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My beautiful toad

Most recently, a new video player by Maxim Dorofeev “ Where to find time? ". In the end, the author asked the audience a question about what we lack to learn English, become a hacker or self-develop in some other way. Despite the wonderful presentation of the material, after viewing there was an aftertaste of slight dissatisfaction. I realized the reason for this dissatisfaction in a couple of days.

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The fact was that Maxim at the beginning of his video cited a drawing reflecting the model of Tim Urban , which in an absolutely unscientific, but intelligible form explains the features of our brain and offers somewhat unusual, but vital ways of coexisting with personal procrastination . The main idea of ​​this model is based on the description of the mechanism of our decision-making as the interaction of the three characters living in our heads: the rational type, the monkey of momentary pleasure and the panicky monster (I won’t tell in detail, because I’m doing better than Tim Urban and Maxim Dorofeev anyway will not work - see / read the classics). 

While reviewing the video, I realized what I was missing.Maxim Dorofeev , due to oversight or personal modesty, did not reflect on this scheme the characters with whom he harmoniously supplemented and developed the model of Tim Urban in one of his speeches . In this diagram, there were absolutely no cockroaches that live in the head of every normal person! Probably everyone who tried to exercise regularly in the morning knows the feeling when, after the first days of euphoria, one morning, clear and understandable arguments come to my mind that today you can skip the lesson. If the rational type hadn’t slept in the morning, he would have said that all the arguments were given when the planning of these classes was carried out, and the “smart thoughts” that came to sleep awake were not arguments. These are cockroaches.  

But the lack of cockroaches pushed me to realize the role of another character, which helps me personally overcome the resistance of my body in the way of its forced improvement, while at the same time with minimal thought. I understand - it's a toad! And sometimes not even one! 


You are probably familiar with a certain category of successful people who can spend hours telling you how cool and cool they are to learn English with a teacher who has that mother tongue. And, of course, it is most effective to do this somewhere on the outskirts of London or Edinburgh. Or they can enthusiastically convince you of the benefits of training at elite fitness centers and the benefits of a personal trainer. To timid objection attempts, they will give valuable advice on a patronizing basis: “You quit it, old man, you can’t do this, you need to force yourself!” As a rule, it doesn’t even occur to these successful people that many of their fascinated nodding interlocutors do not follow these tips, not because they disagree with their arguments or are pathologically lazy, but because they are simply "stifled by the toad." 

So, for those who have not yet understood what kind of toad we are talking about, this article is strongly discouraged from reading further. I would advise them to better read Karen Shakhnazarov’s novel “ Courier ” (to read, rather than watch a movie). But for those who are familiar with this toad, the article may be useful. Your toad, with the right approach, can become your active assistant on the path of self-improvement. If there is a desire, there are a thousand possibilities. I tried to describe a couple of opportunities based on personal experience in this article.

One of my superiors said: “Business affairs must be done on time, and personal - immediately.” That is, whatever one may say, it’s better to do important but urgent tasks of self-development from morning to work. To have a wonderful day, Mark Twainrecommended  eating frogs. But it turned out to be useful for me in the morning to feed my toad, and not have breakfast with it.

Toad in the pool


My sporting toad-breeding began after last September in the pool, which I sometimes went on weekends, completely removed one-time subscriptions and replaced them with annual cards. At first I was upset, because at first the annual payment seemed to me significantly more expensive than one-time subscription. But then I found out that you can only buy a card for the first half of the day, and then the cost becomes commensurate with the morning subscription on weekends, but you can go every day and swim up to five hours without a time limit. Since I went to the pool all the time in the morning, I bought an annual card, hoping that as before I would go to the pool on weekends. Then I did not know that in addition to such a morning card, a sports toad is included for free. I learned about its existence on the first Monday after the purchase,when in the morning I was awakened by a croaking inside my head: "You can still have a great swim before work, at the same time you will take a shower." As a result, I swam all week, and on Sunday morning I slept like a murdered man. 

