Track Your CELPIP Prep Progress

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Foreign 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 working towards becoming fluent in English so we can learn from their experiences together. Who am I? My name is Aaron Nelson and I've been an English teacher for over 17 years.

I'm a certified Celpip trainer and I now help students prepare for the CELPIP exam through online classes. Back in episode 101 all about speed listening and how fast is too fast for learning. I'll be linking to that in my show notes today.

But back in that episode I mentioned an article I had read in Entrepreneur Magazine about how the writer used a special pre meeting report to help create more productive meetings with her and her boss. Do you remember listening to that one?

Well, those pre meeting messages that she sent to her manager before the meeting took place played a big part in helping her to move forward with her career.

In those reports she wrote about her wins or what went well that week, what she was working on that week, and one new idea or innovation that she was wanting to implement. I'll link to this episode in my show Notes today as well as the article if you'd like to check it out today. But I realized something this week.

I appreciated what that author had said so much that I spoke about it in the podcast episode I just mentioned. But as I thought about it this week, I realized that even though I had liked her strategy, I never took the time to actually start using it.

So I decided to start as I was working today on my podcast and a few things inside of the Celpip Success School.

Does that ever happen to you where you come across a great idea that you want to put to work in your life or or maybe even in your English practice or CELPIP Prep. But then you turn around a few weeks or months later and find out that you didn't actually put that new idea to work.

Or even worse, you were thinking about wanting to start studying and practicing your English, and you turn around a few weeks later only to find that you haven't actually started yet. Oh, isn't that so frustrating? I'm afraid that that happens to me more than I want to admit.

I come across so many great ideas about podcasting or ways that I could improve the way I help people inside the Celpip Success School, but it's not always easy for me to figure out how to implement those ideas. For sure, I do put a lot of those ideas to work, which is why you're listening to me right now. And this is episode 106.

I obviously heard some ideas, learned a few things about podcasting and used them or else this podcast wouldn't exist, right? The same thing with the Celpip Success School.

By God's grace and my putting into practice some of the things that I've been learning about over the years.

I've now helping students get ready for the Celpip exam inside of the website and service that I've been building, but I've got so many other things that I want to do too, but somehow they just don't get done. How about you? Do you struggle with that sometimes? Or am I the only one?

So like I said a moment ago, this week I was thinking about that Entrepreneur article and I decided to sit down and start doing it. I pulled out my pen and my planner and I made my three column list.

What went well this week, what I was working on now, and any innovative or new ideas I want to work on coming up. Here's what I learned from that valuable exercise Number one, and I think this is my favorite one.

It made invisible accomplishments visible, I discovered. And I'm not just saying this to prop myself up, but I discovered that I'm actually making a lot of progress.

A regular podcast of 106 episodes is nothing to just dismiss. A weekly newsletter and a growing bank of courses inside of the Celpip Success School are just some of the things I noticed and wrote down.

It's one thing to know in my head that I'm doing them. It's another thing altogether. When you actually write down the things you're accomplishing, they somehow become more real.

And that was really encouraging for me. Now here's what that might mean for you.

I bet that you've accomplished things with your English or your CELPIP prep this week, but have you taken the time to actually notice them or are they still invisible to you? I want to encourage you to take some time to notice them this week.

Write them down in your journal or your planner so that you can actually see with your own eyes what you're actually making happen with your English.

I hope that just like I experienced a jolt of encouragement when I saw the things that I was actually doing each week, I hope that you experience that jolt of encouragement too. When you see that you are taking risks, you are using your English in new ways that maybe you hadn't before you are making progress.

I hope that that encourages you, just like it was encouraging for me too. The second thing that I noticed was that it helped me to frame my issues or my challenges in a different way.

I have several ongoing tech challenges that I'm trying to figure out. One of them is not my fault. It's the service provider that I'm working with.

Technology isn't working the way that it should be, and it is super frustrating and it's affecting the way I interact with some of my students. I'm involved with the tech support of the company that I'm working with. But it's just been a slow resolve.

I mean, it's just been slow to try to figure out what is going wrong and how to fix it. And those ongoing issues have been starting to get me down a little bit.

But completing the first activity of writing what I did accomplish during the week went a long way in helping me to see the issue.

The challenge, the problem that I just told you about in the proper light, everything wasn't going wrong, which was what my negative self talk tends to whisper when I let it talk too much. Seeing that there were a lot of things actually going well that I've been working on helped me to turn those negative voices down.

And I kind of think that the same will happen for you if you try this out.

I also noticed that writing down something I was trying to figure out how to do for my students, but that I couldn't figure out by just thinking about it and help me to get moving again. I don't know how to put that in another way.

Writing the thing down that I was trying hard to figure out in my head helped me actually spot some steps to take. The writing it down part was what helped.

Maybe that will happen for you too, when you pull your thoughts and your problems or your challenges down from just thinking about them and actually writing them down might be what helps you to spot a way to solve what you're working on. And finally, it gave me something to work towards accomplishing on paper versus in my head.

This part is pretty much a continuation of that last point. Writing it down gave me something to work with rather than trying to remember what I needed to do.

It helped me to anchor my efforts on fixing a certain issue that I've been trying to figure out for my students. Not the technology one I was telling you about earlier. A different challenge, a kind of creative challenge.

It's kind of like a better process that I'm trying to design for my students that will make it easier for them to work through some of the courses that I have inside the CELPIP Success school. Anyway, writing this down helped me to focus my efforts. It's not 100% solved yet, but I now have a path to follow. So how about you give this a try.

