Aww yeah! I'm Ethan, your RealLife English Fluency Coach and I get this question all
the time from learners like you, about how long do I need to actually spend to learn English?
In fact, just the other day Andrea was doing a live over on Instagram and got this question,
so we thought that it would be a fantastic idea to make a lesson all about it for you.
So to start out, are you of the belief that the more time that you spend studying
the better? Well I have a spoiler alert for you, this is not always the case.
So in this video we'll be covering topics like the amount of time that you spend studying
vs. the actual quality of that study time, a little bit about how the learning brain works
and finally how you can make the most out of your study time.
So we have broken this lesson down into five topics. First of all, are you a pop learner?
Then we'll talk about proficiency vs. actual study time. Next, Break, a habit.
Study like there's no tomorrow; and finally, is the amount of time really that important?
But quickly before we get into any of that I want to let you know that if you are new
here every single week we help you to understand fast-speaking natives, to be understood by anybody
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All right so this is not like a pop star like Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. POP,
in this case stands for Proactive, Observant and Patient, which are really characteristics
that any exceptional learner has in common. So first off being proactive. So someone who
is proactive takes their learning beyond the classroom, they see that they have to find the
resources on their own and then their time in class is really for an expert to kind of guide
them and answer any doubts that have come up while they are using that self-discovery time.
So their teacher is there to help them figure out what they could not on their own. So next
I want to share with you a quote from someone I really admire Barbara Oakley. So she says:
So, by the way she has a fantastic Ted Talk that I highly recommend that you check out
because it's all about learning how to learn. Now this might sound a little bit redundant,
but is something so fundamental that hardly anyone that I know was taught in school. I
actually read her book A Mind For Numbers a few years ago and it had a really big impact on me.
And in fact so much so that I included it in this list of 6 Life-Changing Books for English
Learners. So if you want to learn more about that I highly recommend that you watch that video next.
So how can you make this proactivity a part of your daily routine? You can use a technique
called Layering, which is really fantastic because basically you are just connecting the new thing
that you want to learn to an already existing habit. So that basically means that it won't
cost you any extra time, so just to give you some examples of this: you could listen to a podcast
while you're going for a walk. You could listen to a song in English while you're cooking and if
you want extra points then you could actually use a recipe in English, so you'd actually be layering
three things there. Maybe you enjoy running and you have a treadmill in your house.
Why not watch a video in English while you're doing your daily exercise? So this Layering is
something that you can start doing all the time. And the really fantastic thing is that all of a
sudden you'll be adding all this extra time during your day where you're having exposure to English.
You might even find for example that if you start listening to podcasts in English during your runs,
that already you start to put on your shoes in the morning and your brain switches to thinking
in English, because you're so used to having these two things paired together. And when you do one
of these activities for some reason without the other, so for example you go for your run
and you forgot to download the podcast and so you don't have anything to listen to,
then you're probably gonna feel like something is kind of off. It's just like you're missing that
little bit of English exposure during that run. So if you want to learn more about habits like
this that you can develop, then I highly recommend that next you check out this lesson, where I
talk about the best habits to build in English. So something else really powerful that you can do
is make a commitment to yourself. And if you want to take it to the next level you can even write it
down this makes it a little bit more set in stone, and you want to take it even further then share
it with someone: tell your wife or husband, or a friend or your child, that you're going to do this
so you'll have that accountability tied to it. So you can also be really specific when you do
this and that's going to make it much more likely that you will actually follow through with it.
So what I mean by this is instead of saying that tomorrow I'm going to listen to a podcast in
English, you could say at 7am tomorrow while I'm having my coffee I'm going to listen to
episode 210 of the RealLife English Podcast. So moving on from the P to the O we have
being Observant. So someone who is observant sees everything as a learning opportunity. So
for example something that you could do is kind of figure out what are the different things in your
life that already are super automatic for you. So to give you an example you probably look at
your phone all the time you do different things on there without really having to think about it,
about where to click, about what button you have to do to make a certain action happen.
So why not put your phone, or another device, into English? And another example could be putting your
Facebook or your Instagram into English. Because you already know how those interfaces work.
Now, this is something really great because you're taking something passive and you can actually
turn it into something that is more active. And we'll touch more on that later in this video.
So something else an observant learner will do is they will do a learning activity with a
deliberate focus in mind, so what I mean by this is for example they're not just going to put the
podcast on in the background, they're going to actually maybe set themselves some little mini
goals while they're listening to it, or they're going to listen to it in a very active way. So
for example they're going to try to understand 80% of what's said, they're going to try to identify
five new words, they're going to try to see if there's some aspect of pronunciation
that they studied lately or maybe they'll find some point of grammar that they studied recently.
