Welcome to the InFluency Podcast. I’m Hadar, and this is episode number 31. And today we’re going to talk about how to keep your English practice routine when you are in quarantine. And that’s a rhyme.

Hello, hello, my dear listeners. How are you doing? I hope you’re well. I hope you are healthy, and I hope you are starting to make sense of everything that is going on and if you’re not, then I hope you have the tools to manage the stress or fear, uncertainty, anxiety, or just boredom.

What I have for you today is a suggestion. It’s a suggestion and an invitation. Because most of the world right now is in quarantine, or social distancing themselves one way or another. And when you want to improve your English, and improving your English means engaging in a lot of conversations, but at the same time, circumstances don’t allow connection and communication with people.

If you usually meet people in your neighborhood, outside, at work, people whom you speak English to. And all of a sudden social distancing shows up and then you really lose opportunities to speak. Or things are all upside down and you work from home and maybe you have kids, and maybe your routine, your practice routine is disrupted. And you no longer have that organized daily routine that you used to have.

And the first thing that we give up on is our habits. Whether it’s working out or eating healthy, or even practicing English. So, I’m making this podcast today for you if you feel that due to the situation and the circumstances, things have happened and you are no longer practicing English as much as you would want to be practicing.

Which is kind of tricky to say because even with my most diligent students, that practice every single day for like two hours, every time I ask them, “So, did your practice? How was your practice?” “Yeah, not as much as I wanted to”. If you have found yourself saying that, then you are not alone. We all feel that it’s never enough. Let’s cut this perfectionism business and settle for what we do.

At the same time, if you don’t practice at all, then, you know, things would go back to normal and then you’d be like, “Well, there is a gap. How do I bridge it?” That’s what I’m here for. I want to offer you a way to keep your practice routine. And I want to suggest a simple, effective way to keep at it, to do the work every single day.

And even if you don’t feel massive results at the end of each day, cause I’m not going to offer you something super-intense like, “Okay, here’s a five-hour drill of the R and the TH”. You’re not going to get that from me. But what I do want to offer is a way for you to approach it differently, some motivation. And maybe a few tips that would help you get back on track if you have fallen off the wagon.

So first of all, I want to tell you that it is okay. It is okay to be less productive, and that is okay to not do the work that you usually do. But it’s not okay if you do it and then you beat yourself up or you feel horrible about it, or you feel lost and kind of like scattered, and all over the place.

And maybe having a routine, a daily routine, even if it’s just 10 minutes a day that is pushing you forward, is something that might help you deal with everything that is going on, put some order in your life. And move you forward and keeping control of something.

Obviously, we are not in control anymore and it’s nice to surrender, but still be in control of our bodies, our health, for the most part. And our English, or at least practice routine, or speaking opportunities, or speaking routine. And as I was writing my notes, I have this, um, planner that I use. And every other page there is a quote, and I usually don’t read these quotes and I was taking notes for this podcast, like what I’m going to talk about, writing some bullet points.

And then I saw the quote, and I thought it was perfect for this podcast. So, it’s a quote by Confucius, and it says, “It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop” “It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop”.

And it’s so appropriate because you can take it slowly. You can slow down. It can practice every other day. You can do a lot less than you usually do. But if you want to improve, and if English is one of your goals, then you need to actively and intentionally practice. And yes, so it doesn’t matter if you slow down and if you no longer take those conversation classes that you used to take, but do something. Okay. As long as you do not stop. Thank you, Confucius.

Now, let’s talk about the things that you can do in order to keep your practice routine during the social distancing period.

So, first thing I want to recommend is to limit it to 10-15 minutes a day. That’s not a lot, but it will get you going. It will get you into the habit of doing it every single day. It’s sustainable, it’s no big deal, and you’d be more willing to do it every single day if it were something that is manageable.

If you plan on practicing 30 minutes, an hour every day, then just the thought about it might stress you out. So why do that? Commit and be okay with practicing for 10 minutes or 15 minutes every day. And, or even every other day, it doesn’t even have to be every day. But commit to some sort of pace that you’re okay with.

And here’s the thing. Don’t go over it, like don’t go over time. Because if you plan on practicing for 15 minutes and it’s going really, really well and you find yourself practicing for an hour the next day, you would feel obligated to do the same thing.

So, I mean, of course you can practice for more than 15 minutes, but be conscious of the fact that you may start resisting it because it may feel like a burden, you know, before doing it. You know how we dread things that we don’t want to do or we think might consume too much of our time.

