Don't be offended, okay? My smile faded as I sat down next to my wife after a long and busy day of work. What's up? I asked. Just don't be offended, okay?

Please promise me you won't be offended now. This was a puzzling way for us to start our conversation off.

And curious as to what I could possibly be offended about, I nodded and said, I won't be. What's up today? The lunch you gave me tasted really bad. The rice had a strong soya sauce flavor and the chicken was boring.

It didn't taste like anything and the poutine didn't help at all. I couldn't eat it. Oh dear. My lunch plan had totally failed.

When I packed my wife's lunch, I didn't notice that the leftover rice I had given her had soya sauce on it. And I thought that the poutine, which is a yummy combination of french fries, gravy and cheese. I know it sounds weird, but it's actually really good.

It's kind of a Canadian thing. Have you ever tried it? Anyway, I thought adding those things together would taste really good over the chicken.

After all, I thought gravy and chicken go together really well. Except when they don't. Now, I wasn't offended, but I tried to explain what I was wanting to do with the gravy and the chicken.

My wife looked at me and said, well, it didn't work this time. That was her matter of fact honest response. Oops. My lunch had failed. Today I packed my wife and son our version of a poke bowl for lunch.

It had plain rice. I checked this time to make sure that there was no soya sauce near it or on it or around it. It was just plain rice.

Then I added chicken, chopped up some apples, some cheese and some lettuce. And then I added some delicious salad dressing.

When I got back home from work, I asked a little nervously this time after my previous lunch fail, for their opinion of their lunch. Today it was delicious. Yes, my mission was accomplished.

Now I bet you're wondering what on earth poutine fails and poke bowls have to do with helping you get ready for the CELPIP exam and being able to catch and correct your own speaking mistakes. Well, glad you're wondering that, because in today's episode, that's exactly what we're going to be talking about.

Well, hello there and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly Podcast.

This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam.

I also love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people, people just like you, who are working towards becoming fluent in English so we can learn from their experiences together. Who am I?

My name is Aaron Nelson and I'm a certified Celpip trainer and I've been an English teacher for over 17 years, and I now help students prepare for the CELPIP exam through online classes.

So if you've ever wondered how you can be working to improve your speaking skills for the Celpip exam and your speaking skills in English in general, then this episode is going to be for you. Because the situation is this.

If you're not catching your speaking mistakes as you're making them, then you're going to be making them on the exam, which will mean lower scores for you. And I know you don't want that. I've got another story for you.

This week I was selected to join a beta testing program for a tool I use in my teaching business. I was so excited. I've never been a part of a beta testing program before and I was eager to get started.

But you know something that I really liked from my experience so far? The lead developer of the tool sent a video out to everyone in the beta testing group explaining the new tool and how it was supposed to work.

And he also pointed out where we'd likely find some issues. After all, the tool was in beta, meaning it wasn't perfect yet. It was still in development. But then he did something I loved even more.

He asked us for our honest feedback as we used the tool.

And then he shared his direct email with us and repeated how important it was to him and the development of the product that we share our honest feedback with him. He thanked us again and that was that. The call was over. Now we're on to testing.

All right, so have you spotted where I'm going with you in this episode? Today, I shared two different stories that happened to me this week.

The first, in case you don't remember, was my lunch fail and then lunch success story that I told you about in the opening. The second was my exciting, well, exciting for me anyway, inclusion in a beta testing program for a tool I like to use.

Did you spot what both stories had in common? Go ahead and listen again if you want. I'll wait for you. Okay.

Both of those stories hold the key or the not so secret secret sauce to catching your own mistakes as you prepare for the speaking section of the Celpip exam. What is it? Feedback. Both stories involved a willingness to receive feedback. One was offered to me while the others were asked for.

In the first one, feedback was offered to me while in the second one the feedback was asked for. Did you hear that? In the first one my wife offered feedback to me on my lunch failure.

She told me exactly what didn't taste good and corrected my idea that the poutine would make the chicken taste really good. She also told me that the rice had soy sauce on it, which I hadn't noticed when I was making the lunch.

The other two stories involved seeking oat feedback, right? I asked my wife how my poke bowl tasted.

And then in the beta group example, the developer asked me asked us for honest feedback on the product he was creating. And that, my friend, is what you need to be doing to spot and fix your own mistakes as you prepare for the speaking section of the celpip.

And I'm going to share two ways with you that you can be doing this. The first one might feel scary. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is going to feel scary, but it is the most effective.

The second one will likely feel weird at first, but I promise that it will help you in two very important ways. Are you ready? All right, let's begin talking about the first one, that scary one. Here it is.

You need to get out there and use your English in everyday conversations. But here's the kicker. You need to do it with a native English speaker. I know that likely sounds really scary, but I'm not finished yet.

Yes, there's more to this one. As you're talking with your native English speaker friend, I want you to say these words. Are you ready? Here they are. Say this.

I want you to tell me honestly, did that make sense? Or how about this one? Did you understand what I was trying to say? And then be quiet and listen carefully to their response.

You're asking directly for your listeners feedback, just like the lead developer is doing in that beta test group I told you about. And just like I did when I got home from work today and asked my family so how was your lunch today? I was asking directly for their honest feedback.

And in the case of the developer and the beta test group, he asked for that feedback and then gave us a way to contact him directly. And then he repeated his desire to us once more that he wanted to hear from us.

He wanted our honest opinion about what they were doing as they were putting together this product for us. And like I just said, you need to do the same thing to improve your speaking skills.

