This is an all ears English podcast. Three ways to have your best English year in 2025.
Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
Coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. Do you want to have a great year in 2025 when it comes to your English confidence? Today we give you three ways to set yourself up for success in the coming year.
Hello, Michelle. How are you doing today? Hi, Lindsay. I'm good. How are you? I am fantastic, but I have a question to start off the day. You ready? Okay. Yes. So Michelle, what do you want to learn in 2025? 2025 is coming up in just a month, about a month.
Yeah, we are already at that time, aren't we? Is there anything you want to commit to or recommit to? I do. I have been starting to sing a little bit more, and I've been working on music with my friend a little bit and sing around a little bit, but I would like to actually commit to taking lessons, guitar lessons, or even ukulele lessons.
I actually want to commit to learning that more and feeling more confident and those instruments. I love that. We're going to check in with you next year. Okay. Okay. So good. Yes. It's so nice to start a new year and feel fresh in a sense of, Hey, I can choose what I want my life to look like. Right. Right. Exactly. What about for you? What about for you?
Yeah, for me, it's not anything specific I want to learn. It's more of a habit. So I want to start reading novels again. At some point, I stopped reading novels at night and I started reading The New York Times. I know how that is. Yeah, you know how it is, right? But that's not how I want it to be.
And so I've had some early successes already. And a little later in the episode, I'll talk about how I did it. I've mentioned it before, but I've read some great books, like the Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Enriquez. And What is the What by Dave Eggers? I've read these in the last few months. And honestly, they open another aspect of your life. You start to identify with these characters. There's a whole story that you share with the characters. It's kind of cool.
Which one was your favorite out of those two? Oh, they were both great. They were both great. They both made me cry to be honest. They're both a little sad, but you just, there's just, you build your empathy muscle, right? When you hear about these, the lives of the characters in the book and it's just another window into another life. So that's what I want to do. But habit is key, Michelle. And I think that all learning comes down to habits. They really make or break us, don't they?
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. You really do need to build a habit to get into something. And it's not always easy. I mean, that's why people struggle with New Year's resolution so much. It's not an easy thing to do. Yeah. I think when we think about next year, we think about our learning and what we want to learn, what we want to start doing, we can actually make a decision on what we want to do. And then we can just set up the right habits and norms for ourselves. We have more control than I think we think we do.
Don't you think? Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, we, I think even just acknowledging that is huge. Yes. Just realizing that you are the one in control. You are the one in control. Yes. I love that. You can set up certain circumstances to make yourself succeed or not succeed. Right. So yeah, today we're going to talk about how we can play an active role in deciding how successful will be by setting up these right habits.
Yeah, and we're going to show you the three things that we need to know when we set our goal for next year. For a lot of our listeners, guys, we know that you, many of you are at the B1 or B2 level somewhere in the intermediate range and you want to be at C1 or C2 by next year. It is possible, but it really depends on your approach, right? So much depends on, you know, every day it's like an opportunity. So we need to know how we're going to get there.
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. So we're going to talk about the steps that you can take. But, Lindsay, we want to mention something else before we get into those. Something very special. So this month, we are sponsored by Cambly. Cambly gets you speaking with a native tutor right away. And that's why we're working with them. This is a great way for you to get a native tutor immediately. It's actually amazing.
Guys, you can go over to AlderZinglish.com slash Cambly. That's AlderZinglish.com slash C-A-M-B-L-Y to get started. But we will circle back and tell you about the special deal at the end of the episode so you can get all of the details.
Right, Michelle? Love it. Love it. Okay. So how can our listeners make sure this time next year we have improved our English? So we want to get that notable difference between B1 and C1. So what are the tips? And make no mistake, Michelle, it's a big jump. Right. Going from B1 to C1 is a big jump, but 12 months is a long time.
Right? That's true. Oh my gosh. So yeah, we really want to start off on the right foot now that we have the new year coming up 100%. So we're going to give you three things that you need to understand and can do, can do today, getting started to set up the conditions to go reach that C1, C2 level by next year. So.
Tip number one is set up the conditions for success with your English. So this comes back to building a habit. Convenience is everything. I've learned a lot from my habit of starting to read in the evening, right?
So Michelle, what do we have to know, first of all, we have to know what our habits are now, right? What our TVs are, right? Right. Right. And then we need to keep an eye out for really anticipate potential pitfalls. So I mean, Lindsay, with your reading habit, what does that look like? Yeah. Okay. So speaking of potential pitfalls, right? What we mean by this, Michelle is
I knew that if I wanted to start actually reading novels, the pitfall was that my phone was sitting right next to my bed. And every time I share this on the show before, but it's important to re-emphasize. Every time I felt something, I was curious about something. I wanted to Google it.
Or I was upset about something. I wanted to go to the news to kind of, I don't know, absorb something else or like information overload or something was going on mentally. I'm not sure what I think our listeners know what I'm talking about here. It's information. I know what you're talking about. It's like an information addiction.
And so I knew my pitfall was that if I had my phone next to my bed, I was going to be on my phone. Okay. So I decided don't leave it up to willpower. Instead, leave it up to logistics. If I left my phone charging in my office, I was not going to get out of my warm bed to go get my phone and Google something.