The following Monday, the first thing in the morning was the thought: “On the street is disgusting autumn weather. Penetrating wind and cold rain. Today, definitely not a hundred ... ". But this thought was interrupted by the familiar croaking: “Just do not lie. The weather is always great in the pool. ” And the first thought disappeared somewhere. Toad, like cockroaches, leads a nocturnal lifestyle. But the first "argument" came to replace the first thought: "I plowed all last week as a slave in the galleys. I need to recover. Nothing will happen if I lie down a little longer one day ... ” “What are you going to run or squat in the pool?” Lie down as you want. Just sleep. Like a dolphin, ”the toad mumbled, chewing on a second cockroach. - "And slaves in the galleys do not plow." The traditional cockroach, who wanted to say that you can work out in the evening after work, for some reason did not appear at all. 

It turned out that morning swimming has several more qualities that allow you to maintain physical fitness in accordance with the principles of lean fuel consumption.  

Firstly, all the inhabitants of my head can easily sleep while the body itself moves from side to side in an empty pool (as a rule, the whole path in the morning belongs only to me). 

Secondly, if a monkey wakes up, I do not at all prevent her from acting out as she pleases. You want a breaststroke, you want a crawl, you want to dive - there are no bans. The main thing is not to stop. Recently, a rational type bought her short flippers . Monkey delight knew no bounds. Now she thinks that she controls not a hippopotamus, but  Ichthyander . I did not persuade her.

Thirdly, often when a monkey gets tired of playing pranks, an hour of monotonous swimming allows the rational type to collect diverging thoughts and plan the next day more efficiently.

Alas, over the past time my body did not take shape like that of Valery Zhumadilov . But sometimes a happy toad reminds me that I spend the beginning of the day in the same way as one of the most influential people in the world, and this helps to increase my self-esteem. Like those two and a half hundred kilometers that I swam in six months. So at the moment, the problem of self-flagellation, due to ignoring the morning exercises, has somehow resolved by itself ...

Toad care rules


But communication with my English toad was far from so rosy. I have a long-lasting antagonistic relationship with the English language. They started with the first grade in 5th grade, which I received in the second lesson, after I had not learned the English alphabet. A poster in the English office affably said that knowing this language would help me choose one of four options for the future. In case I diligently learned English, I could become:

  1. sea ​​captain;
  2. flight attendant;
  3. Librarian
  4. English teacher.

None of the proposed options appealed to me. Moreover, at that time a significant part of the population of my country, including me, believed that in the very near future Russian would become a compulsory subject in schools in the USA and Great Britain. 

By the middle of the 9th grade, I finally realized that my brain is completely incompatible with the English language. Hanging only "three" in the second quarter threatened to poison all the New Year holidays. It was necessary to do something and I made the last attempt of retake. My teacher went to meet me. After I retold the text that we had been teaching for the fifth year, she was silent for a long time, and then said: “Sasha, of all that you have said, I understood only two words:“ oktobe ”and“ revolutionized ”. The Institute only added to me confidence in the absolute of my language inferiority.  

After graduation, my natural laziness and aversion to doing routine work made me connect with programming. Despite the catastrophic lack of Russified programs in those years, for a long time I managed to mimic an intelligent person in a rapidly anglomorphic world. And suddenly, at a certain stage, I was surprised to realize that I was reading error messages about my programs without a dictionary. I suddenly realized that not everything in life was lost, and began frantically buying self-instruction books and computer programs that promised to raise me to a whole new level. But for some reason, a new level did not come. Apparently, because every time a newly started training by the next breakthrough technique ended in the area of ​​the third lesson. True, this knowledge was enough to simulate passing the candidate minimum, but no more.Over time, the feeling of language inferiority dulled, but did not pass, from time to time for some time escalating with the purchase of another tutorial. 

