Improve your English in 7 Days - ACTION PLAN

196,085 views ・ 2021-07-14

English with Lucy


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

00:02
(upbeat music)
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- Hello, everyone, and welcome back to English With Lucy.
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Today, I'm going to talk to you
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about how you can implement a plan
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to improve your English as quickly as possible.
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These are five things that you will want to do
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every single week.
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Some of them are also daily tasks.
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I can pretty much promise you that if you follow these tips,
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you will notice a huge difference in your language skills.
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Let's get started with tip number one.
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The first tip is to create a realistic schedule
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incorporating a variety of English skills.
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Whether you write this on an Excel spreadsheet,
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or you write it beautifully on paper
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and stick it to your wall,
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try to practise at least one different language skill
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every single day, each week.
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This doesn't need to be boring.
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You can plan to watch an English movie or series.
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You can even schedule in listening to English music,
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just as long as you get into the habit
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of constantly immersing yourself in English.
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Other ideas include listening to a podcast,
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reading a newspaper.
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I really recommend the Happy News
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and the Positive News companies.
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Every quarter, they send you a newspaper
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and they've collected all of the best,
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most positive news stories.
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You could follow a recipe in English.
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You could attend a virtual conversation class.
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The possibilities are endless.
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My next tip comes,
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thanks to the sponsor of today's video, italki.
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The tip is to schedule in a weekly conversation class,
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even more frequently, if you can,
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but a weekly one is a really good place to start.
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And there has never been a better time to do this
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because italki are celebrating their 14th anniversary,
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and they have got an amazing one of a kind offer.
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You will save so much money, it's absurd.
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I actually have quite a lovely story to share
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about the magic of weekly English classes.
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I started giving one-to-one online English lessons
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to students from all around the world
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when I was at university.
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My final year of university was a really,
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really hard time for me,
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both in my personal life and in my professional life.
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And I honestly think that teaching those students
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from all across the world
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is what drew me out of that darker place.
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It was seeing them improve each week
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and pick up on new things.
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I could just see a real difference in them,
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I loved seeing them become proud of themselves
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and so confident as well.
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I just find it really funny
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because they were paying me to provide them a service,
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but they had no idea how much they were helping me too.
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So yeah, I hope that you can find a teacher
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that you really bond with.
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And italki is a great place to start to search for that.
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If you haven't heard of italki before,
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it's a huge online database of language teachers
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who give one-to-one video lessons 24 hours a day,
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seven days a week.
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So you can schedule in that class at any time you'd like.
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You can learn English and over 130 other languages
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from anywhere in the world.
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It's an incredibly affordable way of learning a language,
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much cheaper than language academies or offline tutors.
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So many people message me and ask me
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how they can meet and talk to English speakers
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because they don't have the opportunity
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to meet many in their everyday life.
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italki is a really good option
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because not only do they have qualified teachers,
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they also have community teachers
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who will practise conversation with you.
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Italki started in 2007
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and to celebrate their 14th anniversary,
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they are offering $140 worth of italki credits for free
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when you sign up.
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Just click on the link down below
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to read all of the relevant information,
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sign up and claim those coupons.
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Right, let's move on to tip number three.
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Tip number three is to use a habit tracker.
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And this is a tool that I've discovered only recently,
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only over the past few months, but oh, my word,
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it has changed my productivity
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and I think it will help you change and transform
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the way you learn a language.
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It's such a simple concept, it's a grid.
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And you use this grid to write out some habits
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that you either want to eliminate,
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or you want to do with more frequency or more consistency.
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And then as you go through each day,
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you colour in a square if you have performed
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or avoided that particular habit.
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And at the end of the month,
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you'll have a really, really nice visualisation
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of how you've progressed,
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whether you've performed really well in some areas,
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you've done your writing every day,
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but you've not practised speaking everyday, for example.
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And the really beautiful thing is achieving
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a sort of pattern when all of these different squares
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are filled in at the end of the month.
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You can find lots of templates for habit trackers online,
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or you can make on yourself as well, if you so wish.
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Just a really nice way of keeping yourself accountable.
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And also, I just find that filling in that little box
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gives me so much satisfaction.
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So it'd be great, if you can have that too,
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with your English learning journey.
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My next tip, tip number four
