Power Poses for Exam & Interview Success!

Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you a very, very important

secret. This secret is going to help you on your tests, such as TOEFL, IELTS, or university,

college; any English test. This secret is going to help you if you have an English job

interview. And this secret will also help you if you ever decide to ask out that special someone.

So, what is this secret I'm telling you about? Well, it is the secret of power pose. Okay.

So, first of all, what am I talking about? What is a power pose? Well, for starters,

let's look at the word "power". I've drawn this man here, and if you can tell, he has

a lot of big muscles, he looks very strong. Power is similar to strength. It's when you're

very confident, when you're strong and you feel strong.

Then we have our second word: "pose". A pose is where you hold a position, and you stand

still doing something. So, for example, this is a pose. Okay? These are poses. So, why

are we learning about power poses today? Well, a lot of the times, ESL students, students

learning English, their English level goes down because they don't have confidence. When

they feel nervous, when they feel scared, their language level goes from here, downward.

This usually happens in tests, and the reason is because... Because of fear and lack of confidence.

So, how do we stop this from happening? How do we make ourselves feel confident so we'll

do well on that test? Well, one way is by doing a power pose. Your body language, the

way you stand, the way you stand impacts how you feel, and it impacts how you will do on

your test.

I'm going to show you what I mean. Okay? Imagine I am a student and I am going to do my TOEFL

test. I go over to weak pose. Now, imagine before my test, I'm waiting to do it and I'm

sitting like this. I'm going to start feeling nervous, and a lot of it has to do with the

way I'm sitting. Notice I'm crouched over, my arms are folded, I'm looking downward.

Okay? Even doing this right now, I'm starting to feel a little bit nervous. This is called

a weak pose, and if you do something like this, your arms are crossed and you're going

small. It makes you less confident.

Whereas, if I go to do my TOEFL and I do a power pose, I'm going to be more confident.

What are power poses? They're poses where you try to be as big as possible. See how

more...? Much more confident I look now? Okay? So, notice my arms are taking up a lot of

space. I could go like this, I could go like this. The more space you take up, the more

confident you will feel.

Now, I'm not telling you that in the middle of an exam or a job interview you should stand

up and start flexing your muscles. No. What I'm saying is before your test, before your

job interview, before taking the IELTS or TOEFL, go to the bathroom. You have time before

the test, stand in front of a mirror, do these poses. They will make you sound more confident,

and they will make you feel more confident as you write your test.

While you're doing speaking, whether it's at a bar or whether, you know, in front of

a computer for TOEFL, or talking to an IELTS examiner, make sure you're not seated in a

weak position like this. Okay? If you're answering like this, your answers are not going to be

as good as they can be. You're going to be nervous, and as a result, you will not do

as well on your test.

So, my main, main focus here: be aware of your body language. By doing a power pose

before a test, you will do a lot better than if you just go to your test and sit like this.

Now, some of you might not believe what I'm saying. "Oh, Emma, this sounds wonderful,

but I don't know if it's true or not." Well, if you are interested in looking at the research

about this, you can Google Amy Cuddy. She's a very famous psychologist who has studied

body language, and she has a lot of documentaries and videos, such as TED Talks about this. Okay?

So, what is the point, again, what is the main idea of power pose? Before your test,

do power poses. Okay? So, until next time, take care and I hope to see you later.