? Hang on a minute, the Sprint challenge doesn't
actually involve sprinting, it involves learning the language from the comfort of your own home?
Well now I look, now I look ridiculous! Oh yeah right I'm going home put the kettle on. So if
you're looking to reach new heights with your English, then the lingoda Sprint challenge is
exactly what you need. I really believe this is the best way to stay motivated and committed to
your language learning goals, so what are you waiting for? Click the link below to get more
information and use our code for 20 euros or 25 dollars off your Sprint registration,
back to you Laura! Okay moving on to Tuesday, so what's your activity for Tuesdays? So what I want
you to do is go on your phone and find three pictures, three random pictures, try to make
them varied in content, not just three selfies. So with each picture out loud describe what you see,
go into as much detail as you can, for example the sky is blue but it is not a clear sky there are
some clouds wispy clouds. Because of the Sun the grass looks a little bit yellow, there is a yellow
tint to it then I see a picnic table with an umbrella, the umbrella is not open, the umbrella
is closed. I see a hot tub, a Jacuzzi. Inside the hot tub the water is bubbling and there is a man,
a bald man, a handsome bald man who seemingly has fallen in the hot tub, maybe? This should
take 15 minutes so spend five minutes describing each picture, if you come across something in
the picture that you don't know the word form write it down, look it up on Google,
this is your opportunity to learn new vocabulary, you have a much better chance of remembering this
new word if you can associate it with the image, so after this exercise hopefully you will have a
few new words that you have learned and written down. Well hello again! Welcome to Wednesday,
so today all you are going to do is go onto the internet and find something called a speech topic
generator, you type that into Google, speech topic generator, and lots of results will come
up but I will give a link in the description down below of a really good one you can use. So what
you're looking for is a button, it's some kind of button and you click it and it gives you a topic,
maybe the topic is Golf and that is your topic for your speech today, so you can prepare for maybe a
minute, you can think about the kind of things you want to say about this topic and then I want you
to see if you can speak for two minutes about this topic now that sounds really really hard but it's
only hard because you've never done it before it sounds scary because it's new but just try it you
might surprise yourself. So this one I definitely want you to record it so get your voice recorder
or your video recorder I don't mind get it ready and just talk, just speak about that topic,
anything you know about it, any experience you have on that topic. So you have any stories about
that topic? Just go go go until two minutes is finished, when you have finished your speech
I want you to listen back, now I want you to find in your speech 10 words or phrases that
you think there are other options, for so let's say in your speech you say the word 'like' let's
say you say 'I really like golf,' I want you to find some alternatives for 'really like' so again,
go on to the internet, type in thesaurus maybe or 'other ways to say really like' I want you to
find some alternatives so you might find something like adore, I'm a big fan of,
I love, you know? You might find all of these other options and I want you to write them down
in your notebook that you used for Monday and Tuesday write them down with the definition,
okay? For about 10 words if you can, some new useful alternatives for words that you naturally
use. Now what we're doing here is we are expanding your comfort zone because when you just speak you
will use the words that you are really happy with, you will use the words that you use all the time,
you know, I love this word so I use it all the time, so what we want to do is encourage you to
try some other words, so we're going to find some alternatives for those words. Now let's turn our
attention to Thursdays, step one I need you to find a book, preferably a book that you have
already read, flick through the book and find a completely random page 61, 32, 75, 109! The next
step, guess what? Read that page, just read it, read it out loud. The next step? Read that page
again, but this time writing down or making notes of any phrases, idioms, expressions, anything new
that you don't understand, you don't have to find the definition yet, just writing down everything
that you don't know. Next step, put the book down, down boy! Next, try to recite what you read on
that page from memory, of course this won't be perfect but as best as you can, try to tell me
what you read on that page, this is like running on a treadmill for your brain it's exercising your
brain, your brain has to work very hard, it not only has to just remember things but also
recite it in good English, this is a really good way of practicing using english under pressure.
Once you've done this, go back to your list of new things that you didn't know before and write down
the definitions, so as you can imagine by Thursday you should now be building quite a big list of new
things that you didn't know before. And now we come to Friday, oh it's Friday, everybody loves
Friday! Friday is the best! Okay so this is what you're going to do on Friday, so I want you to get
your list of new words, these are the new words that we have been collecting on Monday Tuesday
Wednesday and Thursday, all of these new words and their definitions, I want you to get that list
and get a Word document or a book, anything that you can write on and what you're going to do is
you are going to write a story, now this story can be about anything, it does not matter if the story
makes no sense, I don't care if the structure is awful, I'm not judging your storytelling skills.
This is what you're going to do, every sentence in that story has to have at least one of your
new words, so let's say we learned the word 'adore', maybe that is my one of my new words,
so my sentence says 'one day a man woke up and discovered that he adored fish,'
I don't know, so there we go, I've used my word and I can cross it out. Okay now you don't just
have to use one new word, you can use two, three, however many you can fit it I don't care and keep
going until 15 minutes is finished, so hopefully you will have a short little story that includes a
lot of these words. Why is that important? Because you are taking these new words that you learned
and you are putting them in context, in a new context, something that your brain is creating,
so no longer are these just words on a page now you've taken them off the page and you're putting
them into this world, into this new story and your brain will remember the images of the story
so he will, he, your brain is a he, your brain will remember 'oh that story about the man and
the fish and he jumped off the the building and he fell into a swimming pool', you're much more
likely to remember these things if you put them in context, so you can go a bit longer with this,
you know if you want to finish at 15 minutes, you can but if you really want to use all of your new
words, just keep going keep going with the story and then on Saturday and Sunday all you need to
do is just read that story at least once per day, so read it on the Saturday, read it on the Sunday.
And that's the week! You can just do a week if you want and then have a rest, you can have a rest for
next week and then go again the week after or you can do this every week for a month okay,
but then after a month maybe just take some time to let these new words sink into your brain,
you will have four stories, you know, you'll have four stories that you wrote on the Fridays so
maybe just keep reading those, you know, revisit them, try to remember these words 'oh what did
that mean again? Why did I use them?' and I promise your vocabulary will improve very quickly
if you do this. Thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please give it a like,
don't forget to check out Lingoda down below! The link is there! Click it! Go do it! Improve
your English! Go do it now! If you would like to follow us on Instagram, you can do so there
and if you would like an online English lesson with me or Bez the link for that is down below,
thank you so much for watching have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time, tata!