Doing English Reviews 206

Julian's 'Extraordinary English Speakers' has given me an excellent English learning experience, but, honesty? I don't think I would have joined if it's only about learning English. I mean... I see that Julian is constantly and relentlessly trying to offer us loads of 'life hack' tips as well, for example, how best we can/should manage our time in order to help us get closer to what we really want in life through his daily email letter, hence I've got a feeling that Julian's ultimate goal in 'Doing English' is not just about giving us his massive brain regarding the English language, but also Julian envisions that he really wishes to make those who join happy, or even happier!!! :)

In a nutshell, here's what I really want to say... Don't look around and try to find something else, I have no doubt that Doing English is worth spending your precious (and perhaps limited...) time and money on because it has a magic touch that can lead you to an amazing learning experience and get you a certain result whatever you do in all walks of life!!!!! :)

MEFA is first and foremost about learning how to learn a language. The course is intended for intermediate to advanced speakers of English who feel stuck on a plateau, but all the principles taught in it can easily be transferred and applied to the learning of other languages too – which is great.

At its core, MEFA is a mentoring – coaching programme meant to help people become more aware of the goals they want to achieve through English, recondition their thinking about themselves as English speakers, create good study habits and effective routines, understand better the way the language works, and get familiar with some useful tools they can use to make a bit of research on their own (I particularly loved that part).

In addition, it includes some supplementary materials, consisting of a set of lessons crammed with conversational chunks of language you can study along the way.

As for Julian, he’s a great teacher: highly qualified, very passionate about his work and more than willing to help his students.

After 12 weeks in MEFA, if you take it seriously, you’ll be on the right track, having a clear understanding of what you need to do to continue your journey and keep growing and improving.

One of a kind! The best choice I have ever done. Julian is not only a teacher but a mental coach as well. And I’m going to continue my fruitful journey with him and his staff.

I've followed Julian's content on YouTube during a couple of years and now that I've taken the course I can tell it was a good investment. The stuff you learn in MEFA has an impact not only on your English but also on other aspects of your life. It was worth every penny.

Hi Dr. Julian Northbrook, I love your ideas sometimes it seems aggressive, but deeply sensible, thank you very much for sharing your ideas, really learning English ​​with you is totally out of your comfort zone! I wish you every success in the world!

Julian is an excellent teacher who will bend over backwards to help you become the best english speaker you can be. However its not his job to motivate the unmotivated. Even the best methods in the world won't magically turn you into fluent speaker only consistency and hard work can do "this magic". If you underestimate the weekly homework and don't study the material he sends you , he will give you some necessary "tough love" , but again , he only does it because he really cares about you being successfull.

Davide

Having spent almost three months attending Extraordinary English Speaker course I can answer now the question I'd asked myself, what's the difference between MEFA and EES?
When you finish the MEFA course you're aware of your mental barriers, bad habits when it comes to speak, understand English, and Julian helps you a lot to be free of all that crap. In EES, however, you work on your own as you got rid of most of your old bad habits, because you're practising a "healthy" way of improving your use of English in all aspects of your daily basis.
Some could argue that it's not strictly necessary to attend EES in order to achieve that goal. Maybe, that's right for some people, but I don't think it's so easy for average human beings as myself. Actually, I find interesting questions, little details that I wasn't aware of, or I'd forgotten, in every weekly Group Coaching Call.
I know that I'm on track, but I know as well that I haven't reached my goal YET.
Ask me again at the beginning or the autumn about this issue and let's see what is my answer.

Disclaimer: I am Julian’s sister (and a native English speaker). I completed MEFA last Autumn to help me with my spoken Danish after I got a new job here in Copenhagen. Whilst I needed to be a little creative on a few of the homework tasks (see below), I found the course nonetheless very relevant :).

Even though the course (obviously) didn’t teach me anything in Danish, I recently got excellent grades in the C1-level Danish exam, which I’m sure the knowledge and habits I took away from MEFA played a role in. This was far from an easy task for me, as Danish is not only a notoriously difficult language to speak, but languages in general have always been ‘difficult’ for me (the mere thought of speaking a foreign language terrified me). It’s been hard work but now I actively participate in Danish-only meetings at work, so I’m glad I put in the effort :).  

The homework tasks I changed were mostly those based on material included from Julian’s EES programme, involving English conversations. In order to get the most out of the course, I searched around for relevant material in Danish instead and wrote out my assignments with some added explanations in English (which turned out to be rather fun!). Overall, I would say MEFA is useful regardless of what language you are learning - it’s more about your attitude, habits, and doing the right things with the right materials.

The informations/comments already available describe pretty well the MEFA experience.
Julian does not teach you english. He won't give you a list of vocabulary of phrasal verbs. He is not the person who will make you more fluent.
He only teach you how to learn english differently... based on scientific evidences and on his own experience of learning japanese and teaching english.
And this is awesome !
He will give you the keys, the tips, the methods. But do not think that this is magic. At the end, it will be your willingness and your commitments to daily training that will make the difference.
Julian will guide you toward the path of fluency, but it is your efforts that will pay off over time. And you will be the person that make you more fluent.

I am glad that I have taken Julian's MEFA course 3 months ago, and I am happy to see what I am achieving now. Being an English speaker is not that difficult. Only when you do it the right way will it be possible to carefully master. That's to say, what I have learned during these months is really matters to me. Because I ultimately know "WHY" I should be there, getting close to my real desire. Whatever we call English a tool or a language, will help us get what we want at the end of the day. The best-designed course should be completed to meet our needs. Which is for me has been well organised by the researcher, Julian. One task a week, there're layers of knowledge with it, I did it to upgrade English and also it riched my life. I believe that I got more than I paid.

This is quite a novel approach to learn speaking English and vastly different to rhe traditional grammar/vocabular based method.
Dr Northbrook draws from a wide array of fields to complement this neurolinguistic approach, while at the same time succeeding in making the material easy to understand and very accessible to every student.
I personally enjoyed his constant encouragement to apply the discipline of daily intensive study - one hour, not more, not less - and then apply straightaway a few 'chunks' that I had learned, but in a relaxed way. Simple, effective and efficient. What this does not help with is to improve your work jargon, but it did help me to be more confident in everyday conversations at work, the chit-chat at meetings or at the coffee machine.
I also enjoyed the weekly Q&A zooms and the possibility to ask questions throughout the week. Equally enjoyable were the personalised reviews of weekly homework. All in all, that's what I call good support.
Thanks Julian, it was a great 90 days! Refreshing, sometimes gruelling and definitely to be recommended to all those who, from my point of view, want to become more confident in speaking English / Doing English.

This course was awesome! Despite what he says of himself, Julian is a thoughtful teacher and his teaching is effective and fun.
The course helped me to change perspective on my learning and on my work as a teacher, gaining a wider and much more reasonable approach to language, mistakes, methods and mindset. It also gives access to the best materials ever!
I'm looking forward to start EES this week and I absolutely advise anyone to join it.

I'm very impressed about the MEFA course and grateful for being part of it. I really hope some day this approach will be a “normal” way of learning English in our schools.

I like MEFA, because it has a completely different philosophy about learning (improving) English from conventional one – the one we have learned in school. At the same time, it is very concrete (you know exactly what to do) and on the other hand very strategic. It can be easily used as a model for improving in almost any other field of our life, not only English.

The focus is not on knowing all grammatical rules, but on using (doing) English such as native speakers use it.

Julian Northbrook guides you very systematically through the whole MEFA course. His explanations are holistic, very well structured, clear, and deep. Every detail is important for him. He doesn’t just tell you what to do but also gives you an explanation how to do it and why something is important. Everything about MEFA is on a high professional level (organization, study materials, attitude towards clients…).

Before MEFA I was stuck, I didn’t know what to do to improve English, now I feel like there is wind in my sails again. Thank you, Julian for this.

I highly recommend the MEFA course.
Patricija

Hello, I joined the MEFA program in November 2020, and I am approaching the graduation of MEFA. One of the best decisions that I did in 2020 is definitely to join MEFA and meet Julian, and amazing MEFA members. Before I joined, I spent a lot of resources (time, money, energy) to improve my English, but I always felt like the methods I tried were not sustainable for me to keep the journey to English learning. And in 2020, I was in a situation that I need to improve and develop my English to survive and to live!. MEFA was my decision that I can think of! Through the MEFA program, I have become convinced that I can keep my English journey in a sustainable and productive way in my entire life.
If you are reading all the reviews to decide whether to join MEFA or not, I think you are the person that is eager to improve English and should use English. And maybe you also tried a lot of things to improve your English like me, but still, you can’t reach the level that you should be. The mindset, techniques, researched-based findings, and philosophy regarding learning and speaking English that Julian has is consolidated in the MEFA program. I highly recommend you MEFA!

There are loads of techniques, tools and supplementaies to improve your English. the most important is my habit and discipline of intensive learning English have been changed. and on top of that I feel much more confident as an English Speaker.

MEFA is a systematic and carefully designed course that will bring you into a brand new world of speaking English. More than "speak", MEFA provides me with a methodology on how to learn English. Plus, Julian is a high-responsible tutor; feedbacks and group coaching calls for each cession are punctually and helpful. I've learnt a lot not only English but the way doing anything.

As a Chinese proverb says "勿在浮沙筑高台", which means "Never build a castle on the quicksand". MEFA is the course transforming the "quicksand" into "concrete".

I’ve learned a lot of useful phrases.
BEFORE I joined this program a coworker told me “you sound like a textbook”, he was right.
My advice to new members is to stop “formulating” your own sentences and worrying about the “method” you are using and start learning the right stuff.

Julian has the learning process down to a fine art. I've learned so much the last months! But, there is no secret. You have to work hard with high quality materials (which Julian provides you, of course) . Also it takes time.. but you should never forget that the journey is more important than the goal.
I strongly recommend that you have a bash at subscribing to his MEFA and EES lessons. It is worth each euro spent!