Welcome to

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Every Thursday you will receive tips and content to help you progress personally and professionally, 1 % at a time.

People often tell me the thing they would like to improve the most is to respond as quickly in English as in their native language. So, I decided to write this to help those people, and to tell you that it is absolutely possible!

I have been reading and studying communications experts for years and you can have the benefit of their knowledge in just a few minutes.

These communication activities were designed by natives for natives (yes- natives even practise how to respond more quickly!) and they are short, simple exercises to improve imagination, agility and speed.

They will help you to think faster, synthesise your ideas faster, and respond faster.

There are no tricks, just dedicated practice, because if you follow the tips and train, you will see that it really is possible to talk about anything and respond to anything, quickly, coherently, and proficiently.

You just need to start...

TIPS

You can train generally and apply it to any situation. All of the activities below will help you train for speed. You can then apply the skills you are learning to your job or your objective.
What do you need to practise for? You can also train specifically. Is it for work? Where do you work? What do you need to respond to quickly? If you are a waiter, you need to deal with requests. If you are in a meeting, you need to answer questions. You can train for this.
Think generally and personally. When talking about the pictures/objects (see the content below) you can talk generally about what you see and then personally about what you think or how you use something. You can use this technique to talk about anything, even objects like a fridge/hoover.
How would I respond? When you are in a conversation/meeting etc. you can think: how would I respond? This allows you to practise without opening your mouth. You can also do the same when watching TV or listening to the radio.

CONTENT

https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/learning-multimedia Use the pictures and graphs here to practise responding quickly. Invent a general story about what you see (your ideas are not important, responding quickly is) and then talk about what you think personally about the image.
Use any object and try to talk about it for 60 seconds. You can start with easy objects and talk generally and personally about them, then take more difficult objects and do the same. To make it even harder increase the time too.
Interviews/conversations: Use them to invent how you would answer if you were being asked the question or responding to the comment.

A CHALLENGE

Choose a photo and/or object and try to talk about it for a minimum of 60 seconds. If you do this every day then you will soon become faster at responding in English.

(A great place to start is the 5-5-5 Progress Plan).