How to improve your everyday conversations in 20 minutes a day (really)

- Hi there and welcome to Speak English with Christina,

where you'll learn American culture

and business know-how to become confident in English.

You've been learning all about

how to boost your conversation skills in English

and by now, you're surely thinking,

"Wow, I really wanna do this, but I just don't have time."

You know, every time we open registrations for a course,

I take the time after we close registrations

to ask people, "Hey, why didn't you join?",

so that I can better understand what's stopping you

from taking the next logical step in your path to fluency

and help you destroy that barrier.

And do you know what 85% of the people say?

"I don't have time" or some variation of that;

"I'm too busy"

or "I wasn't sure that I would have time", etc.

Last Friday, I showed you a complete lesson

from the Successful Small Talk Course

and how it leads you, step-by-step,

to the next thing that you immediately need

to make more fluent, more confident conversations,

to fit in better with colleagues,

and to finally feel comfortable

in social situations at work.

And when you saw how complete just one lesson was,

maybe you thought "Wow, that's great,

"but I don't have time to do 15 lessons like that."

Well, we're gonna see, actually, you do.

Let's go.

(upbeat rock music)

(upbeat jazz music)

Let's be totally honest.

I don't have time is an easy excuse.

Every single person on this planet has 24 hours in a day

or 168 hours in a week.

In a week, you'll spend around 56 hours sleeping

and around 45 hours working.

That leaves 67 hours every week for you.

I mean, sure, you have family obligations and housework,

but if you have 67 free hours and you can't find

just one or two hours total in your week

to improve your English, it's not that you don't have time.

It's that improving your English

is not so important for you.

It hurts to admit it, but that's the truth and it's okay.

I mean, only you can decide what's important for you,

but maybe this is important for you,

for your self esteem, for your career,

for the lifestyle that you wanna have,

or maybe it's essential to feel good in your job.

And that's the first step in finding time,

is realizing that something is indeed important for you,

like important enough for you to modify your normal routine,

not to find time, but to take the time to do it.

For example, maybe you work in an international company

and wanna be more fluent with your English

because when you're in a conversation in English,

you often know the words,

but don't find them on the first try.

You lose your concentration, you start to sweat,

and the conversation becomes almost painful.

You feel embarrassed

and others feel like you're not playing the game.

And you feel excluded from the conversation,

like your colleagues are nice and polite enough,

but they don't invite you out for a drink or to go to lunch

and you wanna fit in like the others.

In this case, it's important to find time to improve

your small talk, so that you feel happy

and included at work.

Or maybe you have a mission coming up soon

or a job that you wanna get in the near future

and you know that your English level

and as we saw in previous lessons,

your social skills, will play a key role in your success.

Or another situation,

you have a client who seems sure to sign the contract.

After exchanging emails and phone calls,

everything seems to be on the right path,

but after a face-to-face meeting the client,

they decide, in the end,

that we need more time to think about it.

And you don't hear back from them.

In this case, it's important to know how to become

better at small talk, so you build the right connections

for your future success and you know how to create

a friendly, but professional relationship,

so the client feels like they'll like working with you.

In all of these situations,

isn't it worth the investment of time

to level up your social skills?

Sometimes you have it all; the desire, the motivation,

the right tools, even a teacher to guide you,

but you just don't see how you can find time

in your already busy schedule.

And this is another big problem

that almost all of my students have,

but once we look at their situation together,

they see that it's a lot easier than they think.

And this is true with the Successful Small Talk Course.

Like all my courses,

I designed Successful Small Talk

to be compatible with your busy schedule.

So, let me show you exactly how easy

it is to become good at small talk in English.

(upbeat jazz music)

In the course, every lesson is divided into five parts;

audio dialogue plus transcript, video lesson,

worksheet exercises, interactive practice dialogue video,

and transcript plus suggested correction.

And you can do each part in less than 20 minutes,

which means that you can do one complete lesson per week

and you even have two days off that week.

How can you organize your time?

A typical week might look like this.