So moving on we have Patience. So this is all about seeing learning as a process. So when
trying to develop new habits it's essential that you start small. Even just doing something for
five minutes a day. Now the reason why this is so important is because when we try to build a
new habit our brain is so set in its ways that it really does not want to change, which means
that it's going to take a while for you really to get that habit to the point where it is automatic.
So what I mean by this is you don't need to finish a course book in one sitting. You don't need to
watch all the videos in a playlist from that new English teacher that you found on YouTube. No one
wakes up one day and just decides that they're going to run a marathon. And in the same way
you're not going to become native like in English after studying for just three months. Along these
same lines consistency is so much more important than quantity. So for example learning really
comes out of use, so even if you are able to study that entire course book in one day, if you haven't
actually put it into practice before you've moved on to the new points that you're studying,
then it's probably going to be a waste of time because you haven't internalized what you've
learned. So the bottom line for pop learners is that speaking a language entitles living it. They
are learning all the time. And they probably don't even think so much about having to study English
because it's just something that they do. It's a natural part of their everyday life.
Alright, so I want you to take a minute and ask yourself, "Why am I learning English?"
All right, do you have your answer? Well, whatever your answer was this will directly influence how
much time you are willing to invest in your English learning. If you're not new here then
it's no news to you how much we believe in the purpose. So knowing why you are learning English
as far as being a huge motivator propelling you forward on your journey to English fluency. In
fact it's a cornerstone of our RealLife way for learning English, which I made a recent video on.
Now maybe you've heard of the popular 10,000 Hours for Mastery Theory. Well, this has been debunked.
Maybe you kind of have that number in your head if you have heard about this and you're thinking,
"Oh my God, how am I going to find all the time with my busy schedule to be able to
study that much English and to achieve native like fluency," right? Well I would personally
recommend that you focus on progress rather than expertise. If you're so focused on perfection,
then that's only going to be a barrier in the way of you getting better in the language, but maybe
you are very left-brained and you really want to have some number that you can have in mind. Well
maybe the CEFR can help shed some light and help us get a lighter and more achievable perspective.
So according to this framework it takes approximately 1200 hours to reach a level of
native-like proficiency. But to be honest most natives don't even have this level of mastery.
So let's break it down. Now imagine that you are starting an English course from zero. I know if
you can understand anything that I'm saying that that's not the case, but stick with me.
But let's take a look at another example that maybe is a bit more pertinent to you.
So let's say that you're an intermediate, which on this framework would be called the B1 level.
So in this case this means that you already had about 350 hours of guided instruction,
which would be exposure, studies, classes, etc. Or maybe that would even be self-study time. For
some of you in order for you to become an advanced learner, which would be C1 level,
you would need another 400 hours of studies.
So we can see how powerful it is to live your English if you make it convenient, like we were
talking about before, then you will save so much time on your English learning journey.
So here we're not talking about stopping a bad habit. Rather we're talking about making a habit
out of taking breaks. So these brain breaks have actually been scientifically proven to increase
the amount of productivity that you get out of any sort of task. So one way that you could do this is
with the Pomodoro Technique. Maybe you've heard of this. But in a nutshell basically what you would
do with the Pomodoro Technique is you do like a 25 minute of work, or 25 minutes study session,
then you would take a short break (maybe just three to five minutes). You do this
several times and then you take a longer break. Now the reason why this is so effective is because
the brain does not cope well with monotony. So if you are on the same topic or task for too long
it can lead to fatigue, distraction, or lack of focus. Just to give you an example of this
most people work an eight eight-hour day, but they're probably only productive for around two
hours of that time. Now, suggestion for you is to use this Pomodoro Technique to actually break up a
task and mix in different types of tasks that will make it more effective. So to give you an example,
basically imagine that you have a grammar book that you're wanting to study, so instead of
spending one hour studying your course book on the aspects of the future tense, for example,
you could break this up into four 15-minute chunks with five-minute breaks in between.
You could make the breaks more effective, for example by listening to a song in a completely
different language, getting a drink of water, maybe texting a friend because
you've been alone too long you need a bit of socialization, or getting a healthy snack.
So maybe you're one of those people who believes that sleeping is for the weak
or who says that you'll sleep when you're dead. Well I have some good news for you:
sleep is actually for people who want to be more effective.
Now there are all sorts of benefits to getting a good night's sleep
and one that is really relevant to what we're learning today is that it helps your brain to make
connections. Consolidation happens while you're sleeping and it's actually been scientifically
proven that a good night's sleep increases your declarative memory and procedural memory.