The next insight happened after one of my colleagues advised me to watch Dmitry Petrov ’s course “ Polyglot. Learn English in 16 hours! »And try to work out on the recently appeared resource Lingualeo.ru . Despite the fact that the name of the course did not bode well, I forced the first lesson to look at myself and was stunned. Probably, Hugh Hoyland experienced a similar feeling when Joe-Jim showed him the first star. I realized that the impossible is possible.



The lessons of Dmitry Petrov proved to the rational type that knowing only seven pronouns and ten verbs allows you to express your thoughts using five hundred affirmative, interrogative and negative phrases. And this is after the first lesson! The knowledge of several principles eliminates the need to know many facts. It was an unconditional victory of logic over defective memory. At the same time, my monkey also did not stay in the loser. On the one hand, she received a lot of toys, on the other hand, LinguaLeo Translatorallowed to create a personal vocabulary for training based on any texts found on the Web. It turned out that time wastage can be turned into acquisitions. This confidence was strengthened by my new colleague, who from scratch raised English to free reading, starting simply by studying the dictionary on the way to work (he studied German at school). I used to be sure that such people only appear in films. The road to work and back turned into school lessons. The calculation was primitively simple: if you learn 10 words every day, in a year you can enter the vocabulary of hard workers from New York. I supplemented the study of words from the individual LingvoLeo dictionary with Dmitry Petrov simulators . I will not say that I became a diligent student, but after some time I began to pay attention to hh.ru vacancies, in which a prerequisite was knowledge of the English language. So I got an English toad. This toad, without any squeamishness, began to eat most of those cockroaches, which, on the way to work and back vying, advised me to relax, find out the latest news or watch YouTube. Although the toad sometimes didn’t mind YouTube, where there was hope and hearing for a lot of videos that didn’t tire even the monkey: from a simple listing of irregular verbs to boring video tutorials for beginners. And soon the imagination began to draw a huge increase in my income in the very near future. 

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The reason for the sobering was the incident that happened to me at the Arbatskaya metro station. I found myself there, "in full parade" was returning home after a meeting in one of the ministries, feeling like Bill Gates after the meetingwith the Lord God. Apparently, noticing a faint glow above my head, in the center of the room a man rushed towards me, waving a guidebook, like a white flag. Although we were about the same height, I condescendingly looked down at him, preparing to accept surrender. "Excuse me! - said the person, absolutely confident in receiving an answer - Do you speak English? ” Probably Icarus, after falling, hit less painfully. Despite the fact that I was absolutely not at a loss with the translation of the question, the shell-shocked consciousness could give out only one answer: “No”. Probably, my interlocutor was educated in one of the Jesuit schools in Europe, because, slightly surprised, he continued the torture: “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”, To which he received the same answer from the red partisan. Red as boiled cancer, literally.The last question of the inquisitor was apparently asked with the goal of finally finishing me: “Parlez-vous français?” However, my ancestors defeated Europe for centuries not because they were polyglot. Letting go of the foreigner with the detailed instructions, I thought hard. It was necessary to do something. After this incident, the idea that a person who does not know "modern Latin" cannot consider himself educated, firmly stuck in his head and did not allow him to sleep.

