Boosting your confidence

You know confidence is vital... not only for your exams, but also in your daily life. But how can you work on it? In this post you can do some research on that topic, re-watching the video from TED talks (amazing site to learn, by the way), and diving further into the materials I'll share with you here.

Do some more reading (remember you can use Lingro when reading websites):

• Building confidence and self-esteem.
• Sowing failure, reaping success: what failure can teach.

Practice with a different video at TED Ed website:

• Overcoming obstacles. You'll need to create an account to take the activities, but I feel it's worth the while. If you don't feel like it, you can just watch the video on YouTube.

And finally you can test your mindset.

Speaking with confidence!

Hello! Internet wasn't working in the teacher's room, so this comes with a little delay, but better late than never.

As seen in class, here you have the tips for the speaking exam, as well as some useful language. Maybe you've got some expressions and tips of your own, so it would be interesting if you let us know on the commentary section.

Remember that on Friday you've got the chance to volunteer and practice performing the monologue part of the sample exam. I feel it's a good opportunity for you to overcome the stage fright.

But watch out! Some of you let me know that the duration of the tasks seemed shorter than usual, and I think you're right. Although I checked the sample on the government website, it might be outdated. The monologue should last 4-5 minutes.

I hope you give it a try! See you on Friday!

The 30-day challenge

More videos! This is a short speech of Matt Cutts, an engineer working in Google, and who may give you a good idea if you're trying to stick to a new good habit.

You can simply watch the video, or if you want to make it more interesting, you can also do a fill-in-the gaps activity. So, here you have the materials:

• Fill-in-the gaps
• Script

How do you feel about his method? Have you ever tried anything similar? Will you try it? Tell us!

Success

Hi! Remember this video? We watched it some weeks ago in class, but I thought that it might be interesting posting used material in case you want to revise it again or didn't come to class that day. What do you think about that, by the way? Let me know in the comments section :)

• Video transcript with gaps
• Original transcript