Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. Oh, hi. James from engVid. It's
a beautiful day out here. It's... no, it's not. It's cold. It's really cold.
Canada, in the fall, which I love, but it... it can get cold if you're not
dressed for it, and I am not dressed for it. Today's lesson is going to be on
language learning. Or better to put it this way: It's not going to be on
grammar, or conversation specifically; but I want to give you five things you
can do that you can actually make learning easier. Okay? Things people
don't usually mention, but they're really kind of important. These are the
background things. See, don't you love it? Look, gotta love nature. Anyway. So,
five things I'm gonna talk about are going to help make... prepare you, as an
individual, better, so you can actually be more efficient at learning. So, let's
take care of the machine; then we can take care of the learning afterwards.
So, where do we start when we do that? Well, the first thing I want to talk
about... well, the first thing I want you to do is: I'm going to give you a
list. Okay? And I want you to listen carefully to this list, because this is
what I call a test retest and lesson learning. You're going to listen to the
list, and then I'm going to give you a couple seconds, and I want you to see
how many of these words you can remember. And at the end of this lesson,
I'm going to redo the list, and we're going to see if you got an improvement.
Are you ready? So, don't write it down. Do not write it down. Hopefully you're
by a computer, so you can't. Put your fingers and hands up in the air. Okay?
Word number one: Sun. Number two: Socks. Number three: Traffic light. Number
four... and, sorry. That's words. But you know what I mean, because some
people go: "He said: 'traffic light' — it's two words." Whatever. Traffic
light. Number four: Car. Number five: Glove, which I wish I had some. Number
six: Soda. Number seven: Rainbow. Number eight: Octopus. Number nine: Cat. And
number ten: Toes. Okay? Take five seconds, and see how many of these words
you can actually remember. You got it? Now, repeat and see how many you got.
Don't worry if you didn't get them all; that's not the point. It's... we're
going to do a test retest, so let's see where you are and where we're going to
go after we do this lesson.
Now, now we got that out of the way, let's talk about the lesson for the day
— the five things we can look at. Number one — you probably heard this before —
food. "What? What? I thought we were doing English." We are. You should have
a good breakfast before you go to school. Some people say that, you
know... or a lot of kids should have that. And it's important. Food is
important for how we function — period. There's no difference when we talk about
that and when we talk about learning languages. If you don't eat properly, or
don't fuel your body — "fuel", like gas for your car — you can't learn properly.
But one of the things we don't really take into consideration is: What kind of
fuel is important? Now, I'm not going to talk about all foods, because there's
many theories on, you know... fat in your food, carbohydrates — all these
different things; or apples and oranges. I'm just going to talk about this one
thing that makes a big difference, and it's... it's becoming quite popular in
the news and magazines. You can check it out on... there's "The Obesity Code" by
Doctor Fung, and he's also got... there's a sugar... there's a couple of
books on these, where they talk about how sugar — and yeah, I'm talking about
sugar — sugary foods, specifically, lead to lots of problems. And one of those
problems they lead to, my friends, is learning. It seems what happens when we
take a lot of sugar... and, first of all, I should say: Sugar in small
amounts that we find in fruits, you know... like apples, oranges — is good
for us. In fact, our brain is only two percent of our bodies, but it uses
twenty percent of our energy. And when we get fruits, like oranges, and apples,
and berries — they have... they're full of sugar. But they also have something
called: "fibre" to slow how the sugar is brought into our bodies. And because of
that, our bodies can use the sugar and we don't have that bad in effect. But
you still can't eat twenty apples and twenty oranges. In fact, you'll get sick
if you do. That's the beauty of it. But when you're having chocolate bars, and
other things, like... and it's got a lot of sugar in it — well, it's not so good
for our body.
So, a little bit of sugar helps us think really well. Okay? And that's what
nature gave us. And that's why we're here, building cars and buildings. Same
with language learning. A little bit of sugar gives you a little bit of a spike
to give you the energy to learn, but too much sugar causes what's called:
"inflammation". And if you want to know what "inflammation" is — if you've ever
got hit in the eye and your eye goes: "Bwoo" — that's "inflammation". Right?
But when it happens in your head and your brain: "Bwoo" — well, there's
nowhere for the brain, and the blood and that to go in your body. So, it takes up
that space, and it makes it harder for you to think. Okay? So, one of the first
things you want to do is: Stop eating so many sugary foods, and that will help
with memory and learning. All right? So, if you're sitting there, and I'm sure
you got a soda, going: "He's telling me a good idea. I should..." Put the soda
down. Put it down because it's full of sugar, which leads me to number two:
Water. You didn't see that coming, did you? Food, sugar, water. Sodas aren't
great for you because they're full of sugar, but one thing we do need and we
need a lot of it, is water. Your brain is 80% water, and a lot of us are
dehydrated. We walk around; we don't drink enough water.
