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Your Relationship With English In Four Stages

My community of English learners is really something. This group of inspiring individuals – who are there for each other, sharing challenges and amazing wins – is something I’m grateful to be a part of. I was particularly touched by my student Valentina Moraca’s words. Valentina reflected on her English journey and the different turns it has taken, and I think anyone learning or practicing English can take something from her reflection.

“The truth is, the way I view English and my relationship with English has evolved over the years,” she says. “For a really long time it was bittersweet. Then I found Hadar and ?? You know what I mean! ❤️ The main win that I got with this program, in fact, went deeper than pronunciation and fluency, because it showed me how to stop fearing English and create A NEW WAY to approach it. Thanks to that, the transition between one phase to another was so incredible and unexpected that I still don’t believe it!”

Looking back on her personal development, she identified four phases to the relationship between non native speakers and English. Here is what she shared with us:

Phase 1: The Non-existent Relationship

When you literally don’t care what your English level is, because this doesn’t impact your life at all.

Fun fact: You can keep singing songs by making up the lyrics because nobody seems to notice or care, and you seem in tune, so… why not?! XD / I don’t know about you guys, but in my family, we were good at it. Ask my father! 

Phase 2: The Troubled Relationship

When you get to a point where your judgment about your ‘level’ and how you sound affects your happiness, controls your opportunities and relationships, and has power over your self-worth. No matter how much you rationally value yourself, you may risk questioning who you are and what you can achieve in your life. What’s the main problem here? You put the focus on the wrong purpose: a ‘score’ and judgment.

Fun fact: You have always studied English by completely ignoring how to really approach it.
When I started this course I asked myself: If English is not a phonetic language, why do they always teach it in school without explaining or mentioning the importance of pronunciation?
The few times I tried to imitate the melody of English – without any knowledge of the facts – some friends told me: “Come on, what is that?” “Could you speak ‘normally’?” So, I kept talking in English with an Italian accent to not ‘overdo it’ – and it’s tooootally my bad ?

Phase 3: The Blast (Hadar’s program)

When you realize that something needs to change: you want to feel better, clearer, confident. You have dreams and plans, you want to take a career leap and you want to be effective, even with using another language that is not yours from birth.

Out of the blue, you realize how messed up the process makes you feel, but you allow yourself to flow in deep – exactly to the extent that you need it. This is a healing phase, to relearn that your self-worth is not related to your English level or to any ‘level’. Because as long as you evaluate yourself only on the basis of the results, you’ll never be satisfied and serene. (This is true for life in general, but you need time to process it).

Thanks to Hadar’s sensitive and visionary approach and her team that supports it, and thanks to all the community stories, you understand that the voice that judges you is your own mind evaluating every ‘possible’ scenario… you make the difference in the way you react to that voice. In fact, you can observe how we are the incredibly imperfect amount of all our amazing efforts, intentions, and attempts – even those that have failed. (My tons of discarded videos can speak to that!)

In the third phase, you feel that somehow you are getting to know yourself again, and you’re not worried about discovering these extra pieces of information. You can’t wait to see the progress because you understand that your essence can emerge anyway, and surprisingly, even more than you expected. (Me acting???)

Fun fact: Finally, you find someone who explains English to you like no one else before. You not only observe the language from another point of view, but you learn to approach it with fun, useful tools that work all around you and for you.

Phase 4: The empowered relationship

The final stage is hard to reach and especially hard to keep, but it’s possible and even more freeing and proactive than the previous stage. I can feel it. Let me introduce you to Number FOUR (watch this video).

What do you think? Does this resonate with you? Let Valentina and me know in the comments below if you’ve also tried to watch your English journey from the outside? What came to mind when you reflected on your journey?

If you want to be our student and have a blast with us too, join Hadar’s signature program that will change your English! Click here to join the waitlist.

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