maybe this sounds like you. It takes me so long to read through the article. I feel like I get lost in it. And before I know it, I've run out of time and I'm not reading fast enough, which is why I'm not getting good results on the reading section. I know I get lost in the reading section, which pulls me down and I feel discouraged as I try to do the other sections of the exam and that feeling of discouragement feels so heavy that I know it affects me on the other sections of the exam as well.

And the lower results on the reading section, it's just lowering my results in general. If that feels like you. If you've ever felt that way, lost in the reading section, feeling like you don't know which way to go, feeling like it's just going on and on and on and you're never going to have enough time to reach the bottom of that article before your time runs out.

If that's been you, then this episode is for you.

  📍 ​

 Well, hello there and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam. I also love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people, people just like you, who are working towards becoming fluent in English, so we can learn from their experiences together.

Who am I? Well, my name is Aaron Nelson, and I've been an English teacher for over 16 years, and I now help students prepare for the CELPIP exam through online classes. My friend, if you are just joining us today, if this is the first time you have downloaded this podcast, I just want to say hello and welcome.

I am glad you are here. I hope that you feel comfortable enough to sit back, relax, stick your earphones in. ear pods in if that's what you're listening to and put your cell phone into your pocket if that's what you're listening to this on and just enjoy today's episode. I hope that you will get some practical tips and strategies that will help you today with your work as you get ready for the CELPIP exam.

Specifically today we're going to be talking about the reading section of the CELPIP exam, but I'll get into that in a moment. If you are a returning listener to this podcast, I just want to say hello to you as well. And thank you so much for being here day in and day out. I am so glad that you are here. And I also hope that you will sit back and relax and get a lot out of today's episode.

If you've been following along with me for the past three or so weeks, I've been doing a little bit of a mini series around practicing in the fringes, helping you find ways to begin working on and continue working on your practice for the CELPIP exam in the fringes or the edges of your life, meaning If you are as busy as I am, and I bet you are, you don't have a lot of free time to devote to practicing for the CELPIP exam.

And what ends up happening is that you run out of time each day in order for you to practice. You get home after maybe a busy day at work, and you're just too tired to even think. about reading or listening or writing or doing something to help you practice for the CELPIP exam. It just feels like it's too much.

You're too tired. And that is totally legitimate. You have been working hard all day. If you're like me, you've got a family that you're also trying to spend time with. So having that extra thing to worry about is just too much. And more often times than maybe what you care to tell you, allow yourself to admit, you just put it off thinking, okay, tomorrow, tomorrow I'll do this and then tomorrow comes around and the same thing happens again, you run out of time in your very busy day and so you just end up

not being able to practice. And if that happens with any kind of frequency at all, you're only hurting yourself, aren't you? You're pushing back that exam date. When you'll actually sit down and try to do the CELPIP exam, you just aren't going to be ready in time. And so maybe you'll find yourself procrastinating on setting up that, that exam date, thinking to yourself, I'm just not ready for this.

I need more time to practice. And yet that Finding more time to practice kind of never really comes around, does it? And so, time can just run by. I mean, the older you get, you'll know that this sentence is true. The older you get, the faster time seems to go. Isn't that true? The older you get, the faster time seems to go.

I mean, I work with seniors and they tell me and they are like some, some of them are twice my age and they tell me that they feel like their own life just is going by so fast and they're retired. They're not even working and they still feel like their days zip by. So if it's happening to them, who are retired.

I know it's happening to you. I know I struggle with finding time to do the things that are important for me. So that's what this series is all about. Helping you to find ways. Find little spaces of time that will help you practice effectively for the CELPIP exam. So you stop putting it off. So you can actually be doing little things each day that will help you move forward.

So today, today we are working all on reading. And maybe this sounds like you. It takes me so long to read through the article. I feel like I get lost in it. And before I know it, I've run out of time and I'm not reading fast enough, which is why I'm not getting good results on the reading section. I know I get lost in the reading section, which pulls me down and I feel discouraged as I try to do the other sections of the exam and that feeling of discouragement feels so heavy that I know it affects me on the other sections of the exam as well.

And the lower results on the reading section, it's just lowering my results in general. If that feels like you. If you've ever felt that way, lost in the reading section, feeling like you don't know which way to go, feeling like it's just going on and on and on and you're never going to have enough time to reach the bottom of that article before your time runs out.