Innovative execution


And I decided to take drastic measures. I decided to learn English "for real." To do this, I organized a family council, which was attended by me, my toad and my wife. A smart woman was against, but left the right to make a decision for me. Reluctantly, the toad and I decided to go broke on an annual subscription in one of the central Moscow offices of EF Education First. Even the toad understood that as a result of a year of communication with native English speakers, even a dumb woman would begin to speak. At that time, I was still an inexperienced toad frogman and did not suspect that with such care my toad could not only eat cockroaches, but also could actively interfere with the achievement of educational goals. The EF curriculum was designed to awaken the learner's abilities through active immersion in the language environment. Grammar rules should have been unobtrusively mastered along the way, as the learner's level grew. However, an innovative technique, successfully tested on millions of students, in my case, gave a predictable failure. The matter turned out to be primarily in me. Classes that were not built according to the usual scheme seemed to me to be some kind of "toy." Everything was clear. It seemed that the notorious ease of understanding these stubbornly remained strangers was about to come,sounds. But lightness did not come, and over time there was an obsessive feeling that my classes on the way to work gave me great growth dynamics (I threw these classes away since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.and over time, I got an obsessive feeling that my classes on the way to work gave me great growth dynamics (I threw these classes away, since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.and over time, I got an obsessive feeling that my classes on the way to work gave me great growth dynamics (I threw these classes away, since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.that my classes on the way to work gave me great growth dynamics (I threw these classes away, since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.that my classes on the way to work gave me great growth dynamics (I threw these classes away, since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.since I started to study “for real”). In addition, at each lesson, the toad began to croak, so that they say, I’m a kind of toad, I finally began to study, and was not distracted by anything I got. Panic croaking was heard louder and louder, but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences.but this did not contribute to the ease of perception of new idioms. In addition, despite the flexible approach to planning class schedules, with rare exceptions, I was not able to attend not only 100%, but even 70% of full-time classes in the school week. This was facilitated by the permanent rush, in which my main labor activity took place. This situation intensified the toad's panic even more, with obvious consequences. 

In general, this life stage did not end with the results that we, with my hoarse toad, expected from him. I learned, with a high degree of probability, to guess the place of residence of my teachers by their accent, removed the fear of lively communication and gained the skills to meet the basic needs of a person in an English-speaking environment with the uncompromising  nature of Ellochka Schukina . In addition, this experience allowed me to clarify several, perhaps obvious, conclusions. 

The first conclusion was that it turned out for me there is not much difference between full-time classes or on-line classes. Secondly, I realized that an easy immersion in the tongue, in between, is not my way. Gotta plow. And the quality of the result depends on the regularity of classes. Thirdly, I was convinced that spoken English must still be learned with native speakers. Since not only native speakers took part in the training, but also my compatriots who spoke perfect English, I got the opportunity to make sure that the carriers understood my clumsy babble, which my fellow citizens passed to. So, probably, we understand the babble of small children and rejoice for them that they "have already begun to talk." I also made sure that my income level and my toad would not allow me to continue studying with native English speakers. As time has shown, in the last conclusion I was mistaken.

Toad discoveries 


Who knows how, does; whoever does not teach others; and whoever does not know how to do this, teaches teachers.
Lawrence Johnston Peter


As it turned out, the list of training programs that you can offer at the Russian office of EF is not a complete list of the proposals of this international company. For example, I have never been offered the Classic curriculum, which is available to most of the world's population. 

However, for some reason, it is difficult to find this educational program in the territory of the Russian Federation for reasons unknown to me. Proxies deploy your requests to completely different offers.

Source (data on the screenshot as of 04/07/2020)

However, what a savvy Russian man can not do, eaten up by his own toad and disinterested desire for knowledge! It turns out that becoming a member of this program is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. And without leaving home. 

Warning for the brave: a credit card is tied to an account, money is withdrawn without SMS confirmation. 
At the beginning of April 2020, under the Classic program, the following subscription conditions were offered:
When registering, $ 1 is deducted from the card. That is how much a seven-day trial period costs, in which you get 15 group lessons. A group lesson is conducted by a live native English speaker in a video conference format. Classes are held on specific topics that change every day. The duration of the lesson is 1 hour. During the first 40-50 minutes, the lesson is taught by the teacher according to the approved program. The remaining time you can spend talking with students in this lesson. No prior appointment is required. Group classes begin every half hour (48 times a day) and the service automatically forms groups of students and distributes teachers in real time. Group work topics change every day. These topics also depend on the level at which the student is and on the chosen specialization of the curriculum (general English, business, production, travel, preparation for TOEFL /TOEIC ). In addition to group classes, already within the trial period you get access to EF on-line resources, which include interactive training courses in the above areas, assessment tests, a grammar laboratory and other distance learning tools.

