How to increase your CELPIP speaking scores

What do a group of university photography students and the worst podcast episode I've ever listened to have in common? Surprisingly, both can teach you the fastest way to boost your CELPIP speaking score. Want to find out what they are?

Then please sit back, relax and listen to today's episode. Hi, I'm Aaron. Welcome to the CELPIP Success Podcast.

This is the podcast where motivated English learners just like you learn how to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam.

I just got out of a live coaching class where we've been reading through James Clear's book Atomic Habits and I have to say that chapter 11 was walk slowly but Never Backward is my favorite chapter so far. The five Second Summary if you want a habit to form, the number of times you perform it matters far more than how long you perform it.

In the chapter, he tells the story of a university photography professor who runs an experiment by dividing his class into two sections. Section one would be graded on how many photographs they produced in the semester. The more photos, the higher the grade.

The second group would be graded on the quality of one photograph. All they had to do is turn in one photo, but it had to be the best one. Perfection. The results were surprising.

The best quality photos came in from the ones who focused on quantity of photos created versus the highest possible quality photo. Now here's what this means for you and learning English.

Don't fall for the trap of trying to produce perfect English every single time you open your mouth and feeling like you shouldn't say anything at all because you know you're likely going to make a mistake when you speak.

Instead of helping you build your English skills, this mindset, and it's a common one, will hold you back and keep you from becoming a better English speaker. Instead, lean into using your English as many times as you can each day and each week.

You need to go after increasing the number the quantity of times you use your English each day instead of only focusing on having the highest quality responses.

Just like the photography students James Clear writes about, the ones who got better results with their photography skills were the ones who made more mistakes and took way more pictures along the way. Frequent, imperfect repetition of the skill you're trying to get better at is far more effective.

The next thing that I want to share with you is to get to the point I just listened, or rather tried to listen to a podcast that was a total complete waste of time. The title of the podcast promised me one thing. The content delivered well. Sadly, Nothing.

It took 10 minutes for them for the hosts to actually start talking kind of about the topic I had started listening for in the first place, which was LinkedIn Content Strategy. The title promised an expert interview about marketing on LinkedIn. I was kind of interested, so that's why I downloaded the episode instead.

After the 10 minutes of wasted conversation that they stuffed into the beginning of their episode, they spent the rest of their time Talking about a LinkedIn Live workshop they were putting together.

Not only did they waste 10 minutes to start talking about what I thought I wanted to hear, but they used the rest of the time to talk about stuff I wasn't even there to listen for. The expert LinkedIn marketing strategies never arrived. It was so frustrating. I wasted my time. And you know what?

I didn't even bother listening to the whole episode. I just shut it off and deleted it from my phone in great frustration. Now you might be wondering what on earth a bad podcast episode means for you.

As you are trying to get ready for the CELPIP exam first, it is absolutely vital for you to follow the instructions given in each speaking and writing task of the exam. That title, from that disastrous podcast that I was telling you about just a moment ago, promised me something.

It told me that their episode was going to be about a certain topic, but the content that was delivered was a completely other thing altogether.

It had nothing to do with the title, the content didn't follow the title's instructions, and the result was a terribly boring episode and a very disappointing one on your exam.

Not following the instructions given in the question by not writing about or talking about a key point, or including a certain detail, or talking the right or taking the right point of view or Persona in your answer will lead to lower scores. I recently saw this happen in a speaking practice session with a client.

My client was supposed to request a new job interview date from a prospective employer, but ended up using the complete wrong tone of voice, as if they were talking with someone they already knew and had a very close relationship with. But the question's instructions had told them they were talking with a potentially new employer, not someone they already knew really well.

In their response, they only mentioned they couldn't make it to the interview, and they did a great job explaining why.

But they didn't request a new date, even though the instructions had asked them to also ask if it would be possible to reschedule the interview to a new day. The result was an incomplete answer because they didn't follow the instructions.

Just like that podcast episode didn't follow the instructions of their title. They provided me with completely different things compared to what the title or in the case of the exam, what the exam instructions were asking for.

They didn't deliver what needed to be delivered. Foreign the next thing I want to offer you is to get to the point.

In both speaking and writing responses for the Celpip, you need to quickly get to the point in your answers.

There is no need for flowery introductions, for thanking whoever it is that you're writing to or talking to, for taking the time to speak with you to ask you for your opinion. There's no need for you to ask them how their day went or to say, hey, it's nice to see you again. None of that is necessary.

And even more, there's no need for you to repeat the question in your answer. If the SEL clip task has you giving your opinion about something, for example, come right out and say what you think.

Then begin offering your reasons why or why not. For example, I'm strongly in favor of banning single use plastic bags, and here's why. Do you see what I did there?

I just dove right into the answer and I told you exactly what my opinion was. And then I opened the door to explain why I thought what I thought. You just need to get right into your response.