If that's been you, then this episode is for you. So getting lost. is a terrible, terrible feeling. You don't know where to go and you don't know what to do next. And it can lead you, like I was saying just before, it can lead you to freezing or getting lost can drastically reduce your performance because you're feeling so frustrated and so discouraged with yourself.

It can slow you down. It can slow down your performance. And. Not only on the reading section, but going forward into the remaining sections of the exam as well, instead of being focused on what to do, you're, you might be like beating yourself up on the inside because you feel like you did such a terrible job on the reading section.

And I was thinking about this before. I've been thinking about this all week, actually. What story can I share with you that kind of summarizes this or captures this problem that has happened to me? And the best story that I could come up with is one that I've told you before, but I think it encapsulates this so well that I want to share it again because maybe you didn't hear that part.

That time that I shared it before, but a couple of years ago, I was in a master's level. study program through university and my workplace was paying it for me. So, because it was part of what I needed to learn about to do my job well. And in that, in one of the very first courses that we had to take, I was given a book that was easily three inches thick.

I mean, it was, It was big. It was really big. And it was about as interesting, at least at that time, it was about as interesting to me as watching paint dry. I mean, just looking at that mammoth book made me, made my eyes glaze over, made it, made me want to just throw that book away and walk away without even opening it.

It was so big and so dense. The information wasn't easy reading. It was challenging. Boy, did I get bogged down whenever I tried to read that thing. And I actually got the book a few weeks before my course began thinking to myself, okay, I'm going to try to start getting a head start at this. I'm going to try to get ahead.

It didn't happen. I, like I just said, got bogged down. And I felt totally and completely lost every single time I opened that book to try to read. It was so overwhelming. I would try to open it up where I had left off before with the best intentions in mind. Maybe I had taken a couple hours break from it or even a day.

I'd walked away from it just to try to clear my mind and stop feeling overwhelmed. I come back full of hopeful intentions that maybe this time I'll be able to dig in and make some progress with it. But, It never happened. Every single time I opened that thing, I would very quickly find myself getting distracted because it felt so boring.

I would find myself losing interest and feeling utterly discouraged to the point where I would close it up. and just walk away. I did not get very far with that book before the course actually began. And during one of the in person seminars for this program, because most of the work that we were doing was online, with a couple, like maybe Once or twice a quarter, we would have to travel to Vancouver for an in person seminar, and our first seminar was on this book.

And I will never forget the professor who taught this seminar. He was the opposite of this three inch book. He was absolutely fascinating to listen to. I mean, the guy was so passionate about what he taught that the moment he walked in the class and started talking, he had the ability to capture my Absolutely.

Absolutely. my attention and my interest for the hours of instruction that we had with him and we were with him for all day training sessions with where we only had breaks for, you know, to run to the bathroom for five or 10 minutes and then an hour long lunch break and the whole entire day was just listening to him lecture and talk about this topic.

And you might be thinking to yourself a whole day. That sounds painful. I thought it was going to be painful based on what I experienced with that book. But this teacher, this professor was so amazing and he was so interesting to listen to. I couldn't believe that the course was connected to this monstrous book that I was just struggling to get through.

But I will never forget something that he said. I can't remember if it was on the first day or the second day as we were talking during one of the classes, but he said these words and it's, it stuck with me so much that I wrote it down in my notebook. I underlined it and circled it because it changed my life when it came to working with this book and future books as well, because that wasn't the only thick and difficult to read book that we were given.

But anyway, he said this. Don't try to read this entire book, and he held up the big mammoth book that was giving me nightmares that I had left at home, by the way, because I didn't even want to look at it over, over the, the course of that seminar, but he picked up that book and he said, don't try to read this, at least not the entire thing.

The only thing that you need to worry about is trying to read the parts that will help you answer the questions. If you try to read the whole book, because of the intensity of your course load, you will fail. You'll fall behind. You don't have enough time to read it all. And he repeated that several times.

You don't have enough time to read it all. And I'm glad he repeated it because I wasn't sure if I was taking in what he was saying to me, I was like, so shocked that this professor was telling me you don't have to read the whole thing. You only have to read what you need. in order to answer the questions and write your research paper.

Don't read everything. That day I felt a heavy weight lift off of my shoulders, lift off of my mind. I felt happier inside because, and I felt hopeful. It changed everything. Everything about the way I looked at that book, and his advice, that moment is what helped me make it through the whole course.