Well, think of a sponge. Okay? If you put a sponge in water, and you know...
it's like this and you put it in, it goes: "Puchu" — it gets filled; it
grows. But it's absorbing. "Absorbing" — it means drawing in the liquid. Right?
It's taking... it's taking the... the water in the sponge, and the sponge
grows. Just like your brain when it's properly hydrated — it can suck in the
information. But you get a dry sponge, my friend — it's small and it doesn't do
very much. You got to get your uptake of water. Now, I'm not going to tell you
how much water, like: "You should have eight glasses a day. It should be
distilled. It should come from the Heavens themselves. Tears of the gods."
I'm not saying that. I'm just saying: Get good, clean water; put down the
soda. It'll help. What happens is water helps when it's fully... the brain is
hydrated. "Hydrated" means filled with water. It helps information flow a lot
better. Okay? Think of your toilet; stuff flows better when it's full,
right? Yeah, that's a bad example. I should have thought that went through.
Anyway, but you get the point. A hydrated brain that's filled with water
allows for electrolytes. I know, "electrolytes" — they're little...
whatever. You don't need to know. Science things. Things in your brain
that can... conveys information — they allow them to work better in the brain.
Right? We need to be hydrated. Okay? So, hydration helps with the body
circulating stuff, but really for the brain because it's 80% water. That was
number two.
So, what could be number three? Because we talked about food; we talked about
water. Here's one that probably, if you're sitting at the computer too
long... but don't do it right now. I don't need you to do it now, but you
should do this: Exercise. "What?" Actually you can do it; you can do it
with me right now. Let's do a couple jumping jacks. All right? There you go.
Watch the video; do exercise. You notice, as you do this, you breathe a
little bit more, right? What's that do? Brings oxygen into the body, which wakes
up your brain. Exercise helps with motivation, helps with alert...
alertness, and attention. So, it helps us actually — because we're moving our
blood and our oxygen through the body — to oxygenate the brain and bring blood
to the brain. Blood for energy; oxygen because... well, we need it or we die.
Right? So, when we exercise, we get our bodies filled better for attention. And
what did I say, again? Attention and motivation, and I forget. Awareness.
Whatever. Basically, what it does is it wakes us up and prepares us. Part of
exercise is from our... I can say our prehistory days, where we would have to
— not exercise, which is very funny we call it: "exercise". Back then it was
called: "survival". So, you'd be walking in the forest; where I am right now —
doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo — and a tiger would come out, and you would
start jogging. Well, not jogging; you would run. Right? And then maybe... you
want to lift some weights? Yeah, pick up a big rock and throw it at the tiger.
Yeah, there's your exercise; it was called: "survival". But because of that,
we had to be alert; we had to pay attention. We were motivated to survive.
And when you put these things together, our brain was stimulated to pay
attention to our environment and learn as much as possible. So, exercise does
that for us. A couple more jumping jacks. All right. Now, you got that down
— that was number three.
What's number four? Well, it's... number four is... you should... I don't know.
Sleep. Get sleep. All the stuff I talked about works really well, but it's sleep
that is that magic pill that makes it work well. If you don't rest from
exercise, and get a good night's sleep — your body isn't built back up. If you
don't get enough sleep, your body doesn't get rid of the toxins or poisons
in our bodies, or help, you know... move around the food, and help us eliminate,
and all that other... other neat stuff, and the water — help get it out — right?
— and what have you. We need sleep to do that. I'm giving you all that for the
first three to explain what that... how sleep helps with that. But really what
sleep helps with — this is the big deal. I'm gonna use some big words now, so
please forgive me. Consolidation of memories. When you sleep, your brain
takes that opportunity then to take what you've learned in the day and then say:
"Okay, what have we done? Okay, we did this, this, this, this", and it starts
to organize it for you. So, when you wake up in the morning: "Oh". You go:
"Oh, yeah. Bonjour. No. Yeah, okay. Comment ça va? Oh, how about that? Cómo
estás? Muy bien". All of that stuff is what we call: "consolidated". Your brain
goes: "Okay. What does this mean? Buongiorno. Hello. Hello, yeah". It puts
it together. You need that time to do it.
So, a lot of you guys, when you think you're studying and you're learning —
no. You study; if you get good sleep, you learn. Many studies have shown that
when people get poor sleep, they have poor memories because their memories are
not consolidated; put together. So, keep that in mind. Okay? All right. Good. Now
that we've got that out of the way — I got one, two, three, four — I'm going to
give you number five, which is kind of a bonus. It's a really cool one. A lot
of... some people do it. A lot of people in the world, actually, do it. But for
language learning... and I forgot to mention that — language learning, but I
think if I go through them with you again... food — you need the energy to
actually be awake to study. Right? Also, if it's too sugary; the inflammation —
you can't learn. Water for that... for the brain to send the signals through to
get that learning done. You need water; keep your brain hydrated. Number three
was sleep. No, no, nope, nope. Was exercise. Number three was sleep. Sorry.