Take the lesson from that bad podcast episode I listened to, and avoid wasting your time with needless introductions. Your Celpip score will thank you all right, it's time for today's premium content.

This is the content that is free to you for the month of September, but after September it's going to be only for those who subscribe. If you've been listening to the podcast for a few weeks, then you'll know I'm big on trying new things. I call them experiments.

I like calling them experiments because it makes me feel like the things I try out don't have to be permanent. If I don't like how the experiment works or feels, I can change it. One of my experiments is pushing me hard out of my comfort zone.

And when I say it's pushing me hard, I mean these experiments usually leave me feeling breathless with fear and and nervousness. And in case you don't know, I'm an introvert most of the time, which makes this particular experiment so dang challenging for me.

For me, being an introvert means doing things in front of other people, talking to people I don't know, and just public things in general often feels so difficult to do, and I actually prefer to avoid doing them if I can. If I'm being honest when it comes to making video content, well that is at least 10x more difficult for me.

If you're aware of my podcasting journey, you'll know that even to get my first audio only episode out and published took months of me battling with my self doubt and my self confidence and just wondering if I should even bother trying to podcast in the first place. And it was so hard. Video. Well that like I said is next level difficult for me. But that's the experiment I'm running right now.

Specifically, I'm getting on video and posting it on LinkedIn and I'll link to my latest one in my show notes today. If you want to check it out. Here of the Here are my experiment objectives. Number one I can do no more than three takes for each video.

Number two no editing allowed. Number three I can only talk for three minutes or less. Number four this is a new one for me. Two videos a week.

And the two videos a week is new for me and I'll explain that in a second. The three takes and no editing rule. What's that all about?

Well, it's to help me fight against perfectionism and second guessing myself into not actually making the video in the first place. Like if you remember back when I was just telling you about how long it took me to put the audio only version of this podcast out. Months.

Me sitting in my car recording, stopping, deleting, trying again, making mistakes, feeling frustrated and just deciding no I'm not going to publish this. No I'm not going to publish this months. I don't want that to happen again.

I need to push myself to just get out there and start trying this and making lots of mistakes. So that's what the three takes and no editing rule means.

Means I'm only allowed to try recording my idea on video three times before I have to hit publish.

And I'm not allowed to edit because if I get into the editing part I'll probably see lots of things that I don't like and I'll try to fidget with it and try to fix it and try to. You get the point? It will just end up with me wasting time and not actually pressing publish. The three minute rule.

Well, the whole idea behind that is to keep it simple. To keep it simple and to put myself into your shoes a little bit as you are also working against the clock on your CELPIP speaking tasks. Right.

And I know three minutes is not a time limit on the exam. In fact, the longest time you'll work against on the celpip is about 90 seconds for a speaking task.

And I know three minutes is not 90 seconds, but I'm trying to put a container on myself where I have to express my ideas in a certain length of time. And here's what I'm aiming for in my next video. One minute or less.

My first video about three weeks ago, probably four weeks ago now, was 8 minutes and 40 seconds too long. My next video came in a little over two weeks ago now it was 3 minutes and 14 seconds, which isn't that bad.

The next video, just about a week ago, was 2 minutes and 6 seconds. Woohoo. I'm getting better. And the one I linked to above, the one that I posted just a few days ago was 1 minute and 43 seconds.

Are you hearing any trends there? My posting frequency went up, I'm putting my video making reps in, my speaking times are starting to go down, which is one of my objectives.

And maybe you're wondering, well, why are you doing this two times a week? And if you're not, well, I'm just going to tell you anyway because I've thought long and hard about this.

I am posting two times a week, or at least trying to because I want to get more reps in. I'm not trying to go viral or to get LinkedIn famous and me just saying that sounds, well, foolish and silly to me. But that's not my goal.

I don't care if anybody sees this, I mean, I hope a few of you do. But more than anything, my goal is to get on camera to do something that's well outside of my comfort zone.

And I want to start building relationships with the people who are interested in the things that I'm posting about. I want them to be able to associate a face, a person, a personality with the text based posts that are so prevalent on LinkedIn.

And I'm also trying to model the way a little bit because the more you practice a habit or a skill that you want to improve, the better you become at it. So I'm trying to show this to you because I talk about it a lot on this podcast and in my emails.

I talk a lot about the need to be putting in lots of practice getting out there and using your English, even if it's not perfect. The important thing is to get out there and use it frequently. And as you do, that's how your skills get better. Now here's the takeaway for you.

Do you want your speaking skills to improve? Of course you do. That's why you're listening to this podcast, I imagine.

Well, then, if you want your skills to improve, you need to focus on putting more reps in. And what I mean by reps is more opportunities that you're taking each day to use your English. It's not about how long you speak for.

The real question is how often are you doing it? Each day, period. That's it for today's premium version of the podcast and the podcast in general.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope that you'll come back again in two weeks. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.