Monday, listen to the audio dialogue

a few times on your way to work.

Print the transcript at work,

so you can read it later that day

and highlight any useful expressions.

Tuesday, watch the video lesson.

You don't have to do anything, just watch the video

instead of cat videos on Facebook, for example.

Wednesday is worksheet day.

Print the worksheets and do them at breakfast,

during your lunch break, or when you get home from work,

no computer required.

Thursday, isolate yourself for 20 minutes,

so you can practice speaking out loud

with the interactive practice video.

Even if you're whispering

because the kids have gone to bed, that's fine, too.

Check the suggested correction

and note any improvements that you can make.

And on Friday, it's practice again

with improvements that you noted the previous day.

And on the weekend, go back and review any parts

of the lesson over the weekend if you want

or take a well-deserved break.

You can take just 20 minutes a day and each week,

you'll complete an entire lesson.

I recommend actually putting this time in your calendar,

like an appointment with me,

to help you become better in English

and develop professionally.

For me, this is how I make sure that I do

at least some sports five days a week in my calendar.

It's in my calendar and it's like an appointment.

(upbeat jazz music)

The key is not working harder, it's working smarter.

More is not always better.

And by spending 20 minutes per day following this clear,

efficient learning path that I've created for you,

you can make more progress in a few months

than you've made in the past few years with your English.

In the end, you need less time to improve

and you improve more.

I mean, the decision to join the program seems easy

when you think of it that way.

Let me quote one Successful Small Talk student, Eva.

You met her last Tuesday.

Here's what she said about taking the time

to do the Successful Small Talk program

and how she found time to do it

because she truly saw how much it helped her.

- I realized that I remember things

from your videos very well.

And so, I told to myself, yes, that's the thing

because I can't have so much time to study,

but I want to have something what I can really use.

- Yeah, something that you watch, that you can learn it,

you can practice it, and then,

you can use it in your real life.

Yeah, not something that's so long and complicated

and maybe so in detail, that it's too much detail,

but just what you need to do well.

- Yes. - Yeah.

- Yeah, and also, that really you're tips

and your study materials are closer to home,

very interesting, even amusing for me.

It made me a lot of fun to prepare for the lessons.

- Oh, great.

Oh, yeah. - I didn't have so much time.

The topics were simply amusing,

so I didn't force myself to study.

- Okay, oh, that's nice.

Oh, that's nice, yeah.

- So I found a new zest for learning.

- Yeah, okay.

(upbeat jazz music)

You have access for life, so you can take advantage

of the special offers that we have right now,

like 40% off the future price of the course

from now until July 4th.

You get immediate access to everything,

so you can start now or later.

It's up to you.

And towards the end of 2019,

you'll also find some extra lessons

added to your course for free.

So, just to be clear, when you join today,

you'll get immediate access to all of the current lessons,

plus the updated exercises

and new lessons that we're going to start adding

at the end of the year.

And when we start adding the new modules,

the price is going to increase,

and you only have until Thursday July 4th to save 40% off

the future price, so don't miss this opportunity.

(upbeat jazz music)

Still think you need some extra motivation from a teacher?

Join the Booster Pack, which includes three months

of live conversation practice and six live group lessons

with a teacher, so you stay motivated,

you have someone to push you to progress,

and you stay with the program

to reach the results that you want.

Plus, you have the chance to ask one of my expert teachers

your specific questions, so that you're sure that you say

the right things at the right time

in your successful small talk conversations.

Previous students loved the Booster Pack

because it pushed them to complete the program

and truly become confident making conversations in English.

And you'll hear their stories later this week.

(upbeat jazz music)

So you see, even if you're super busy,

even if you can't start right now, and even if you say,

"I don't have time", it's a lot easier than you think

to take the time, just 20 minutes a day, five days per week,

to get the confidence, social skills, and vocabulary

that you need to become comfortable, feel like yourself,

and get great opportunities thanks to your English.

The link to join the course is below this video

and I'll be waiting for you

inside the Successful Small Talk Program.