August 17, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

There are two ways to speak English efficiently when you’re attending conferences.

Here’s an extract:




The first thing is repetition.

Repetition is the key. You need to expose yourself to the type of English they use in those conferences as much as possible. What can be useful is to find recordings of past conferences or similar conferences which you can try and integrate into your usage time. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. You can just play those recordings in the background as you clean your house, or whatever it is you’re doing.

But you can also use these conference recordings as your study materials. Find out the topic-specific language that may be slowing you down. Try to point out what it is you’re having problems with. Then learn where the possible holes are so you can be more efficient when it’s your turn to speak (or ask questions) in conferences.

Now, the second thing is to stop worrying too much.

You have to go easy on yourself because it will get easier over time. And if, for example, you’re asking questions at a conference, you just have to prepare beforehand. Ease your difficulty in speaking up in English at conferences by preparing for it. But, the reality of it is… you probably can’t prepare for what you need to say all the time. So if that happens, just go easy on yourself. Instead, try to attune your brain to different ways of approaching English and being in English speaker mode. Because speaking the type of English you want to do is just really going to come from doing more English over time.

So yes, you need to stop worrying about English. But at the same time, you also need to study and prepare for what type of English you need for these types of conferences. Find the balance between focus intensive studying and relaxed English usage. There are several ways you can do this, but if you’re interested in the methods I use the best place to start is the one-hour free training that I created. You’ll learn the 5 key changes my best clients make to improve their English as higher-level English learners.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook


Filed Under: Burnout
August 16, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

In the spirt of full disclosure: over the last two months, I’ve been suffering the effects of burnout.

I’ve been exhausted most of the time, sleeping a lot and struggling to find the motivation to do anything. Reality also becomes detached and distant, and I’d find myself unable to remember what day it is or what I’d been doing for the days previously.

It’s getting better now (I’ve been resting a lot and have help).

And I’ll write more about this another time.

But for now, I want to share an email I wrote more than a year ago when I was in New York. Some of the things it talks about are out of date now (for example my PhD is long finished), but it contains an important message that I believe everyone should pay attention to.

Indeed, it’s one I needed to remind myself of, too.

—– START —–

These last couple of days I’ve been thinking a lot about doing nothing.

You’d think it’d be easy.

But actually, it’s really not.

Now, for context I’ve been doing my friend Hitomi’s “One Day One Unit” online course.

And this got me thinking about something I want to do, but have never seemed to be able to get to grips with.

Doing nothing.

What tends to happen is either I’ll be busy with something, and this will force me to use my time effectively.
Take last week: I had to get my final PhD thesis edited and submitted by Sunday evening (to be in on Monday morning). But I also had to keep going with various tasks like videos, these daily emails and MEFA homework feedback. So every morning I’m up early with a clear plan, checking everything off my list so that I can get on with the main, long and difficult task of editing a thesis from lunchtime.

And I’m super productive!

But at the end of the day, I’m totally exhausted and dead.

Then there’s this week: I’ve got plenty of time to do nothing. But I’m NEVER doing nothing. Because what happens is I get up late. Then faff around procrastinating. Of course, I’ve still got to do videos and MEFA homework feedback…. but I’m putting it off until later. I’m not doing ‘nothing’, because I’m thinking about having to do all these things and can’t just switch off as I should.

Like today, when I had to work out. It took me 15mins once I actually did it… at 5pm, after thinking about how I can’t be bothered since 9am.

So at the end of the day, I’m STILL totally exhausted and tired.

Instead, here’s the conclusion I’ve come to:

Doing nothing is an important and time-consuming task. Just as important as proofreading a PhD thesis or any of the other things I do. And it needs to be given priority.

And just like anything else super important, this means I need to get up, get everything done.

Then I sit and just do nothing.

Doing nothing is a task. An important one to be scheduled like any other.

And the result of this is that at the end of the day, I’m relaxed and energised. I sleep better, think better and get up better.

Now, this is very relevant to you.

But this is getting super long, so I’ll talk about this more another day. in the meantime if you want my help mastering English once and for all, consider joining us in MEFA.

https://www.doingenglish.com/mefa

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook

P.S. For interested people: on August 30th I’ll be doing another “special” live training event. This time we’ll be discussing how to help your kids learn English along with you.

If you don’t have kids this won’t be of interest.

But if you do, you’ll probably want to be there.

As always this event will be free to active MEFA and EES members (I don’t have any plans to make it available to anyone else).


Filed Under: English fluency
August 16, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

Interesting question.

Yes, getting drunk can increase your English fluency… but only within reason. Because once you reach a tipping point (i.e., if you drink too much), you’ll just rapidly descend into a mumbling mess. You’re just not going to make any sense in English or even in your native tongue for that matter.




Now, the reason having a drink helps with your English fluency is the same reason why having a drink helps with social anxiety. See, alcohol switches off a part of your brain that stands in the way of your self-sabotage. Alcohol helps block that part of your brain that makes you think stuff like, “I’m not good enough!” or “I better shut up, they’re going to think I’m stupid!”

Alcohol, in a way, is kind of like an anaesthetic. It suppresses that part of your brain that overthinks, so you’ll naturally feel more confident to just go for it. You give far less of a shit about your mistakes. You get to focus on the DOING of the process rather than the self-destructive analysis and what people might think of you.

So, yes. Essentially, in terms of fluency (and if you want to look at it on a table for scale)… getting drunk does reduce your cognitive load. (Cognitive load is what we call the multiple things happening in your head, you can learn more about this in my coaching classes).