Take a few minutes to write what you accomplished this week, paying careful attention to what you accomplish with your English or your Celpa prep.

Write down what you're working on right now and any innovative or new ideas you would like to try for the week that's coming and let me know how it goes. I shared a link to this article in my newsletter this week and I wanted to share it with you today.

The name of the article is called the Power of Single Tasking and it's over on Psychology Today and I'm going to be linking to that in my show notes if you would like to check it out. But here's the big idea that I really liked. Our brain can only focus on one cognitive task at a time.

Multitasking is not as productive or helpful as we might be led to think. Here's the quote that I like so much and I quote the problem with multitasking is that our brains cannot engage in two cognitive tasks at once.

Anything involving thinking. Research has shown that our minds have a cognitive bottleneck. You essentially work by iterating a see, think, move loop.

First you see stuff, the perception phase. Then you process it, think about it, and decide what to do. Cognition or central processing phase.

Finally, you do something about what you have decided, maybe by typing a sentence or grabbing an object. Alas, you your brain can only engage in one cognition phase at once.

You can monitor a waiting room while working on a report, and you can walk while thinking about a problem. But you cannot answer an email while you follow and actually understand a presentation. End quote.

Now here's how that idea might apply to you as you're working on getting ready for this helpip. When you're actually practicing writing or reading skills, don't try watching your favorite Netflix series at the same time.

You're overloading your brain and tanking the effectiveness of your study session. I've tried combining two cognitive tasks at once and well, it sucked.

And those two tasks, by the way, in case you want to know, were trying to write an email at work while listening to a presentation about something I was really interested in. It totally didn't work. My writing was slow.

I couldn't focus on the details I was trying to put into that email while I was also trying to track with the totally interesting presentation I was attempting to take in.

At the same time, it was really one thing or another and once I decided to shut the presentation off and just focus on getting that email written, it was like a literal load was lifted off of my mind. I think cognitive load is a real thing. My mind actually felt lighter and I was able to write much quicker than before.

It was pretty amazing how fast it all came together when I opted to focus. Is that something that you need to do too? The second thing that I really liked from that article was the concept of see, think and and move loop.

The article points to it. I totally believe that this should be a part of your practice for the CELPIP and your English skills in general.

For example, when you hear a new phrase or an expression in English that you like, think about what it means and how to use it and then quickly move into action. Start using it yourself. You see what I mean?

Make sure you have a really small space between each what you learn or study and then using that thing in real life. The shorter that space between learning about something and actually using it, the better.

Again, I'll share the link to that article in my show notes today. And finally, the last segment that I wanted to share with you today is all about using AI in writing.

This week I had a fascinating message and question come in from Vidish and Vidish, I hope I'm spelling or not spelling. I hope I'm saying your name correctly.

But Vidish is a listener and a recent newsletter subscriber, and he shared with me how he was using AI to help him check his writing as he was preparing for the CELPIP exam. But he said that he felt frustrated because the AI responses always seemed to be way stronger than what he was writing.

He said it made him feel low discouraged to see the difference between his writing and AI's writing. Now here's what I noticed. His email to me was written very well.

It wasn't perfect, but I understood everything that he was expressing to me, meaning he was able to effectively get his ideas across with me. His grammar mistakes were minimal and he used a variety of sentences and transitions from one idea to another.

That felt natural, like I was reading something a human had written. Like I said a moment ago, it felt natural to read.

Now when I read the response he shared with me that AI had created, I immediately noticed the difference, but not in the way you might be thinking. Yes, the response used complex words and transition words. Yes, the response was well organized and correct in its construction. But you know what?

It felt completely off. It didn't sound like Vidish and his writing voice at all. It was, well, robotic.

It might have been correct with complex words and phrases, but it did not sound natural to me, not even a little bit. And this is a big trap I want you to be aware of if you're using AI to help you practice. It can help you if you ask it for specific feedback.

But watch out, it has the potential to lead you in the wrong direction and that it could totally mute you, your writing voice and what I mean by that is your style of expressing your ideas.

And it can also bend your way of saying things into a kind of mechanical sounding response, which was what I noticed about the information that Vidish shared with me. The response that AI has created for him. And you don't want that to happen to your writing.

I've noticed this shaping when I've experimented using AI myself. While it does make some things easier, I've noticed many other things that just don't come out the way I would say or write them.

And I need to do a lot of editing to make it sound like me. The key takeaway here yes, use AI, but make sure you're not losing the way you express your ideas. AI isn't always better, Vidish. I hope that helps.

And your writing, the writing you created was really good. Don't be afraid to lean more into your style and the way of expressing your ideas. You do really well without AI telling you what to do.

You can still use it, but as I said before, don't believe everything it tells you. Okay? Would you like to have your question answered here? You totally can. You know, just head over to selpipsuccess.com and subscribe.

It's right there on my homepage. And as a bonus if you subscribe, I'll share with you a mini course around speaking task one totally free.

Just go to celpipsuccess.com the sign up form for my newsletter is right there waiting for you right on the front page. Once you subscribe, getting in touch with me to ask me a question that I'll feature here on the podcast is super easy.

Just reply to one of my welcome emails and let me know how I can help. I'll gladly feature your question here as well as my attempt to answer it. So just go to celpipsuccess.com and subscribe.

Thanks so much for listening to this week's podcast. I hope it was helpful for you and that you'll join me next Tuesday for the next edition. Have a great week. Bye.