Advance in English: 3 steps for your yearly review.

You wanna advance in English and you practice a lot,

but are you doing the right things to make your English as

advanced as your professional skills?

And how do you stay motivated all along that journey? Well,

today you're gonna learn how to do a yearly review of your progress in

English, so that you can work smarter, stay motivated,

and advance in English faster. Let's go. Hi, I'm your English coach,

Christina, and welcome to Business English with Christina,

where you become better at English and better at business.

Now,

you've probably already done a yearly review at your work or at your

company. You know, basically in business a yearly review.

It's the chance to, uh,

to look back at the year and to pay attention to any of your

milestones or like your, your big achievements.

And you'll also think about your current strengths, you know,

what you really do well.

And then maybe finally you'll look at the areas that you

want to improve or maybe any new skills or new habits

that you want to develop. And a yearly review. In English,

it's quite similar because what you do is look at your milestones,

your strengths, the areas that you want to improve.

But here the goal is of course, to advance your English.

So let's start by looking back at your milestones

in English from the previous year.

Now, like any good coach,

I'm here to ask you the questions so that you can find your own

answers. I don't have the answers for you,

but I can guide you to help you define them.

So here's my first question for you.

Is there anything new that you did in English this year?

And even if it's something small,

like did you manage your first client in English?

Did you start answering the phone without feeling

so afraid? Maybe you attended a,

a conversation class or a webinar or a conference in English,

but what is something that you did in English this year that maybe

you couldn't do, you know, the previous year?

And so that's another question to ask yourself to find the milestones. You know,

think back to one or two years ago,

is there anything that you can do now that you couldn't do before?

Noticing and celebrating your milestones is one of the keys to stay motivated,

because sometimes when our progress is so

progressive, like we're so in it,

that we don't see the progress and we feel like we're not progressing.

But if we look back one year or two years in the past,

we see that, you know, wow, I've, I've actually made a lot of progress.

So think about that. Maybe look back at your calendar, um,

look back at any notes that you have from, from your work,

and take the time and really explore and research

anything, you know, the progress that you've made over the past year.

Okay? So back to your, the,

the questions to help you with your yearly review in English.

So now I want you to think about your strengths in English,

and here are some questions to inspire you.

What can you already do in English at work?

And it's okay if it's something small.

It's important to create a list of the things that you can do.

And here's another question for you.

What are your strengths in English in general?

Take a minute to think about the skills that you already have in English.

Even if you, you know, maybe it's,

it's not something that's directly related to your work, but that's okay.

Maybe your grammar is good. Uh,

maybe you feel like you're pretty good at pronunciation or you

know, you remember, uh, vocabulary. Well, whatever.

But think about your strengths because that can help you just to

remember that you're not starting from zero,

and that you probably already have accomplished a lot and you can now

build on the things that you know already.

All right? Now here's where it gets interesting,

because you're going to choose some areas that you want to improve next

year. So ask yourself this.

What would you love to be able to do in English at work or in social

situations?

And it's okay if this list is like really long at first.

Right now you're just brainstorming and trying to think of anything

that comes to mind. All right,

so now you've got that maybe long list of things that you would love

to be able to do in English. Now ask yourself this question,

what one or two new skills or situations in English are

your priorities for next year? Like, what's most important to you?

Now,

don't pick too many because it's really important to focus on just one

or two things that you really want to work on at a time, you know, priority.

Um, if we go back to like the Latin roots and everything prior, like that means,

it means like one, um, you can't have five priorities.

You can't have five, number one things,

you can only have one and then maybe a secondary priority. Um,

so really focused, limited, you know,

just pick one or two to start with, um,

that are really the most important for you right now.

Now that we know all of that,

here's a bonus question for you to really take action and start

the ball rolling on this process. What is the smallest,

easiest way that you can practice that one thing in English for 10 minutes

a day? And the easier, the better. Like, if you want to, uh,

become better at, I don't know,

like running comp calls in English or running meetings in English,

leading meetings in English, uh,

maybe the first thing to start with is just the beginning of the meeting

where, you know,

in those first few minutes you're welcoming everyone into the meeting.

Try to work on that,

just that for 10 minutes every day this week.

And by, if you do that for one week by the end of the week,

I promise you will, I would,

I wanna say you'll be amazed at the progress that you may, that you make,

um, that you make or made, uh,

from Monday to Friday just by doing that one

specific thing for 10 minutes every day. Or, you know,

another very common English skill. Um, writing emails. You know,

we all write emails in English.

So let's say you want to spend less time and less, um,

difficulties, less struggles writing emails in English.

And so maybe you go over to my website and you get that free guide

of eight must have emails in English that gives you the templates

to help you to spend less time writing emails in English.

And then maybe you pick one type of email and you

try to send it, like write it better, faster,

use the template, whatever. But you try to do that once a day,

every day of the week. And then by the end of the week,

it will just feel so much easier for you. And as I always say,

if you don't use it, you lose it.

So here's one way that you can use what you learned today. Tell us in

the comments below what is the one thing,

the one new skill that you would love to work on in English this

year. Put it in the comments for a little accountability. Um,

and because I'm curious to see for you guys, uh,

what is really important for you in your English.

And if this lesson was helpful for you, I would love to know.

And there are three ways that you can tell me.

You can give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to my channel so

that you never miss my business English lessons. Okay? That's like two in one,

but that's okay. Uh,

you can go and sign up for my newsletter over on the website,

um,

so that you get invitations to the live workshops that I'm running

every month in 2023.

And you can watch this next lesson, fluent English conversation,

the Complete Lesson. All right.

Thank you so much for improving your English and yourself with business

English with Christina, and I'll see you next time.