What People Who Never Give Up Do Differently on a Plateau | 35-Minute English Podcast (B2-C1)

Claire took a pottery class on a Tuesday evening in Lyon, in French, with fourteen strangers and a teacher who talked for two hours straight. It was not a language class, which is exactly why it counted: nobody in that room was making allowances for her. One Tuesday her bowl came out of the kiln cracked along one side, she knew precisely why, and she tried to explain it. She got the past tense wrong, heard herself get it wrong, started again, got it wrong a second time, and the woman next to her finished the sentence for her. Kindly. Perfectly. It lasted four seconds and in the room nothing happened at all. She cried a little in the car, and then on Wednesday afternoon, answering emails, she calmly decided the class was not for her. She only went back because she had paid for the term. On the following Tuesday, in a bad mood, she asked for a word out loud in the middle of her own sentence for the first time, and three people gave her three different words and then argued about which was best. Her French had not changed by a single word in seven days. She was still going eleven months later. This episode is about the day after a bad conversation, and the fifteen short lines that stop a silent gap from turning into a conclusion about your level. THE 15 LINES IN THIS EPISODE - ...and 15 more, all said out loud in the episode. Every one is said slowly, repeated more than once, and then used in a real situation, so you can say it out loud with us instead of only recognizing it. The Fluency Plateau is for people who already understand English but freeze when it is time to speak. Each episode takes one exact moment where you get stuck and hands you the lines that get you past it. SPEAKING CHALLENGE What did you go around in silence this week? Say your answer out loud before you write it. #EnglishPodcast #EnglishConversation #SpeakEnglish #EnglishFluency