Don't be afraid to ask sympathetic native speakers for their feedback on something you were trying to express. This is scary. Like I said, it's scary. It means you're going to get honest feedback.

So make sure you pick someone you trust or think is friendly enough to share that honest feedback with you in a kind way. All right? Okay. The second way is to record yourself.

I've talked about this many times in this podcast, but one of the best ways you can spot your speaking mistakes is by recording yourself talking in English for a minute or two and then listening to it. You can use your cell phone's voice memo app to do this. Here are a few ideas to listen for, and I'm going to give you a bit of a. Of a tip here.

Or I don't know what the word is I'm looking for. You need to know this because this is what the examiners are listening for, at least some of the things that they're listening for.

The first thing that you need to listen for when you're listening to your own voice messages as you're practicing is something called listen ability. And all that means is, does my tone of voice sound like a normal human being? Does it rise and fall as I express emotion?

And by the way, that's how you sound natural, right? If your voice is going up and down as you express emotions, is yours doing that when you're listening to that recording?

Or is all you hear a monotone where your voice does not rise and fall? It sounds more like a robot? If that's what you're hearing, then you need to work a little bit on listenability.

You need to work on expressing your emotions as you're speaking. And the way to do that is to record yourself again, but focusing on expressing yourself with emotion. Right?

And another thing to be listening for that falls under that listenability lens, I guess you could call it, is, are you having long pauses or too many or between the words that you're saying? Like I said, this is part of making your. The things that you're trying to say sound like a normal person, right?

When you are speaking with a friend, probably you're using emotion and your voice is expressing that emotion by going up and down and carrying those feelings by the. With the things that you say. And probably, probably you're not having too many long pauses between your words, right?

The words flow together naturally, and that's what you're trying to listen for when you play back your message. Listen to see if you're sounding natural, normal. Okay, Onto the second thing to listen for your vocabulary and variety. Vocabulary and variety.

Listen for Your use of vocabulary words. Do you find that you're repeating the same words or phrases over and over again?

Like you have kind of pet phrases, pet words that you just keep bringing out.

If you are noticing that in your recordings, that means you need to record it again, but this time try to use different words to express the same idea. Are you able to use the right words? That's the other thing that you need to be listening for.

Are you able to use accurate words to express what you're trying to say? Or are you making mistakes like calling something something that it isn't or using words that don't exactly fit into what you're trying to say?

That's all part of using the right vocabulary. Or do you find yourself. How about this? Getting stuck.

Having the right words to express your ideas means that you have enough words to actually say what you want to say. Or if you can't say it directly, you find another way to say what you're trying to say. That's also important.

So, yeah, having the right words to express your ideas and having enough words and phrases so that you're not repeating the same ideas over and over again are very important things to be listening for. And finally, the third idea I'm going to leave you with is something called coherence. Are you expressing complete ideas?

Are they fitting together logically? Are you telling the same story all the way through?

Like, and what I mean by that is, are you fully expressing the story or are you getting distracted and going off topic? That's not being coherent. If you're starting to tell a story.

Like at the beginning of today's podcast, if I began telling you about my dinner failure when I was preparing lunch for my family, and then halfway through I stopped and I started talking about a restaurant that we went to last week that I really enjoyed. You see what I mean? I went off topic. Are you doing that when you are trying to explain an idea or to answer a question? Are you completely answering?

Are you completely telling your story or are you pulling yourself off track? That's part of being coherent when you're speaking.

And you also need to make sure that you're explaining your ideas with more than simple one word or one sentence answers or ideas. Build out your ideas and express them as completely as you can. So there you have it. Two ways you can be checking on your speaking skills.

Both are highly effective. Asking someone for direct feedback is likely scarier than the other one, but I promise you, it works like lightning.

The second option with your phone is far less Scarier, but it will feel strange to you at first.

But there's a bonus benefit to doing it when you do it, when you record yourself speaking, you're also practicing for what it's actually like on the exam. No, you're not going to be speaking into your cell phone. But remember this, you're going to be talking.

You're not going to be talking to a person on the exam. You're going to be speaking into a microphone, into a computer during the speaking section of the CELPIP exam.

And if you're not ready for that, it can be really challenging. It can throw you off. So practice by recording yourself speaking into a device, your phone.

And of course you know that I'm going to invite you to come and work with me, right?

Like, if you're thinking to yourself, boy, I don't know any friendly native English speakers that I could ask for help and feedback from, then my friend, stop right there because you are listening to one. And this month in the CELPIP Success School, we're working on developing reading skills for the celpip.

And I know, I know this episode is all about speaking skills, but guess what? The reading program I was just telling you about is not just reading. We have lots of speaking practice tied in.

It's like getting two courses for the price of one.

And when you join the four week CELPIP reading program, you'll be focusing on the most important skills you will need to succeed on the reading section of the exam. Plus, you will have unlimited one on one support with me. And when I say unlimited one on one support, that's exactly what I mean.

When you join the program, you'll get access to me so that we can work together on your reading skills as well as your speaking skills. Because like I just mentioned, there is regular speaking practice built right in.

To find out more and to sign up, just go to celpipsuccess.com that's celpipsuccess.com reading and I'm going to have a link to that in my show notes today. I want to work with you to build your reading skills and your speaking skills for the celpip. Join today.

Well, my friend, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope it was helpful for you and I'm looking forward to connecting with you again next Tuesday. Bye.