Improvisation

We’ve done the variation exercise.

The forward exercise.

Now we’re going to do improvisation.

Remember I told you improvisation means that you speak without thinking.

This is very important.

If you want to get used to that feeling of speaking freely in conversation without feeling like where are my words I can’t find my words.

Well you probably can’t find your words because you’re not used to finding them in conversation.

And it’s as simple as that.

You have to do something in order to be good at it.

So in the improvisation exercise you need to speak continuously cannot right this one speak continuously.

Write down a word and then whatever that reminds you of.

Start talking about it and then go and go for about a minute maybe two minutes if you can just talk.

Doesn’t have to be perfect.

It’s not going to be perfect.

I’m going to do it in a moment.

It’s not going to be perfect.

I’m probably going to say some things that sound a little I don’t know silly maybe I don’t know.

I don’t know what I’m going to say it’s going to be improvisation.

OK.

So this is an extremely important exercise.

Always record it.

Pushed the record button on your phone whatever.

Just make sure it’s recorded so that you can listen back to it and see how you did.

OK.

So choose a word that has some meaning in your life.

Don’t choose a word like of or in doesn’t have much meaning inside of it.

Choose a word like wild life.

And I’m just going to start speaking.

I promise you I have not planned this OK.

And I’m going to use the first take of this.

That means I’m not going to cut this and try many many tries.

I want you to get a feeling for the real one.

This is my first attempt.

I’m only going to record this one time and I’m going to talk about wildlife.

You can do the same thing.

Use wildlife or use another word.

Choose a word like marriage or a word like literature or dentistry.

I like to use subjects because you can talk about those things and connect it to your life.

So here we go.

So when I grew up I was basically raised to know how to make things.

And that’s because I was raised in the countryside so I would often go out into the woods and I would make forts and I would make tree houses and I would like to find things in the river.

And it gave me a real appreciation for nature and for wildlife.

And I think that’s one of the reasons why I really care so much about making sure that human activities don’t have a negative effect on nature and on wildlife.

So take for example the animals in Africa which are endangered because of poaching there.

There are many people who who want for whatever reason certain things certain products that can be made from animals like elephant tusks and because there are people who will pay money for that because there are people who will buy that they then are supporting an economy where a poacher is a person who hunts or kills animals like elephants illegally will will kill an elephant to get its tusks and it’s causing these animals to be endangered.

So I think because of my my childhood in nature and studying animals watching animals and playing outside I think I have a deep appreciation and I think a lot of other people do too.

And I think that really we have to do something and take action in order to to actually protect animals especially animals and plants to be honest which are endangered.

So let’s take elephants I mean elephants are being killed very often in Africa and there are some people who actually do do things to protect them.

Sharks as well.

There are things that can be done to protect these animals.

One of the things that I think is probably good for anybody to do is donate to organizations who are actually fighting illegal poaching.

And just by donating to those organizations they can then bring on more people and get to know the maybe local culture so that they can try to have a real impact because if the elephants are gone like the rhino is gone now one of the rhino species is gone.

Then what’s the point of being alive if we don’t have animals to appreciate.

OK.

I’m going to stop there.

So that was me just going.

I didn’t have anything in mind.

I didn’t have anything planned.

Just talking and maybe I repeated myself a few times when you don’t have a clear structure when you don’t have an outline.

It tends to happen when you’re in conversation with friends.

It’s very easy to kind of repeat yourself or focus on something too much or whatever.

That’s not the point of this exercise.

The point of this exercise is for you to get used to the feeling of speaking freely without stopping so that when you need to have those conversations when you need to explain yourself you feel comfortable and confident to do so.

So try the exercise where you do variations try the forward exercise and try the improvisation exercise and for that one.

Make sure you speak.

Make sure you record so that you can listen to it again.

So to practice this.

Number one for the forward exercise.

Start with these four.

And then once you’ve done these for a few times try your own.

Write down your own four words go to five go to six then for the improv exercise.

You can try these two fake products and parenting.

OK just two topics you can use but then after that pick your own topics.

It’s not hard.

Just choose anything and talk about it for the other one.

The variation all you have to do is find a paragraph from a story find a paragraph from an article for example and make variations of that.

See how many different ways you can say it.

All right.

Good luck and I hope that these exercises help to improve your ability to think in English and also improve your speaking habits.

Good luck.