So I really think that 10 15 minutes a day is a great start. And then in addition to that, you can add a few conversations, or weave some conversations into your schedule, your weekly schedule. So that’s an extra of one hour or 30 minutes a week in addition to your practice routine.

And know what you’re about to do. So I highly recommend preparing the day before. So spending five minutes before you go to bed, just writing down a few things that you’re going to practice the next day. Why? Because it makes sitting down and practicing a lot easier.

Cause you know what you need to do. You don’t need to look for it, you don’t need to think about what to do. And it’s kinda like one less decision before actually sitting down doing the work. Because what happens when we want to do something, our brain starts to talk us out of it.

“I need to practice. – Yeah, but, you know…” You got to drink coffee, you’ve got to fold the laundry. There’s all these emails that you need to answer from work. There’s no time to practice, you’re tired, you didn’t get a lot of sleep. It’s okay if you don’t practice. And then you need to look for content.

Okay. One less, one less thing to think about, right? Like, if you help yourself, you prepare it, you put it on the table, it’s ready for you to get started. Put it on the table, like who is learning with notebooks anymore?

Put it on your desktop, open it over the folder, open your notes, and be prepared for doing the work. And I am talking about preparing the night before, and yes, I think that practicing or doing, you’re working on your practice routine, first thing in the morning is really the best way to start your day, and to make sure that you’re doing it.

One, because your brain is not that resistant yet. By the end of the day, your brain would be like, “No freaking way that I’m doing it”. And more urgent things come up, right? Like if you do it first thing in the morning, you still haven’t opened your email. Maybe haven’t read the news. Do it before you read the news, do it before you open your email, your phone, your messages.

Just like get your coffee or tea or your water, do your workout, if you work out in the morning, just sit down and do the work for 10-15 minutes. And if you prepared the night before, then it’s a no-brainer, it’s a lot easier to do it and to follow through.

Now, one more thing that might make it really easy on you to practice – we have actually created, especially for this time, especially for this episode, we created playlists on my YouTube channel, which are basically practice playlists.

So you have playlists of videos under 5 minutes, between 10 to 20 minutes, and over 20 minutes. So sometimes if you just want to practice your English, but you don’t know what to do, just go to my YouTube channel and look for, you know, like, one of the playlists and use it as a resource for you to practice.

You can do imitation exercises and then learn whatever it is that I’m teaching in that video, whether it’s a sound or a drill, or just like a mindset episode, you know, I love those. And then use it as an imitation exercise, or learn with it, or use it as a learning resource.

So make sure that you go to my YouTube channel to check it out. It’s “Accent’s Way English with Hadar”, and that could definitely simplify your practice routine. I try to keep it real there. I try to keep it real and concise. Sometimes I do speak a bit too much, I know. But I do try to keep it concise.

Okay, so we said 10-15 minutes. We said, prepare the night before, limit it to 10-15 minutes. Know what you’re about to practice. Do it first thing in the morning, and recognize the fact that you might not find reason in practicing right now – because of the situation, because you’re very, very stressed and worried and anxious maybe, or maybe not. Maybe there’s just a lot going on.

And I want to suggest that using English or incorporating English into your life is not like something that you do that you also do. It needs to be a part of your life, something that you do anyway no matter what. Because when we’re waiting for things to change, it means that, first of all, it’s not that important.

So it can change, and English is important because you never know what opportunities may come. With, especially with the situation now, things are going crazy, but also crazy good. A lot of stuff is happening. People are innovating, things are happening online. Maybe new opportunities arise, and you want to be ready.

And when we go back to normal, or the new normal, then you might be busy with other things. And then what does that mean? Like would you have time then to practice your English? So even if you don’t feel like it, I say, still do it. You are going to be so proud of yourself for doing it, even though it’s not that easy.

And when you keep on waiting for something to change or something to happen in order to do it, then it just really never happens, eventually. It just doesn’t happen. So make it happen. Start today, start right now. And listening to this podcast, I said that before, is not considered practice. It’s a conversation with me, but it’s not your act of practice. Active, intentional practice, that’s what we’re looking for.

And if you are missing or lacking actual conversation, and then you can say, “Hey, Hadar, I don’t go to work anymore. I don’t have my coffee talk in the morning. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s the situation”. Then I will say in response, “Hey. There’s this thing called the internet. And on the internet, you’d be surprised, you’ll find a lot of similar people in the same situation as you, or looking to improve their English and practice conversation. And here’s an opportunity to meet with them”.