So what did I do? I swapped and I put my book on my bedside table and now my phone is, you know, 100 steps away in my office. So I then had to buy an old clock because I could use my phone for an alarm. So what did I do here? I reflected on my pitfalls, my potential ways I might break the habit of what I want to build. I set up the conditions. I made a small purchase. These are all gestures towards getting on the right track.
Okay. Yeah. It reminds me of every once in a while, you know, if I'm snacking on something and then I don't, I, I, I'm not hungry anymore. I'm just kind of a mindlessly eating and then I'll just say that.
you know, on a high cabinet so I can't reach it because you realize you're just eating the convenience. It's in front of you. You're just something to do, right? Yeah, something to do. Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, when you give that example, Michelle, I think you could have a tiny little dish and put a certain amount of food in that dish for a snack. And then when it's done, it's done. You know what I mean? You don't have the whole bag. That would be an example of imagining the potential pitfall is that you could go back to the bag.
Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, all right. So guys, what can you do to set up your lifestyle so you will be more likely to succeed? Yeah. I mean, talking about English directly, set up your schedule a little bit differently.
Build in 15 minutes in the morning to practice. Instead of watching the news on TV, you are going to need to communicate with your family about this, get their buy in. And that's a bonus phrase for today, Michelle, buy in. What is that? It's basically get them to understand or to agree or to accept it.
Yeah. And this doesn't have to be in the morning. I like to do the important things in the morning because I feel like I can control my morning more than my evening. There's things can get a little chaotic, right? In the evening or during the day, but you decide when and you set up and you protect that time. So the TV is not going to be on because if the TV is on, it's just tempting Michelle, right? Oh, yeah. It's just too tempting.
Yeah. Yeah. I can rid of those temptations, those obstacles. I think that's really smart, just knowing ahead of time. Okay, this, this is what could happen. And I'm going to stop it before it starts. All right. I love it. So that is tip number one, Michelle, is you know, understand your habits, understand your pitfalls, and then
Use the habit, change the habit, and then use it to your advantage. If you think about good nutrition, if you eat extremely healthy for a year, it's just a habit. It's just as easy as it is to eat poorly for a year. But imagine where your health will be. Once something becomes a habit, it's either a blessing or a curse, right? Because it can help us or really hurt us. So we want to harness that power with English. I love it. What would be the second tip, Michelle? The second thing we need to understand to have success in 2025.
Okay, so we need to understand what creates confidence in English. So, I mean, and this is really about speaking experience. Yeah, I used to misunderstand what confidence really was. I kind of thought all these magical people just were granted by the confidence fairy out of the confidence dust, right? It would come down that you are going to be a confident person. Right. No, that is so wrong. That is so wrong, Michelle. What do you think?
Yeah, exactly. I it's just to me. I mean, have you ever wondered why 99% of the time a 50 year old is more confident than a teenager? Yes. Yes. It's true. Right? Of course they are because they've lived more days on the earth, right? This and so it's raw experience. So the way this applies to
English is that it doesn't mean a teenager can't be confident or a 20-year-old cannot get confident in English is about the amount of time you've spent actually speaking the language. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With anything, the more experience you have with them, the more confident you're going to be. I mean, Lindsay Confidence is not some magical thing that some of us have been blessed with and others not. Right. I mean, in some ways, I think there is some innate difference between people who are a little bit more naturally confident.
And sometimes people are confident when they shouldn't necessarily be. They're overconfident. They're confident but not prepared, right? That can happen as well. But we're not going to do that. Yeah. I mean, there is such a thing as false confidence, which is someone that might be insecure is pretending to be confident, right? You can see that sometimes they're masking something else. I'm talking about a quieter confidence.
I'm talking about a real confidence that can only be built not by mantras, right? Not by hoping or wishing or rehearsing. No, it's about doing the thing. Whatever that thing is. I mean, for you, Michelle, with your stand up comedy, what did you learn?
Yeah, about confident. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess this goes back to really any time I've performed, but you know, with standup comedy, the first time I tried it, I was, you know, scared, but I was also excited. Um, so I think, but, but so that's interesting because you could say, why did I feel confident? It was because that was not the first time I was on stage before, right? So even though I was doing something a little bit different, I had, I had the,
the past experience of not being nervous really in front of an audience or having a regular amount of nervousness of course is no one is not nervous at all. But I had at least gotten up in front of people before so I think if I never did that
that, then I would have been totally freaked out. But here I was nervous, but excited. And then when I started to do it a little bit more, you know, every time you feel a little bit more confident because you might know which jokes work, you see how the audience reacts, you play with the timing a little bit, you get rid of what may not be working. And so you do start to build that
Yeah, that's interesting what you're saying here because you're saying there are translatable skills. So even though you were a total beginner in standup comedy, you had other kinds of performance experience. And so you translated those skills. And if we realize that for our listeners, for example, if you have experience learning another language,
and maybe you're at a lower level in English, you have already have some frameworks going on, and we can keep that in mind, and that can create confidence. It's not like we're totally starting from the beginning, because we know how to learn a language. Absolutely. But if you don't feel confident when you speak right now, speak more. It's pretty simple.
