How to become fluent in English | FLUENCY ASSESSMENT

117,897 views ・ 2020-03-18

Accent's Way English with Hadar


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hey, it's Hadar.
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Welcome to my channel.
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If you've been struggling with fluency and you feel that you don't know what else you
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need to do to improve, but you're still stuck, you still get stuck and you still
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work on so many different things, but you don't see the results that you want to
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see, than stick around.
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Because today I'm going to map out how I see fluency, I call it the Fluency Framework.
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What are the ingredients inside the fluency that you need to improve that
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together they will get you to where you want to be in terms of your fluency in English?
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A lot of times people come to me because they want to improve their accent, and
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they believe that that will get them into the level of fluency that they want.
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Which is true because working on your pronunciation, your intonation, all of
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that stuff that are related to spoken English is extremely valuable and
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extremely important in helping you become more fluent.
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However, it is not enough.
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Because it's not enough just to learn how to pronounce certain words.
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It's not enough just to know how to put the words together.
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So you need to know a bunch of different things in different areas to be able to
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put it all together.
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So while some things are connected, for example, working on your accent can boost
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your confidence, but it won't boost your grammar necessarily.
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It's a byproduct, but it's not like in-depth work on your grammar.
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And of course, just working on your grammar won't boost your fluency.
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So fluency is comprised of different elements where you need to be able to
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master all of them at the same level to be able to be fluent.
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Because you can be lacking in one area and then to be really good in another and
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still be fluent.
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All of them need to be kinda like on the same level.
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Now, I know it still sounds vague.
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So let me introduce you first to the Fluency Wheel.
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I based this Fluency Wheel on the life wheel where you want to observe your life
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in terms of where you are at in different aspects in your life: spirituality,
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family, relationships with friends, hobbies, work, so on and so forth.
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And then you need to kind of like rate yourself and say where do you position
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yourself, between 1 to 10 or 1 to 5.
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And then you know what areas in your life you need to work on.
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Because when everything is around the same level, it's a more complete wheel.
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And that's what we're looking for in fluency as well.
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In order for you to really get the best out of this lesson, I highly recommend for
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you to download the PDF that I prepared for you with the Fluency Wheel and a few
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questions that will help you walk through that and identify where to position
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yourself in each and every one of those areas.
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Now, the Fluency Wheel, the way I see it, has six different ingredients,
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six different areas.
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One of them is confidence.
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Okay?
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And I decided to start with that because confidence is the ability to take
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everything that you know and to put it out there without giving a damn what other
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people think about you.
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Okay.
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It's being able to speak and speak up, and giving yourself the permission to make mistakes.
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Because that is, my friend, essential if you want to improve your fluency and if
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you want to be able to communicate clearly and confidently.
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Okay?
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So, confidence and mindset is one of the elements.
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And when you look at that wheel, you want to rate yourself and say where do you
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position yourself in this area.
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Then we have accent.
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Here, it's not about sounding American or sounding British or Australian.
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It's really about being clear and understanding how the spoken language works.
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Okay?
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Because if you, you'll give yourself a 10 for everything else, but 1 when it comes
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to accent, then probably people won't understand all that
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beautiful English that you have.
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And it will affect your confidence and it will affect your
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communication skills and abilities.
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Okay.
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So this is why working on your accent is basically working on the performance of your English.
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And here we break it down into pronunciation, forming the actual sounds.
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And again, like when I teach my students, I teach them to find that place of
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conflict - only the sounds that don't exist in your language, only the sounds
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that are making you sound unclear.
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This is what you need to focus on.
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Not learning all sounds of English that's boring and redundant for some people.
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And when it comes to intonation is the same way.
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What are your tendencies that prevents you from sounding clear in English?
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Because to sound clear in English, you need to use some rules that are related to English.
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And if you rated yourself really low here, then know that I have a program called
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Accent Makeover, and we're just about to open doors for this program.
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You can find out more by clicking the link below.
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And it's my most comprehensive program to help you boost your pronunciation,
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intonation, confidence, and of course, fluency.
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Because everything that I talk about here I put to practice there.
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Just so you know, so put it in your calendar.
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Anyway, let's move on.
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That was accent.
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Then we have grammar and syntax.
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Grammar is all the rules, all the grammatical rules, all the tenses, the
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prepositions, all of that that you learn first when you learn a language.
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And syntax is how you put all the words together in a sentence.
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So, that's essential, but it's not just to know that English grammar, it's basically
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how to use correct grammar when you speak.
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Now, here I feel that it's not the output that matters so much as the experience of
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expressing yourself.
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What does that mean?
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It's not so much about whether or not you made a mistake, a grammatical mistake, but
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it's not letting grammar be an obstacle.
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So you'll know enough grammar and enough syntax to be able to communicate your