Now, yeah, I know. It’s not that easy to find conversation partners, uh, or something that is worth your while and your time. So, I do have a few solutions for you. First of all, join the InFluency community on Facebook. If you haven’t joined us yet, you are truly missing out.

Because first of all, we have weekly conversation discussions, or weekly video discussions, that’s how we call it. Where I post a topic and you guys post a video talking about it. And it’s a great way to practice English, video in general. Because it forces you, it’s like the closest thing to speaking in front of someone, even if it’s just you and the camera.

Because you’re more engaged, it’s not like you speaking to yourself in the bathroom. It’s you speaking knowing that someone there is listening or will listen or will observe you, and it gets us to behave a little differently.

I’m a huge fan of practicing through videos, like using videos to practice and improve your English. And I’ve seen the results. Like I know my people in the community, and like, there are people who have gone through such massive change from the first day that they joined and today, simply by making videos and interacting with people.

And recently, we also created the speaking club. And I’m saying we, but it’s actually Vika, who is our community manager and content manager, and she’s amazing. And that’s her passion project. And it was so nice to see how it all formed up. Like at first, there were like two people, and then three people.

And then she slowly but surely got a bunch of people to join in. And now it’s 40 people each time. So they break into breakout rooms and everything is free, my friends. By the way, you just have to be an active member in the InFluency community on Facebook. So, go over there and join us.

And now we have a bunch of new moderators, so shout out to Tarushi, and Eugene, and Amr, and Larissa. You are all so awesome and so incredibly giving. And I want to thank you, take this opportunity, and Vika of course, thank you for being so incredibly amazing, and creating that safe space for people to practice and to show up in English. So that’s another way for you to keep on your speaking routine and practice routine. Just join the InFluency community and join the speaking club there.

And, of course, you have like paid options. You have different teachers. I have a bunch of coaches and teachers who can help you out with it. You have iTalki, where you can find conversation partners and teachers for reasonable prices. So that’s another thing that you can consider.

But I really think that there’s so much out there for free now, especially these times, because these are, um, unusual times. Where for some people it might be financially challenging to make that investment. But at the same time, there’s more free content out there, and more opportunities to speak, and more conversation groups than there ever has been before. So just look it up, look it up and be a part of the party, the online party, the online English party. Yay!

Okay. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you of a previous episode of mine called the Compound Effect – how small smart decisions make a huge difference. And in that episode I talked about a book that I’ve recently read that is called the Compound Effect. And how the decisions that we make, even if we don’t feel that they lead into any difference, you know, immediate difference, like we don’t see any impact or any immediate impact, but we do see the results big time in the long run.

And it talks about making decisions like, “Okay, if I practice every single day, I will, I will not feel the difference, you know, like tomorrow, but a year from today I would be at a totally different place”. But at the same time, making a decision of not doing something will also result, will also lead to negative results. Right? And that’s what we don’t want.

We want to make smart decisions. And the smart decision is to keep on your practice routine. Okay, so that’s it. I want to talk to you. And it’s hard when it’s just me and the microphone, and you’re listening to this somewhere around the world at a time that was not when I’m speaking.

So, in order for us to keep that fake conversation going, I’m inviting you to come on over to @hadar.accentsway on Instagram, and send me a DM or write a comment on the post about this episode. And tell me what are you doing to keep your practice routine, to keep on putting in the work to improve in English.

And when you hear that episode, I’m just letting you know that it’s going to be a day after my birthday. This episode is supposed to be released on April 16th, and my birthday’s on April 15th. And if you’re listening to this not on April 16th, then forget about it. Don’t do anything. It’s pointless. Just carry on, carry on with your life.

And with that, we are going to wrap up. Thank you so much for being here. And tell your friends about this podcast. Share it with people that you know, with your students, your colleagues, your friends. You don’t have to physically share it with them because you can’t really hand over a podcast. And we are social distancing ourselves. So you can just tell them about it. Okay? That would be great too. I would highly appreciate it.

And of course, rate and review the podcast if you’re listening to this on iTunes. And if you haven’t subscribed yet – oh, I’m telling you so many things to do – but if you haven’t subscribed yet, then be sure to subscribe, so you get the notifications when I release a new podcast episode.

Podcast. It’s a good word to practice pronunciation with Ah as in father, and then A as in cat. Podcast. Okay. And that’s a wrap. See you next time.