Once you remove self-destructive thoughts in your brain, you’re going to find yourself caring less about your English. Then it will no longer hamper your English fluency.

But if you want to sound like a native English speaker (even when you’re sober), you can start with the free guide I made here.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook


Filed Under: Speaking English
August 13, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

There isn’t exactly any particular word you should know to sound more intelligent. In fact, using hard words in English doesn’t automatically make you sound smarter.




But… it depends on whom you’re talking to and what the context is.

A lot of people assume that if you use these big, difficult-sounding, sophisticated, complex, flowery words in English… people will think you’re an intelligent person.

Not really. That’s just not the case.

Let me put it this way:

There’s this book I’ve read written by a guy named Ammon Shea. So, in his book, he said that he read the ENTIRE Oxford English Dictionary (the huge multi-volume ones, mind you) which took him a whole year. And by now you’re probably thinking “Oh, his English might have improved then.” But no, not really. In fact, he concluded that reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary was a total waste of time. All it did was give himself a headache… and learn words that he’ll probably never even use.

And it’s the same when you try to use hard words in all your conversations. And when you insist to use these hard words (even if there’s no need to use them)… then you’ll just end up confusing the person you’re talking to.

See, a true advanced English speaker is somebody who can use English very flexibly, regardless of how complicated the word is. What I mean by this is if you use hard, very complex English words, you’d have to use them in a way that will make sense. But if you communicate things in a very simple way, you’ll sound far more intelligent.

Again, you always have to think about whom you’re talking to. And if what you’re saying will make sense to them.

An example of this is if I use the word “chunk” with my (now ex) PhD supervisor. I won’t use the word “chunk” with her because it’s just too vague. Instead, I’ll use more specific words like “lexical bundles” because it would make much more sense to her. But again, this is because I’m talking to her regarding an academic topic.

Whereas if I’m talking to my coaching clients, I will use the word “chunks” because it would make more sense to them. And they’d know exactly what I was talking about.

Again, it depends on the person you’re talking to and what you’re actually talking about.

By the way, speaking of “chunks”.

If you’re looking to speak clearer, more natural-sounding English learning to chunk your speech well will make you sound much, much more intelligent than simply filling your sentences with fancy words. That’s why I made this free guide to teach you how to do this.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook


Filed Under: Learning English, Sitcom
August 12, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

This is a great question.

First off, the question itself implies if you can improve your English by ONLY watching sitcoms… in which case the answer is no, you can’t.

At least not effectively and definitely not very quickly.

Here’s an extract:




You see, any type of passive exposure (i.e., watching sitcoms, reading books, listening to podcasts, etc.) while helpful as a form of extra exposure is not going to do much by itself. But if you love sitcoms, then yes, absolutely, they’re a fantastic source of exposure to English. But again, if you’re going to just use passive exposure, it’s just not going to be enough.

Actually, studies have shown that sitcoms are a good source of learning English in terms of words, phrases, expressions, etc. However, sitcoms (though useful in conversational English) tend to be hyperreal.

One example of this hyperreality is the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” (which I absolutely loved). They purposely use a lot of scientific jargon because that’s what the show is all about. I mean, even as a native speaker, I had a hard time understanding some of the words because they use a lot of scientific terms. And if you’re watching it thinking, “Oh I don’t understand any of these words, I must be shit at English”, you’re kind of missing the point of the show because it’s designed like that for comedy effect. And another good example would be “How I Met Your Mother”. I mean yes, they do use very conversational English. However, you also have to understand they designed these shows for comedy effect – a comic book or theme park representation of real life.

Another example of a sitcom being a theme park representation of real-life is the show “Emily in Paris”. In fact, it was so heavily criticised because it was SO exaggerated – portraying stereotypical Parisians and their culture to create humour. Parisians in and out of Paris argued that the show is totally exaggerated that it no longer represents what Parisian culture actually is.

And, you know, the point here is yes, absolutely, sitcoms are a great source of exposure to supplement your study time. But sitcoms are also a genre of English unto themselves. And because they’re hyperreal, they’re not actual real-life representations of how people actually speak and behave in the real world.

So, yes, sitcoms are a great source of exposure, but no, you shouldn’t take them too literally.

But ultimately, if you want to improve your spoken English fast, you’re going to need a balanced, structured routine that is to have focused intensive learning and exposure or usage of English in relaxed settings.

This is one of the things that I teach my coaching clients (go here if you’re interested in this).

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook


August 11, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

When you’re a beginner you’ll see real progress fast.

And this is simply because you know nothing at the beginning.




Let’s say you only know two English words and then you managed to learn two more English words. That’s already double your original English knowledge! And that’s huge.

But learning English (as in any other language) is exponential.

And by this, I mean we can compare it with earthquakes. You see, the difference between a magnitude 1 and a magnitude 2 is a little bit big… but the difference between magnitudes 5 and 6 is much, much bigger. And the difference between a 7 and 8 is insanely big. And similar to this analogy, the difference in the amount of work you have to do to improve gets bigger and bigger the further you progress, so while the difference between absolute-beginner and low-beginner isn’t very big… the difference between intermediate and advanced is enormous.

Naturally, you’re going to actively stop noticing progress as you go along the way. But it doesn’t mean you’re not progressing at all. Kind of like when you were younger, you never noticed how tall you’ve gotten… but it doesn’t mean you didn’t grow any taller.

So don’t worry too much about this.

A much better approach is to track actions taken, not proficiency gained.

This is one of the things I teach my clients (go here if you’re interested in this).

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook