Hi, I'm Jonathan Bennett and today we're going to talk about why you should keep an english
journal and how to do it.
So if you're learning English, you're learning a new skill. And the only way to get better
at a skill is to practice. Now there's easy practice, like going to class or doing your homework.
You may not think that's easy, but it's easy because someone else pushes you to do it. And there's
hard practice. Hard practice is when you have to do it by yourself. That's getting a language
partner and meeting with them to practice English and that's writing an English diary.
The reason you want to do hard practice is because that prepares you to have normal English
conversations. For example, you may do great when you have stand up in class give a presentation
because it's prepared and you know what's going to happen. But when you sit down with
your friend to talk in English, all the words disappear. Because you've not practiced those
difficult situations where things can change. It's the same thing that happens when someone
knows the basic moves of boxing but then you put them in the ring and they don't know what
to do because the situation is changing. Writing an English diary will help you prepare for
the fluid situation of writing an email, of writing a letter, of writing a business proposal
or a resume. All of those situations where you have to write something from your own
mind.
First, let's talk about how is a language diary, an English diary, different from your
private diary. You may have tried to keep your English diary by just writing your usual
diary in English. That's not a good way to do it, and this is why. Your English diary
is a diary about you learning English. It's the chance for you to exercise your English
skills in the diary. Your personal diary is about your personal life.
It's the chance for you to explore "what happened to day", "how do I feel about it", "what am I thinking
about the future?" And if in your English class, you're not learning about events in
the day, feelings, or future plans, then you shouldn't write that in your English diary.
Because the English Diary is about learning English, not learning where you want to be
in 10 years. Unless that's what you're learning about in English class. So that's what makes
an English diary different from a personal diary. And if you've tried to keep an English
diary as a personal diary and you've failed because it was too hard, let me suggest these
two techniques to use to make keeping an English diary easier.
The first one is, exercise a new skill. Now this is pretty straightforward, it's pretty
easy. And yet it can be really difficult. What you do is, let's pretend for a moment
that you've gone to English class and you've learned about the English sentence pattern,
"If this, then that." or "If this, I will that". Here on the board I've written an example
sentence for that, "If I win the lottery, I will travel the world." This is an example
of a conditional in English. And let's say you've just had that class. And you listened
in class and it made perfect sense. Because the pattern is very obvious and the teacher
said maybe 100 sentences with "If this, then that." "If this, I will that." Then you went
home and you did your homework and in your homework you had, "If I am late, my boss will
be mad." "If I study, I will do well on the test." It was easy because you're seeing the
pattern over and over and over. That repetition is a good way to put it in your head. But
now that you have it in your head, you want to connect it to all the other parts of English
that you know. And the way to do that is a language diary, an English diary entry.
This is what you do. You write a diary starting with your sentence. I've picked this one here,
from my homework, but you can make your own sentence just as well. "If I am late, my boss
will be angry." Or "If I win the lottery, I will travel the world." And then you start
writing about it. And you want to use many different kinds of sentences, not just "If,
then I will." sentences.
"If I win the lottery, I will travel the world. I think it would be really cool to go to Russia.
If I go to Russia, I will see the Kremlin." Well now we're learning new sentences and
you're seeing a way to put "If, I will" sentences into an English conversation. So the next
time your friend says, "Oh, I really want us to have " " some food that you're allergic to.
You can say instead of just, "I'm allergic.", you can say "Oh, if I eat shrimp, I get sick."
And this is an example of using it in context. Because you have made your own context by
writing this journal entry and practicing the sentence several times inside the journal
entry, your brain now understands how to make that context in another context. In a spoken
context or in a written email. "If we do this business proposal, the company will make a
million dollars." Well that's an important sentence to be able to express in English.
By practicing it with something like this, it's easier for you to do it when you're writing
that email or reading that resume.
The other way to do it is when learning vocabulary. Vocabulary is the hardest part of any language
because it's always growing, always changing. There are thousands of words to learn and
each word has lots of different meanings. What's the difference between this word and
that word, we've got videos about that. This is a very challenging situation to be in.
And the easiest way to learn vocabulary is to use it, use it, use it, use it, use it.
You may have noticed that when you are reading English, you can read many more words than
you can speak or you can write. You can read the sentence and think, "Oh, I understand that sentence."
but if someone asks you to make a sentence with that word, it would be hard for you.
This is true for everybody. And this is a way to move We call this passive and active vocabulary. This is a way to move
words from your passive vocabulary, words that you read them or hear them and say, "Oh,
I know what that means." into your active vocabulary which is words that you actively
use.
As an example I've given us two simple words. You all know these words, go and bookshelf.
But let's pretend that you've just learned these words. And you want to remember these
words. So you go home from class, and you've just had your class where you learned go.
Now you're sitting at home and you've just finished your English homework and you're
going to write your English diary. And you write down "Go." And you make 3 or 4 sentences
using the word go. Not the same sentences you had in your homework. Try to use it in
different situations. Ask yourself when you're writing the sentence.
Ok, I go to the park. I go to the" where else can I go, I go to the swimming pool. Ask yourself,
can I use this with something else. Well, swimming. Can I go swimming? I think I've
heard my English friend say that. I can go swimming. So then that means I can go walking.
Can I go riding? I don't think so because riding is not something you go someplace to do.
I'm practicing with the word. I'm playing with the word.
In this part, you should make mistakes in your English diary. Because making mistakes
is how you learn the pattern for those words. Take bookshelf. Bookshelf is a noun, obviously,
and it's a countable noun. As opposed to rice, where we cannot count. We don't say "I had
6,082 rice for breakfast." We say, "I had a bowl of rice." Just like we can't count
rice, we can't count bookshelves. Which means it has a plural. Did you pluralize it correctly?
Well try. Try both ways. Write it B-O-O-K-S-H-E-L-F-S and B-O-O-K-S-H-E-L-V-E-S and look at the two.
Do I see an English pattern I recognize here? If you do, then now you know which one
it is. The answer is V-E-S because F turns to V and V needs E-S. You can't just have
V-S when you're pluralizing a now. Then practice using it in different sentences. Where could
I see bookshelves? I could see bookshelves in the coffee shop. The coffee shop had 10
bookshelves. I was looking for the book on the bookshelves. We're using different
ways of using it. When should I use "a" and when do I use "the" with this word. When do
I say "A bookshelf" and when do I say "the bookshelf". This is an important question.
Play with it, see what happens when you're writing. And then, and this is the most important
part of any English diary, find somebody who speaks English to read it. And correct it.
And when they correct it, make the changes. Actually go back and rewrite the whole sentence.
Because when you rewrite the whole sentence, you're getting your hand and your eyes and
your brain all engaged on this mistake that you've made which means you will learn not
to make the mistake. You'll learn the pattern again. This is important, don't just rewrite
the one word you've made a mistake on. Rewrite the whole sentence so that you can see the
mistake you made and see the corrected sentence and internalize, memorize the correct pattern.
Now this can be very intimidating. Nobody likes to make mistakes. Nobody likes to then
make mistakes and find somebody to show them, "Hey, look at the mistake I've made." But
this is an important part of learning a language. Kids do this all the time, and that's why
they learn their first language so quickly and so well. So the English diary becomes
an opportunity for you to make mistakes and to learn the language faster. That's the secret
to how an English diary can help you.
If you're a perfectionist and you don't want to do this, you don't want to make mistakes.
Maybe you're worried this takes too much time. You write your personal diary and you sit
down and you write for two hours because it's easy for you to write in Korean or whatever
your original language is. You sit down with your English diary and you think, "oh, two
sentences is so hard!" Write those two sentences. 5 Minutes of writing this, and then having
somebody check it and rewrite it. It will be 10 minutes of your time total, if you do
that once a week. Your English will improve dramatically, your written English will improve
dramatically. And if you can write a sentence, it's easier for you to speak that sentence
too. Which means your spoken English will begin to grow as well. And this is the key
to growth. Just a little bit of time over a long period of time. Little time increments
and they build up, then the next thing you know you're speaking English fluently.
If this video has been helpful for you, I ask you to please click the like button below.
Or subscribe, that's even better. You'll get new emails sent directly to you telling you
when we've got a new video uploaded. Thank you very much for your time.
I'm Jonathan Bennett, have a great day!