After the trial period has passed, $ 69 begins to be withdrawn monthly (prepayment). This price already includes 30 group lessons and on-line access to EF resources. Group lessons that you have not used, burn out on the last day of the paid study period (your school month). If you don’t like it, you can opt out at any time by writing a message to the support team. Please note that if the end of the period falls on weekends or international holidays (New Year and December 25), a letter of refusal must be written in advance, as messages are not processed on weekends.

I would like to say a few words about the shortcomings and advantages of this resource. The theses below do not claim to be the ultimate truth, but reflect my personal impressions.

Among the on-line teachers of EF, you can meet residents from all over the world. The simple and fixed structure of the training allows at the initial levels of training to be a mentor to any person for whom English is their native language. Therefore, among teachers sometimes come across characters with a perceptibly low education and an undisguised desire to conduct classes with minimal effort and energy.
Another observation, apparently, is associated with an increase in interest in distance learning during the period of universal quarantine and, I hope, is not a new EF policy. Previously, before the era of caronovirus, no more than 6 students attended group classes. Recently, the number of students in one group lesson can reach nine. This increase, in my opinion, negatively affects the quality of training. The density of the survey of students in group classes decreased in direct proportion to the increase in their number.

On the other hand, during the time of communication with EF, as a person with more than 10 years of teaching experience, I drew attention to the continuous improvement of mechanisms for improving the quality of distance education. Among these mechanisms:
  • a lesson is being recorded which is stored in your account;
  • , , , ; 
  • , , , ;
  • « » — , ;
  • ;
  • , . 

In my case, the existence of such a curriculum broke my last barrier out of my head that learning English is only possible under conditions of immersion in the appropriate language environment, the creation of which for me previously seemed financially unattainable. In addition, I, as it seems to me harmoniously, supplemented this immersion with Puzzle Movies   and the news programs of Voice of America radio station . For English learners, I recommend paying attention to their learning channel . It should be noted that the materials of this channel (including the above broadcasts) were created specifically for broadcasting to non-English speakers using the main dictionary of 1,500 words. A feature of these materials is the ability to download them to your smartphone and listen to off-line "on the run" or while driving.

Between this and then


The listed "gentleman's set" allows you to fill in all previously unused "sawdust" of time and unforeseen situations, with almost complete absence of thought-fuel costs for thinking and planning. JUST DO IT. At the same time, most of the planned actions have already been “sharpened” on the monkey. Other rational types have already thought for me, and my work plan is always ready. And if a magic fairy suddenly flies up to me and gives me 20 free minutes, I always, already at the level of primitive reflexes, know how to use it depending on the place and time of day. If the fairy found me in the train, I definitely need to feed Leo or drive Dmitry Petrov's simulators. If this happened on the way from the LANIT officeto the subway or if I went to work by car, you can listen to the latest news from Voice of America. If time was given to me during the siesta , you can take the on-line EF lesson. Instead of an evening “dead end” show, you can watch a new movie or series (or even the old one) on Puzzle Movies. And if insomnia torments me - every half hour at any time of the day What game is waiting for me? Where? When ?, where several other experts together with me will try to answer the questions of the moderator and discuss these questions with me.

At the same time, my toad is strictly watching my English classes. She also reminds me that the subscription to Puzzle Movies and LingvoLeo must be renewed for the New Year or November 11, when it costs 3-4 times lower than the usual price. If I study English 5-6 times a week, the toad is asleep. When less, she wakes up angry and hungry, after which she starts cursing with dirty quacks and eating cockroaches. The closer to the time of withdrawing money from the card, the toad becomes nastier and it is better not to wake it.

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What is left over? I can’t say that today I speak English fluently and freely understand RT programs . Some who read this article may say that the author is not only greedy, but also stupid. However, I began to understand my favorite cartoons and movies without subtitles. And I am absolutely sure that I can maintain a conversation in English on any topic and find out the information I need without using gestures, pictures and methods of physical influence on the interlocutor. Of course, I understand that there are more than one year to go to the sparkling peaks. But I know for sure that I'm no longer in the foothills and the Intermediate plateau is sure to end. And I have no reason to stop.

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