Hello Reader,

Writer and speaker John Maxwell once said,

And I've got a great frequently asked 'wrong question' to share with you today:

"How long should I practice for the CELPIP before I take it?"

And another popular one:

"How long is long enough to practice my English for?"

The answer? It's not about how long you need or should be practicing. It's how frequently are you practicing?

Frequency matters FAR MORE than how long you practice.

Today, instead of thinking, how much time should I devout to my English or CELPIP practice, I want to encourage you to think differently.

Here's why: when you ask 'how long should I practice?' you're setting yourself up for failure.

You'll think: I need to spend hours to practice effectively.

I promise you'll hear yourself say these exact words every single time: "But I don't have hours."

"I don't even have minutes today."

"Maybe tomorrow will work better."

Tomorrow arrives, and you ask yourself the same question: "How long should I practice today?"

And your answer will be similar to yesterday's.

"I had to stay late at work today. I'm too tired to spend another hour working on my English when I get home. I'll wait until tomorrow."

Tomorrow comes. It's Saturday. For sure you can spend an hour studying today, right?

Let's be generous. Let's say you actually beat the odds and actually do study for an hour. (Congratulations!)

But Now, You've Set A Trap For Yourself!

Would you like to know what it is?

You studied for an hour. ON SATURDAY!

That means the rest of the weekend is yours. Do whatever you want!

You've been working hard all week, which is totally true + you studied a whole hour today. (Also totally true!)

You've earned a break!

And the weekend goes by, and the only English or CELPIP practice you gave yourself was that hour on Saturday.

Bing! It's Monday!

Your crazy busy week begins, and once again you're faced with trying to wrestle hour long practice times out of your already jam packed schedule.

Most don't.

Unfortunately, the odds are not in your favour.

There are too many other priorities competing for that hour of time.

Then you think, well, what if I start taking classes?

Surely that will change everything!

Welcome to The English Class Trap.

Maybe you are taking English or CELPIP prep classes.

Those classes are usually an hour or so in length.

And often, those classes happen once or twice a week.

If you get to them, that's another hour or two of practice!

Let me translate what that likely means to your brain:

"I'm good. I did my part. I worked on my English skills this week!" Right?

The Answer:

Yes. You've done what you need to do if you want your English and CELPIP scores to get better - sometime over the next few years.

YEARS!!??

Eww.

Yep, years. The best way to make this whole thing take years longer is to box your English practice into hour long blocks that you do only sometimes. Or worse: one or two hour practice times a week in a class - and that be all you do. This is worse because you're paying with time AND money!

The solution?

Start asking the right question!
​How often can I practice today?

Think in frequency, not duration of practice.

Like this 👇:

Don't aim for massive hour or longer practice times. Instead, aim for small mini practice times that happen multiple times during your day.

How long?

As little as 2 minutes a session is a great start!

The goal? Just get started!

As you get used to putting in 2 minute reps multiple times during your day, you'll be able to start increasing that time.

And no, this is not a clever way to sneak into doing hour long practices.

But it is a clever way to get you out of the traps I shared above!

Little practice sessions scattered multiple times through your day matter. They stack up like lego blocks.

And when your practice times are small like these ones, you'll have a way better chance of actually doing them.

***

📧 Over to you! Will you take the challenge and start with 2 minute practice sessions MULTIPLE times a day? Hit reply and let me know what you will do. I read every message, and will send you a reply to cheer you on!

Thank you for reading! Have a great week!

Aaron