See? I need some sleep. Number three was exercise, because what happens? It helps
us with alertness and motivation. Right? And the aware... awareness of our
environment. Number four was sleep, and it helps to get those memories all
together. As you start putting it together, you're getting a picture.
But there's a movie called: "Limitless", and I love this movie. Anybody who
studied with me at the school I used to teach at, they were like: "Oh god,
teacher's playing that movie again?" I go: "Yes, it's amazing". This man would
take a pill, and what a pill it was. With one pill, he could do anything.
With half listening, he could learn a language. And he's running down the
street, listening to some French, and then he's talking to French people the
next five minutes; talking fast. But my point was this: A magic pill that we
have that's free, available to everyone, and you just need to play with a little
bit that can help all of the other stuff work better is meditation and
mindfulness meditation. They've done studies that show that meditation lowers
stress. Do you remember we talked about blood and oxygen, and moving around?
Well, meditation releases stress. When you're stressed, you're like this. And
when you relax, see more movement? Well, when you're stressed physically...
that's why you're always tired when you're stressed because your muscles are
a bit tight. But when you relax, you release and you let that energy flow;
you can breathe deeper, get more oxygen, which helps with energy production. I
know, this is really... "I thought this was an English lesson." It is. Because
if you do these things correctly, English learning will be easier, more
effective, and more efficient. Meditation helps to release stress in
the mind and the body, so you get better oxygen flow, you get better blood flow,
you get better sleep. And I told you sleep is incredibly important. Okay? And
it helps increase your focus, so when you're actually doing something, you get
better at doing it. Cool? Now, if you keep all of that in mind... I've given
you five things you can do right now to help. Because you're taking hours to
study, why wouldn't you take the time to prep your system to make the
most-effective study you can get? Right?
Now, I'm going to give you a little bit of a tool. We're going to work together,
here. We're going to practice this. And you remember that test retest we talked
about before? We're going to do that again. Yeah? So, step over this way with
me for a second or two. Yeah? So, we're going to be looking at breathing, and
what I want you to do when you breathe is this: You're going to breathe in or
inhale, breathe in for seven seconds; breathe out for eight seconds. This is
from a book called: "Willpower" by Andrea McGonigal. She was at Stanford
University. It's one of the most famous classes that was taught there. Okay? So,
this is a focus meditation to help you focus. All right. Are you ready? Let's
do it. We're gonna do this a few times, and then we're going to go back to that
list of ten and see if we can improve your standing. Ready? So, let's go.
Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Exhale. Eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one. Now, inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. One more
time. Ready? Inhale. Exhale. Got an extra thumb, there. Thumbs up for you.
All right. Now, let's do that list again. One: Sun. Two: Socks. Three:
Traffic light. Four: Car. Five: Glove. Six: Soda. Seven: Rainbow. Eight:
Octopus. Nine: Cat. Ten: Toes. See how many you got right this time. I'm
smiling because some of you probably went: "Hey!" if you got three; now
you're like: "I got five", or you got seven or more. We've had, like, a
ten-minute class that I just taught you, so you didn't have time to remember
these words; I asked you not to write them down. And you might say: "Well, I
heard it the second time." But if you didn't do so well, you've had time to
forget. And now we've done it again, you might have noticed that that focus on
your breath helps you focus your mind. And that's the pill of meditation I just
gave you. Cool? All right.
So, what I want to do now is give you some homework, and the homework's quite
simple. You're going to do that seven and eight meditation for focus. Do it up
to ten. Like, repeat it ten times — that cycle; and do it every day for the next
30 days. It's a really good idea to do it just before maybe you're studying.
You'll probably notice that you're able to focus a little bit better. Okay? Now
that I've given your homework, I want to end the class with a quote, and this is
by Andrew de Waal. And it's: "You are anywhere... anywhere is your home when
you learn languages". And I think that's true. When you know more than one
language, you can go almost anywhere. Right? And since you're here learning
languages, you can come to my home sometime. Well, not my literal home, but
you can come visit me over here. Anyway, it's been a pleasure. I'd like you to go
to www.eng as in English, vid as in video.com, and there's no quiz, but
there are great lessons there in which now you can go and study. Take what I've
taught you today, and apply it to grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons,
conversation, reading, and writing. Cool? I'll see you in a little bit. Take
a look at this place, man. It's great.