So the expression "like there's no tomorrow" is one that we natives use all the time,
and it means basically that you're going to do something without thinking about the
consequences that you might suffer the next day, or in the future. So just to give you an example,
maybe after all this Covid nonsense what you want to do is party like there's no tomorrow. But
actually the way that we're going to use it today is quite the opposite. So we're going to want to
use it to focus more on what you're doing today and not being so worried about the future, about
how many hours you still have to study English for example. And of course we were just talking about
sleep and getting a good night's sleep is going to be so much better when you can go to bed without
having any major concerns in your mind. So what does that tell us about homework and reviewing?
Well the best practice is to actually review your notes or do the activities the same day that you
learned about a certain aspect of grammar, or that you learned a certain list of words. But
sometimes you might find that you're studying, maybe it's late and you're feeling fatigued,
and you're realizing that the thing that you just studied is already out of your brain,
you can't remember it. So Barbara Oakley tells us that in this case it's much better that we
take a break, or even that we go to bed. So it can be good if you can to get out of the house,
to go for a walk or go for a run, maybe play soccer with your friends. What's going to happen
when you do this is that in the background your brain is going to be making connections between
everything that you were studying before. And exercise can actually help to increase
this type of activity in your brain. Now a study from the University of Alberta says:
Maybe you have even experienced this yourself: that the day after you had like a really intense
study session, that all of a sudden something that was really confused to you finally makes sense,
you're finally able to put those puzzles together. Now this is because while you're
sleeping your brain is connecting the dots. So finally to give you a study tip: retrieving
information is so much more effective than trying to just re-read your notes or re-read the page,
or even highlighting in the book. And this is because it improves your long-term learning
and the declarative memory that we learned about before. So something you can actually do
while you're reading something, or while you're studying something, is imagine as if you had to
teach that subject to someone else. So maybe read a section or read even just a paragraph or a page
and then think without looking at your notes, "How would I explain that to someone?" Maybe even think
about how you would explain that to a child or to your grandmother because this is going to help you
to really simplify it in your mind. So I have a challenge for you here, can you remember just
a little bit ago what I mentioned were the types of memory that a good night's sleep?
So this really is the one million dollar question, isn't it? But I think it could be
so much more effective if we actually change this question to "How can you make the most
out of the time that you have right now?" James Clear, who's an expert on habit formation, says:
So you want to make that study time into a habit, so that your brain looks forward to actually doing
it. It's not something that you're dreading. Don't force yourself to do things you hate,
make the learning into an enjoyable experience, because then when you have to do it your brain
will automatically react with a positive response. And I would encourage you to have a mix of
lifestyle English, I think this is really the most effective thing you can do. What I mean by this
is that you have some passive learning so, for example in the evening you can sit down and relax
with your favorite TV series that you're watching in English, with or without subtitles. But then
you also have some deliberate practice. This would be where you're sitting down maybe the next
morning and actually studying the vocabulary that you learned while watching that TV series. And of
course it's really effective to have a plan, so knowing when and what exactly you're going to
study. And keeping in mind your big vision, what do you really want to achieve, so really with all
this it becomes more about the daily improvements, about getting a little bit better each and every
day, instead of focusing so much on having to study grammar for one hour Monday through Friday.
And my final piece of advice for you would be: think more about how your English is
going to bring you closer to the person that you really want to be. And this is
going to guide you to the answer of knowing how much time you need to invest in studying it.
So, as you've seen in today's video, there really is no straight answer to this question about how
long you should spend learning English. It really is up to you. It depends on your goals and who
you want to be or become. And it's going to be different for each and every person, so if anyone
tells you that you have to study English 10 hours a week then don't believe them because that might
be related to their goals. Or to the way that they see it, it's not related to your needs,
your life and your big vision for what you want to become. So I want you to finish this video
by considering the following aspects that we've been talking about today.
So first off, it's super crucial that you make learning English a part of your life.
Be proactive, and learn from and with your environment. Be patient, you don't have to learn
everything at once find your own process. And work making breaks into an actual habit that you do
while you're studying or while you're doing those difficult things. Keep it interesting by
varying your resources, your stimuli and even your environment. And remember to get a good night's
sleep, because otherwise you're not going to be as effective as you could be. Study the content
on the day that you've learned it, and always test yourself after you've learned something new,
even if it's just one line or one paragraph. Instead of putting all of your focus on the time
consider the quality of your studies and how it's going to help you to become the
person that you want to be. And again if you've enjoyed this video then I want to invite you to
join our community of English learners who are going beyond the classroom.
So you can do that really simply by hitting that Subscribe button and the Bell down below.
And now it's time to go beyond the classroom and live your English. Aww yeah!!