Interestingly enough, and he actually said this during the duration of the seminar, he said, Right now you might find this book to be a monster, but if you'll work through it, If you'll do the work of digging in and doing your research paper, you will probably, when all of this, when all of your training and your studies are completed, you'll probably return to this book

and read through it and use it in different areas of your life without when you're not having the pressures of, of a master's degree sitting on top of you, you'll probably come back to this book and really appreciate it. And you know what? It's really true. I, I have that book in my office. I, I wish I brought it with me to show you 'cause on the video here.

But I've used it so many times and I have it so marked up because I refer to it frequently. And I've just appreciated my professor so much for sharing that you don't have to read everything.

And the advice that I have for you today, if you are struggling. To make it through long reading articles and long text and the articles that maybe you have encountered on the CELPIP exam if you struggle to make your way through those. I want to give the same advice to you today that my professor gave to me that day.

Stop trying to read the entire article. You don't have to read every single word. If you do, Guess what? You've probably already found out what happens if you try to read every single word on the CELPIP exam reading section. If you try to read every single word in those articles, you'll probably run out of time and you won't be able to answer all the questions.

on the test. And that will leave you feeling frustrated and discouraged and like you're a terrible, uh, English reader and CELPIP, CELPIP test taker. You'll feel probably down, discouraged and frustrated. But my friend, listen to me, please listen to me. You don't have to read every single word. Instead, We're going to work on the things that you do need to be paying attention to.

And I want you to write down if you are taking notes, if you've never written these two words down, I need you to do it. Or if you're driving or doing something that requires both hands, don't worry about writing it down right now. Just try to, you know, log it in your mind. You need to learn how to skim and how to scan, skim and scan.

And there's some things that I would like to get you to do. to work on some practice for this. I want you to go first of all to the CBC. Go to cbc. ca and find an article that seems interesting to you. That's really important by the way. Find something that seems interesting to you. Get your pen and paper ready because on the exam you'll have access to something to write with and some paper.

You should have that ready as well. When you have your article, this is what, the only thing that I want you to focus on reading. Not the whole thing. But, 1. Read the title. Read the title. 2. Quickly look through the text for subheadings. You know, other, other words that are highlighted in bold. Read those.

Then, when you're done reading the title and subheadings, the only thing next that I want you to work on reading is the first sentence of each paragraph. The first sentence of each paragraph. That's it. Your goal in doing this kind of work is to get a big picture view of what this article is all about.

Just like as if you're flying in an airplane. If you've ever flown. And you've looked out the window. You don't see a lot of details, do you? You can't see cars. You can't see houses. You can't see a person walking on the street because you're so high up. You can see entire cities. If you're flying over a city, you can see vast landscapes.

If you're flying over land, but you don't see a lot of details, but you do get a good picture of where you are. That's what you're aiming for. in this first pass over the article. And this, by the way, is called skimming. When you skim, all you're doing is getting a big picture view of what you're reading.

It should take you no more than two or three minutes to do this or less two or three minutes or less to do this. So my friend, If you have two minutes, if you have three minutes or less than that, then this is something that you can do in the fringes of your life, on the edges of your life. So grab an article from the CBC, something that grabs your attention and just start practicing, looking for the title.

look for subheadings inside of the text and read the first sentence of each paragraph. You should, again, only take, this should only take you two or three minutes. Next, when you're actually working on the questions on the exam, the thing that you need to be caring about are the key words inside of the questions that will help you find where you need to look inside of the article.

Use the questions to help you find What's going on inside of the text? Like, uh, let me rephrase that. When you're looking at the questions, like in the first question, find keywords in that first question, and then look over at your text and quickly skim that text to see if that word exactly that you found in the question is there in the text.

If you're lucky, maybe it will be like that. The exact word will be in the text as in the question. More often than not, though, it You'll be looking for words or ideas that mean the same. That are synonyms. They're expressing the same thing as the words in the question, but in a different way. The CELPIP exam loves to do that, by the way.

So make sure you become familiar with different ways of saying different words. Because that might be what you are looking for in the reading section. of the CELPIP exam. Or in the article, I mean. That's what I wanted to say. In your article, you're probably going to be spending most of your time looking for words or ideas that mean the same thing as what you found in the questions.

When you're doing this kind of reading, you're doing something called scanning. And again, you're not reading every word. You're instead looking for specific keywords or key synonyms or ideas that mean the same thing as the questions in the exam. When you do find a keyword or a synonym or a word or idea that means the same thing as what you read in the question, that's when you need to kind of slow down and re read the exam.

the, the lines or the sentences, or even the paragraph where you found that keyword to make sure that that is the section that's talking about that, that's featuring the answer that the question is asking you for. Sometimes you need to read, you need to read the context to make sure that you have the right information.