Yes. Yes. Exactly. So, you know, if you feel more comfortable, try it in a low stakes environment, right? Yeah. So both in groups and one on one and just really build up that experience so that each time you're going out to speak, it doesn't feel like the first time. Yeah. And that's part of the reason we're working with Cambly this year because this month, because they do offer
the opportunity to book a lesson with a native tutor one-on-one almost immediately, 24 hours a day. It's kind of amazing. I logged in and saw just a lot of tutors available all the time. Imagine just booking a quick lesson each day, even if it is just during those 15 minutes that we talked about, maybe that is how you spend those 15 minutes in the morning. It's with a Cambly tutor. Maybe you have a Cambly on coffee. Cambly and coffee. That's so cute. I love that idea.
So guys, stay in the episode at the end. I will give you more details about the special Black Friday offer that they do have going on right now, but I do want to listeners to know about our third tip, Michelle. And what is it? This is nowhere you're starting from.
Yeah, so tell us more about this, Lindsay. Well, if we want to have our best learning year in 2025 for our English, how will we actually know by the end if it was our best year? It's by knowing where we're starting now at the beginning of 2025. What's a famous quote, Michelle, that can apply to this?
Okay, this is by Harvey McKay. And it's if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. And also, I would say, if you don't know where you're starting, you'll never get there. So we need to know where we're starting, where we need to get. And that's the way we arrive at our goal. Okay. Yeah. Right. If you're going somewhere in your car and you are just driving aimlessly, which sometimes sometimes that's okay. You're just going out for a little ride or something like that.
Right. But if you actually get something accomplished, you need to go somewhere. You have to know where it is you're going. So exactly. Exactly. So we need to evaluate our English level now from the beginning. And then we set those clear goals, right? So if you learn that you're at the B1 level, where do you want to be a year from now? Is it B2? Is it C1? Is it C2? Right. We want to write these things down and then even mark in your future calendar into November 2025 and say, here's where I'm going to be.
There's some real magic that can go into that kind of vision boarding, Michelle.
Don't you think? Right. Oh, yeah. I put out into the world what you are hoping to have done. And sometimes just writing it down or telling someone that can make all the difference. Yes, exactly. And this is another thing you can do over on Cambly as an option. They do have a speaking evaluation as a part of their program. And that's one of the things that caught my eye when I was checking out the app for our listeners. You can go right in there and evaluate your speaking level in just a few minutes. It's kind of awesome.
Awesome. All right. That is great. Yeah. Because we know for, we've talked to a lot of you guys, we know that sometimes you feel you're speaking and listening or at a different level than you're reading and writing. So you're going to get your speaking level. Okay. Good.
All right. Yeah. So time to set up those conditions for success, right, Michelle? Yeah, definitely. So guys, the black, the special Black Friday deal from Cambly. And with this deal, you can save up to 50% off of one full year of membership.
Yes. That's pretty exciting. And a couple of other things our listeners need to know. The offer ends November 29th. And you have two ways you can sign up. You can use our special code. That's one way you can get the deal. Here's the code. Everyone write this one down. It is A-E-E-B-F 2024.
Or you can go to allearsenglish.com slash Cambly to get the lowest price of the year on all plans, including Cambly private group and kids. You can save up to 50% in your market, plus new subscribers will get four free lessons. Guys, this is only happening until November 29th. All right. So we want to make sure that we get that on time. Michelle, how do you spell that? How do we spell the URL where our listeners can go?
All to all ears, English.com slash Cambly, which is C A M B L Y. All right, good. And Michelle, what's our takeaway for today? What is our takeaway?
Well, I think that it's really, we have more control over our success than we think we do, right? So we don't wanna be, we don't have to be a victim of bad habits and false beliefs. But really, just real quick, let's go over those tips one more time. Lindsey, what was the first one? Number one is set up your conditions for success. Think about what is your equivalent of what I've done with my reading habit. What is it for you with your English? Okay, that's number one. Absolutely, I love that.
Number two is understand what creates confidence. And that is raw experience of whatever you want to get confident with. It's just experience. It's not a magical fairy dust. Let's get past that myth. That's ridiculous. It's about doing the thing. And that is, in this case, we recommend going and getting a live tutor. Number three, what is it, Michelle?
is know where you're starting from. That's how you get to where you want to go, right? You have to know where you're starting and where you're going. What is your actual goal? Write it down, put it in your calendar and start to see the magic happen. All right, guys. So go to alllearsenglish.com slash Cambly offer and soon. This is the special Black Friday offer only comes around right now. It will be gone very soon. So go and grab your deal.
All right, Michelle. Well, thanks for being on with me today. And I'm excited for 2025. I think it's going to be a good year. Oh, knock on wood. Yes, I'm excited for it too. I'm very excited 2025. Sounds good. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for listening. And Lindsay, thanks for chatting about this with me today. I'm very inspired. All right, take care. Bye. All right, bye.
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