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thoughts clearly.
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To confidently structure a sentence and to know how to put it out there
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in an intelligible way.
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So it's not like, "What did he or she say?.."
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It's going to be, "Okay.
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It's clear, I get it".
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Maybe you added an S there, but it doesn't matter so much.
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It doesn't matter as much as putting it in a clear way.
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Which means that when it comes to grammar, it's less about how it should be, but more
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about where your struggles are.
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And that comes from the place of conflict between the grammar of English and the
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grammar of your native language.
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Okay?
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When you understand what are the things that exist in English but don't exist in
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your native language.
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And these are the places that you might slip, and that you might want to say
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something, but it's going to feel awkward and you'll get stuck there - that's what
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you need to resolve, okay, those issues.
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So, your understanding of the grammar conflict will help you become more fluent, okay.
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It's not about solving a bunch of questions about grammar.
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It's not about knowing how to fill in all the 'on' 'in' an 'at' in a quiz.
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It's not about the written or the output of what you know.
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It's how you think about English, and how you organize the thoughts in your head.
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Then we have active vocabulary.
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I've already shared with you my view on vocabulary, that you don't really need to
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learn a lot more words to boost your fluency.
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But you need to focus on your active vocabulary, or actually focus on your
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passive vocabulary, turning it into active vocabulary.
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What does that mean?
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Active vocabulary is basically the words that you constantly use without thinking about it.
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You retrieve them rather easily without a lot of thought: 'house', 'share', 'kids',
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okay?
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These are easy words for you to use and you don't get self-conscious about using them.
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But then there is the passive vocabulary, that is words that you know, but you don't
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really use because you're afraid of, um, using them incorrectly, or maybe you're
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not sure about the pronunciation.
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And all of that causes you to keep them stuck back there in your subconscious.
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And it's only triggered when you hear those words, but you don't use them.
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And what a shame, because you can use them, you know those words, right?
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So basically, you would rate yourself in this area based on the level of your
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active vocabulary.
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And if you feel that you're not very strong in that area, then it means that
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you need to work on turning those passive words, the words - that you know but never
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use - into active words.
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Then we have listening comprehension.
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This is the only area that is English input, intake, that you are hearing other
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people rather than speaking.
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Now, I always promote speaking and turning your passive practice into active practice.
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But improving your listening skills is also really important for your fluency.
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One, because it affects your confidence right away if you can't understand someone.
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And if you can't understand someone, you won't speak back to them.
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So you practice less, you communicate less, and you feel crappy about yourself.
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And also the more you're comfortable with what you're hearing, and you kinda like
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understand everything, you start noticing the nuances: ways that people speak,
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pronunciation, expressions.
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You're not so occupied with analyzing and understanding, so you notice the richness
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or the variety of the language.
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And that's really great because you start absorbing it, and then you can start
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executing it with the right practice.
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Lastly, it's all about your speaking time.
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You can call it practice, you can call it speaking experience, but you have to be
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actively speaking to become more fluent.
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And if you don't have a lot of opportunities to speak, if you would rate
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yourself really low here, then I would say focus on that.
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Get yourself into a lot more speaking situations - online, offline, get a
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teacher, get a friend, get a student in English and start speaking to them in
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English, but do something to boost and to enhance your speaking time.
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Because at the end of the day, that's the only way that you can put all the other
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areas into practice.
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It's all about practice and speaking.
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So you need to identify where you are positioned in each and every one of those areas.
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But at the end of the day, you need to get yourself to speak as much as possible to
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be able to put it all together into practice.
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Okay, that's it.
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Don't forget to download the PDF that we've prepared for you with the Fluency
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Wheel and a few questions that will help you understand how to position yourself in
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each and every one of those areas.
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Also, I'm inviting you to join Accent Makeover because there we will help you
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tackle each and every one of those areas.
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There is going to be a lot of practice time because we have Fluency conversation groups.
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I'm definitely going to talk about everything you need to know about the
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American accent.
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We will practice comprehension skills.
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I will talk to you about the mindset, the fluent mindset, we have a specific
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workshop for that.
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And it will boost your confidence.
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Also, I'm going to give you some grammar hacks and how to tackle your grammar studies.
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And finally, we will learn how to boost your active vocabulary.
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So, I think that this program, if you struggle with fluency, might be the
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solution for you.
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Join the wait list to find out when we open doors, cause we only open Accent
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Makeover twice or three times a year.
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It's theaccentsway.com/join.
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Now let me know in the comments below in which area you get the highest score, and
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in which area you get the lowest score.
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Okay?
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Thank you so much for watching and have a beautiful week and I'll see you in the next video.
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Bye.
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