We speak English 7 minutes a week (EWR Podcast)

We’ve been making videos for you for one year now. Today we are going to talk a little bit about it. As always you can read the text version of this video below. If you are not subscribed yet, please do it right now!

https://youtu.be/GDdPd14ioqc

How to work with the dialog?

  1. Listen to the dialog and read the PDF transcript. Turn on subtitles if necessary.
  2. Listen to the dialog again, repeating the questions and answers aloud (!!!).
  3. Come up with your own answers to the questions. Use PDF vocabulary if needed.
  4. Listen to the questions and answer them aloud (!!!), with a correct intonation, pronunciation and rhythm.
  5. Go back to the video from time to time and repeat the exercise.
  • Anya, how many dialogues we made for our listeners and subscribers?
  • We have made more than 80 small talks and discussed a lot of different topics in English. I can’t believe we did this! 
  • Right! It’s quite a lot! Do you enjoy what we do? Was it difficult for you to start speaking on camera?
  • Sure! I like making videos for English learners! In the beginning it was quite difficult, but I think that our dialogs are getting better and better with each new episode. What do you think?
  • That’s true! Our first videos were not so good in comparison with our latest ones. But I think it’s ok, because when you start doing something you need time to improve it. We never did it before and it was kind of a new experience for us.
  • Yeah. It turned out that it’s not easy at all to speak on camera! People really need time to get used to it!
    • Absolutely! It might seem easy, but in fact speaking on camera without stopping and making mistakes is difficult indeed. Maybe some people can do this, but they probably have a huge experience and some special abilities for that. 
  • Right! We still need a few takes to make a video. I think it’s impossible to do it at first attempt. 
  • Yeah. Speaking of growing our youtube channel, are you satisfied with the number of views and subscribers? 
  • Our youtube channel has a stable growth and people watch it. 
  • Yeah, we make educational content. I think it’s always more difficult to grow channels like this in comparison with some entertaining ones.
  • Yes! What is more important is that we get good feedback from subscribers. People like our videos and write comments. They say “thank you” and it’s so nice! 
  • Yeah! I think it’s the most important thing for any author. It makes you keep going and do it better and better. That’s awesome! Thank you very much guys for all your comments and likes! We really appreciate it!
  • Yeah thank you very much!
  • What about your English? We basically spoke English 7 minutes a week, talking to each other. What did it give you? Can you see any improvement?
  • Yes, it’s a good question. Every week we had small conversations In English during the year. And it’s interesting that even such short speaking practice improved my English quite a lot! I became more fluent, I expanded my vocabulary and my ability to think in English became stronger. Now I speak English much better than one year ago. It’s fantastic!
  • Yeah I noticed that I improved my pronunciation too. When I watch our first videos I can see the difference. That’s interesting. It’s an interesting aspect about how our brain works. If you do something even just a little on a constant basis, you will have good results in the long term.
  • Absolutely! We can’t memorise new things instantly as well as we can’t start to speak English fast. Our brain needs time for that! 
  • Right! So what kind of tips would you give to our listeners? How to work with our videos or with any other videos in English to make it effective?
  • First of all it’s important to speak out loud when you practise your speaking. I recommend listening to videos several times and repeating them.
  • Yeah it’s true. Speaking with your voice is much more effective than speaking in your head. The point is that our brain is adaptipting to the English speech this way and we learn how to react to different things in another language. As a result we improve our ability to speak.
  • Yes it’s right. Also, when we speak out loud we improve our pronunciation and intonation, which are so difficult for learners from Russia.
  • Right! The Russian language is absolutely different! 
  • So guys, listen to questions from our dialogs and try to react. You can repeat the answers from our videos or you can write your own answers using vocabulary from our lessons. Speak out loud. 
  • Yes. You can also just repeat questions and answers, but it’s important to do it openly with your voice.
  • Or you can work in pairs like we do! 
  • Yeah!
  • Each lesson includes the PDF transcript. So you can read it first and learn some new words and phrases. Also we have podcasts that you can listen to for free of charge. It might be convenient for those of you who spend a lot of time in the car and can’t watch videos.
  • Yeah of course. It’s not necessary to watch videos. You can also work with podcasts on Yandex Music or iTunes.
  • How long does it take to improve speaking? What do you think?
  • If you are organised and train your speaking skills at least once or twice a week, I think you will achieve good results in a couple of months.
  • Yeah. As you know I’ve been learning German and also practising speaking only once or twice a week. And I can see the improvement! It’s important to do something in addition and make learning a language a routine. It’s so powerful!
  • Right!
  • Guys, how do you improve your speaking skill? Share with us your experience in the comment section! It’d be awesome to hear from you!
  • Yeah! Tell us about your language experience!
  • So I think it’s enough for today. Thank you guys for watching. If you have questions please write us a comment!
  • Yeah! And don’t forget to like this video and share it with others! Thank you very much! Bye Bye!