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is take the lead from somebody that you enjoy listening to.
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So every week I want you to schedule in dates (laughs)
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with a celebrity or somebody that has a great voice
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that you enjoy listening to,
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or you find them really interesting.
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Somebody that you aspire to be like.
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I know for a lot of people, this is Emma Watson.
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She seems to be somebody that comes up a lot.
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For me, I really enjoy listening to Stephen Fry.
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I find that when I listen to him,
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I pick up on so much vocabulary
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and I find myself mimicking him later on,
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and that's exactly what you want to achieve.
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Find somebody who speaks English
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in a way that you find inspiring and follow them around.
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Follow them on social media, search for their interviews,
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search for their podcast episodes.
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It's fine to get a little bit stalker-ish.
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I'm not condoning stalker behaviour,
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but really find everything that they have to offer.
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You'll find that they start rubbing off on you.
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Somebody rubs off on someone,
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it means that parts of them
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start transferring to you, hopefully.
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Hopefully little elements of their pronunciation,
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or you pick up on some of their vocabulary
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or in some of their mannerisms and confidence.
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I really recommend this technique,
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it's quite a pleasurable one to do.
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And if you are finding it boring,
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then you've picked the wrong person
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and you need to find somebody else.
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My last tip is incredibly important.
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It is actively take note of new vocabulary.
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You may or may not know, but I have recently released
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a series of vocabulary diaries and study planners,
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but this tip is relevant to everyone
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whether you want to purchase one or not.
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Every single day of the week,
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you need to write down the vocabulary that you're acquiring,
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because trust me,
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your brain will be a little bit like a sieve
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and you'll pick up on words and you think,
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"Yeah, I'll remember that."
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And then the next day, you absolutely won't remember it.
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It's like when you come up with a really good song
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or tune in your head and you think,
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"Oh, I'll remember that tomorrow,"
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and then you never, ever, ever think of that tune again.
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It's like me with video ideas.
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I come up with the perfect concept of a lesson for you guys.
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I don't write it down,
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and then I never ever make that video.
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I will die without making that video, that's so depressing.
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So this is why you really need to take charge
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of your vocabulary.
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So I'm talking about going through your daily life
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thinking, "Do I know that?
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Do I know that?"
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What's this in English?
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If there are any gaps in your vocabulary, write it down,
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and then when you get home,
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you can search for these words in English.
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And you will slowly start building up
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this amazing portfolio of vocabulary
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that you can refer back to and review from time to time,
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making sure you're forgetting none of it.
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Having a vocab diary and actively using that vocab diary
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was such an important part of my journey
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to fluency in my second language, which is Spanish.
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I was obsessed, I would not let a single word go.
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If you are interested in learning a little bit more
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about vocab diaries I've created,
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which is called "The English Plan,"
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then I have recently posted a video
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where I explained all about them.
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I will link that down below
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and you can go straight to the website,
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shop.englishwithlucy.co.uk where you can see all the pages
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and see everything that this book has to offer.
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They come in four colours.
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Each one is 90 days,
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and each one has a different set of idioms within it
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because each page has an idiom of the day.
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If you buy the four book bundle,
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then one of the books is free.
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At the moment, we are running
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just a two-week sale on these books.
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We don't know if we're going to release them again.
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So do hurry if you want to get your hands on them.
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Right, that's it for today's lesson.
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I really hope these tips have helped you.
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Don't forget to check out italki.
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You can click on the link in the description box down below
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to claim your 140 italki credits,
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that is in celebration of their 14th anniversary.
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I cannot believe that 2007 was 14 years ago, oh, my word.
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Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.
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I've got my Instagram,
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and I've got my website, englishwithlucy.co.uk
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where I've got really cool pronunciation tool
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that you can use to hear
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how different phonemes are pronounced
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and you can hear me saying those phonemes
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and words that contain those phonemes.
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Ee,
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no,
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ey.
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It's very cool, if I do say so myself.
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You can also check out my vlogging channel,
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where I document my life here in the English countryside
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and every single vlog is fully subtitled.
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So you can use it for listening and vocabulary practise.
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I will see you soon for another lesson. (lips smack)
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My first tip is to create a realistic schedule.
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Oops, I've mispronounced schedule, who am I?
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(object beeps)
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- [Man] Schedule.
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- This doesn't need to be boring.
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Just scheduling in a movie or a film.
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That's the same thing.
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(upbeat music)
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