I don't know if that makes sense. Use the questions. To identify keywords, jump over to the text and quickly look through the text to see if you can find some of those keywords or words that mean the same thing. When you do find one of those words, or when you find something that you think means the same thing as what the question is asking you for, that's when you slow down and read around that word or key phrase or key idea to see if the context of that article will help you to determine

if that's the right answer or not. Again, this is something that you can do. on the fringes of your life. And you can practice doing this, practicing in the fringes by using something that you carry with you on a daily basis. Your cell phone. I bet you have one in your pocket right now. Maybe you're even listening to this, to this episode on your cell phone.

If you are, you already have everything that you need. to practice in the two or three or five minute edges of your life. And this is how you can do it before you start your busy day or even on the day before I challenge you to load a news article. Of interest into your cell phone. It needs to be something that you're interested in.

Okay. You don't have to read something boring just because it's in English. Find something that catches your attention, something that's interesting to you. If you're not into the news, look for a story item around something that you are into, look for a movie review or an opinion piece or a human interest story, etc.

look for something that catches your attention and load it into your cell phone. Have it ready there waiting for you throughout the day. When you have a few moments of time, grab your phone and practice skimming and scanning for the skimming part. Remember, you're just reading the title. You're looking for headers.

You're looking for the first lines of each paragraph on scanning. See if you can scan for the five W's. We've already talked about that in previous episodes. The who, the what, the when, the where, and the why. And I won't go into any detail on those five W's. If you are interested in hearing more about those five W's, listen to the previous two or three podcast episodes, because we talk a lot about it.

Your goal as you are listening to this is to use your pen and your paper. Cause remember, I told you at the beginning, you should have a pen and paper with you when you're doing this kind of practice, if you can. Use that pen and paper and see if you can create a skeleton outline of the article that you're reading.

Your goal here is not to write long sentences. Your goal is not to write, you know, words in correct, with correct grammar and spelling. That's okay. We're not focused on that right now. The only thing that we're looking for is to create a skeleton. A keyword or short phrase, skeleton point form of the article that you could use as a sort of 30, 000 foot map of what your article is about.

So once again, if that didn't make sense, as you were reading, as you are grabbing that five minutes that maybe you have during your day, see if you can create, by skimming through your article, a very quick outline of what your article is about. This activity, if you're doing it right, shouldn't take you more than 5 or 6 minutes.

And you should be practicing with an article that's maybe 5, 4 or 5 paragraphs long. Because that would be about the length that you will encounter on the exam. So something that's about 5 paragraphs long, you It should take you about five to six minutes to create this little outline. And remember the idea of the outline is not so that you know everything about what the article is talking about, but instead you will have like a map of where you'll be able to find specific information that maybe the questions can ask you about.

You'll, you'll have an idea of where to look if you build your outline. Remember, stay consistent with this kind of practice. It's about putting in the reps. It's about doing it over and over and over again. It's about being the person that practices for the CELPIP exam on a daily basis. If you do this consistently, in time, you can increase the intensity of your practice sessions.

You might even find that you enjoy reading by doing this kind of thing. But first, become the person who shows up every day to practice. If you become that person, you can start increasing how long. You do it, but for now, focus on five. minutes of practice. 📍   📍

  My friend, do you struggle with skimming and scanning?

Are you that person I was talking about before who gets lost in long texts and ends up feeling so discouraged by it that it pulls you down in the rest of the exam? Let's work on this together. I'm inviting you to join me for an absolutely free workshop, 100 percent free, that will be focused on helping you develop skimming and scanning skills so that you can conquer the reading section of the CELPIP once and for all.

We're going to have a live training session with practical hands on practice, as well as a mini three day skill sprint where we will work together to build a simple outline of the kinds of texts you may encounter on the exam. Those simple outlines will help you to know where you can find key ideas the questions may ask you for on the exam.

If you're interested in this, our first session will be Wednesday, April the 3rd at 7pm Pacific Standard Time. To register, it's totally free. Just go to www.celpipsuccess.com/skimworkshop. That's www.celpipsuccess.com/skimworkshop. I hope I'll see you there. And thank you so much for listening to today's episode.

I will see you again next Tuesday. Bye bye.