Day 16 - Your Netflix special

Hello, hello! Hey guys and welcome to another episode of the First Impressions Challenge. My name is Foster, you know that already, but for some reason I always say it. I suppose old habits die hard, as we say in English...

Anyways, today we are doing something a little bit differently and I think, I hope it will be very interesting to you and hopefully, it will provide a little bit of clarification and perspective also.

So for the last couple of weeks, we have talked about a lot of different strategies, techniques, tactics. A lot of different ways to help you make good first impressions in English and just some things that will make you much more confident and comfortable with your speaking. 

But today, I want to take a step back. And just a quick side note here, I think it is always a good idea to take a step back from your language studies every now and then. To really think about, “Ok, what am I doing here? Why am I doing this? What is working well? What is not going so well?” 

It is very important to reflect. And not only to reflect with language learning but essentially with everything in life. 

Anyways, what are we doing and why are we doing it? In this challenge we have practiced a lot of common questions and answers, we have created scripts and practiced scripts. But at the end of the day, what is the point? Why are we doing this? 

Obviously, this answer will be a little bit different for everyone depending on your goals and on your personal situation. But I imagine that most people want to speak English more fluently, you want to make friends with native English speakers and you probably want to have fun in the process. 

So if this is your goal, to feel really confident with your English abilities, to be able to connect with native speakers, then it is really important to see the big picture. 

And one example that really helps me think about the big picture and just clarifies why we are doing all of these crazy things is to think about the example of stand-up comedy. 

And I know that seems a little strange, but let me explain. 

So if you watch a Netflix or HBO special with a stand-up comedian, what are you watching? What do you see? You probably see a very talented individual telling jokes for more or less one hour, right? The jokes are funny, the timing is really good, it's almost perfect. The comedian knows exactly how to deliver the punchlines, exactly how to interact with the audience. 

And honestly, it almost seems effortless. It seems like the comedian is not thinking much at all, he is just on stage talking and everything works. But in reality, hours and hours of hard work and preparation were necessary to create that effortless performance. 

So let’s just stay with this example for a minute and let's start from the beginning and try to almost reverse engineer what the comedian is doing here. 

So where does a stand-up comedy special begin? It normally begins with one simple joke. A comedian thinks of a new joke. And then they start telling this joke to friends, family, maybe some colleagues. And they probably receive feedback from their friends and family and they make some changes. They think about how they can improve the joke, the storytelling, how can they make the joke funnier, how can they make the transitions more natural? 

And then what happens? They think of more jokes and they continue the same process. And eventually, they have a really big collection of jokes and stories, and they also have prepared responses depending on the audience for that particular night. 

So what is going on here? What's happening here? You might have already noticed this, but the comedian is creating a script. Exactly the same way that we are creating language scripts in this challenge. 

So they start with a simple joke (and in our case, this would be a simple question or answer) and they continue to improve this joke, repeating it, memorizing the joke, practicing it, telling it to other people. And eventually, the joke is really solid, it is automatic, they don’t even have to think about it. And then that joke combines with other jokes, then they begin to create a theme, a storyline, and with time, all of these things come together and create a one hour Netflix or HBO special. 

And that’s the amazing thing about scripts. With a script, you can make something that is really really well-prepared seem like it is more or less totally improvised. And you also have a lot of flexibility to adapt depending on the situation, to change different parts of your script depending on the circumstances. And I really really can't describe how powerful of a tool this is for your language learning. 

Ok, so going back, looking at the big picture - we want to have a Netflix special. We want to have the ability to speak without thinking, to change our speech in sophisticated and spontaneous ways. We want the capacity to react and adapt when necessary. 

And if we think about it, if we take that process step-by-step. We start with common questions. We think of a variety of answers to those questions. We practice them a lot, a lot until we are really confident in our ability to consistently reproduce these questions and answers in a natural way. And then we repeat this process in different situations, creating different questions and answers.

And with time, this transforms into something quite magical where we have the ability to have almost any conversation about any subject without thinking too much. And we can improvise without translating directly in our head. And eventually, we forget that we are performing a script, it doesn't even feel like we are giving a performance, we are just talking. Speaking fluently. Having conversations. Making friends. 

So, I think that is all I have to say for today, but I really hope this gives you a little bit of perspective. And if the example of stand-up comedy does not connect or resonate with you, feel free to choose any example. Any skill that takes time and patience to develop follows more or less the same process. So you can imagine learning a new instrument, learning a new skill at work, learning how to play a new sport. It is all more or less the same process.

And most importantly, don’t forget to think about: Why are you doing this? What are your goals? And always keep the big picture in mind. Ok, I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.