Hey, what's up naturals, it's your American English teacher Gabby Wallace here at go natural English
dot-com
Just the other day
I was talking with my Brazilian friend Carlos and he was telling me about his English class and a friend of his in his
English class who was upset
Why is she upset because the teacher told her that she has to repeat the same level again?
It must be so
frustrating I think that a lot of us have
Had the same experience
If you have would you tell me in the comments?
if you've ever had to repeat the same level don't be embarrassed because this kind of thing happens to a lot of us and
in this video, we're gonna talk about how to avoid having to repeat the same level again and how to
progress faster how to
Improve so if that sounds good, then keep watching now
I want to tell you about an audio ebook that go natural English made to help you learn English
Faster, you can get all of our best tips in one easy to access resource
You can click right up there to find out more about the English fluency formula audio ebook
So this must be really frustrating for my friends friend
Because she has to repeat the same class. She's watching her friends go on to the next level
she has to spend more money because she's paying for the class and
She has to take more time to repeat the same information
What a bummer
So the question that we're gonna answer today is why is it that some people have to repeat the same?
Class over again and other people seem to learn so quickly
I'm gonna tell you first of all, it is not a matter of
Intelligence. I do not believe that my friend's friend is
Not intelligent. I'm sure she is very intelligent, but we have to understand how to
learn, so first of all
It's super important to make class a priority make in a priority
obviously if you're always choosing other things over time to study like for example
Oh, I really should study but I should also do these other things. I should go grocery shopping I should
Go out with my friends I should
Do you know XY and Z?
It's not gonna happen. You're not gonna learn that fast because if you want to progress quickly
you have to make your learning a priority and maybe that means
waking up 15 minutes earlier to hit the books to study a little bit in the morning, or maybe it means
eating lunch at your desk at work and
Opening up your English book for your class and studying a little bit instead of going out to lunch with your colleagues
I don't know. But sometimes we have to make sacrifices in order to make our learning a priority now
Maybe you're saying but Gaby, I do make my English class a priority. I'm always studying my book
I wake up early to study I study on my lunch break
I stay up late to study at night and I'm still not progressing. Okay, very good
So you are already making English a priority. That is awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Very important
So if you're doing that and you're still not seeing improvements
Here's the secret
you
Probably need to become a more active
Learner, what does it mean to be an active learner?
Well, let's start with the opposite
What does it mean to be a passive learner in our school systems in our traditional school systems?
normally
They teach us to be passive learners you sit at your desk. You're quiet
You listen to the teacher give his or her lecture
Maybe you take notes. Maybe you answer some questions, but the majority of the time you are
receiving information you're listening and
Maybe you're not even listening. Maybe you're actually thinking about what you want to eat for lunch
Or what you do after class or on the weekend. Maybe your mind is elsewhere and you're not actually paying attention
I mean this has happened to me before I've been in my Japanese class and I was thinking about taking a trip to Japan and
not focusing on
actually learning what those
characters in
Japanese mean, you know, they have different characters for letters. Anyway, a positive learner is when you're not actually
Taking the information that you're hearing or that you're reading and doing something with it
So you're expecting that time?
Equals learning but it's not only
Passing time in your class or spending time in your class. That's gonna help you to learn you have to actually
Be active with the information that you receive in class. So your teacher is
Telling you something about English. That's great. But are you really listening?
Your teacher is telling you some lecture some rule about English, but are you actually?
using it, so passive learners expect to improve just by spending time in the classroom and just by
Paying for their English class
Going to the English class
attending for the minimum amount of time
that the class is
Happening but an active learner will take the information from class and actually create
Something new with it. So now that we talked about what a passive learner does
Let's talk about more what an active learner does with English learning
So if you're in class you're taking notes taking notes on what the teacher is saying is
important now if you're just copying with the teacher saying that's good, but even better is actually
writing
Questions that come into your mind when the teacher is talking
well
Why is it that we have to use the past perfect tense in this?
Example that the future is giving write down your questions and then ask the teacher your questions
this is you thinking this is you processing and from and being curious and
Trying to learn more so that you can fully understand what the lesson is and what the teachers trying to teach you
You can also try creating your own dialogues writing them down in your notebook
You can take notes in a lot of different ways
And in fact, we could do a whole video just about taking notes
but when you do take notes try to add information that's going to be helpful to you such as
How you hear the words pronounce or?
making your own example sentences and then checking them with the teacher and writing down your
questions and I like to mark my questions in my notebook by making a little star or writing a question mark next to it or
letter Q for question so that you can remember to go back and ask the teacher during or after class or
sometimes in the United States at least we have office hours in our
Universities where the teachers are available to answer all your questions
So that's a great time to connect with your teacher to ask those questions that you wrote down or sometimes the questions will actually answer
Themselves when you wait a little bit and you pay attention in class
You'll find the answer on your own an active learner will look for ways to create
With what you learn? So can you create your own sentences? Could you create a poem a song?
your own
Dialogue, could you imagine a conversation with the vocabulary that you're learning?
So you're not just repeating what the teacher is telling you you're actually creating something new
so a beginner English learner will listen and repeat an
Intermediate and advanced English learner will actually create their own content in English
You're taking an active role
Using what you're learning to interact with it and actually create something new
You can think about how you might apply what you're learning whether it's vocabulary pronunciation
Grammar or something else to the real world. Imagine yourself in a situation
outside the classroom where you might use that information and
I writing down some sentences that you imagine you might hear or you imagine you might use this is
active learning and this requires a bit of creativity and
I'll warn you you will make mistakes
but again
As I always say mistakes are the way to improve you have to make mistakes
You have to fall down and then get back up. Again. This is how we improve
Keep an open mind to see your own mistakes
so don't
imagine that you're going to be perfect don't pretend that you're not going to make a mistake because you will and the important thing is
to see that and to accept that and actually
Improve that and fix that mistake so that you can grow and learn and improve and progress faster
So make more mistakes and improve them. This is active learning when you're noticing your own mistakes
This is quite advanced
And one thing you can do is record yourself speaking if you're working on your speaking record yourself
Listen to yourself and I bet you will notice when you make mistakes
Maybe not all of them, but some of them yes, and you can actually correct yourself
This is active learning a final way to be an active learner is to help others
Learn the language
So I've seen my friend Carlos advance a lot in English because he is being helpful to his classmates and he spends time with them
motivating them to
keep learning to keep practicing and he tries to help other people so you can actually learn a lot by
Helping others because the teacher the helper has to know
What they're talking about in order to help other people and I think that helping others is really motivating, too
So you'll probably feel good about yourself and want to continue studying
one huge danger that really keeps us from improving in any subject is losing our
motivation so through helping others
You might find a renewed sense of motivation and purpose and be able to be a more active learner
so quickly to summarize being an active learner means
Listening and reading and then using that information
interacting with that information
asking questions
Creating your own media in English and helping others
so there's tons of ways to be a more active learner and this is the secret to
Advancing more quickly. Do not only
Do what the teacher tells you to do in order to advance?
You have to go beyond what your teacher?
Assigns you beyond what your teacher asks
You you have to take the next step forward to take control of your own
learning to advance because let's think about it - your teacher has a lot of
Responsibilities and they can't be the manager of your learning. You have to be the manager of your own learning, right?
so once you learn to take control and be an active learner for yourself
Because you are motivated
Because you want to learn English and you want to improve and you don't want to stay back in the same level again and again
Then you're gonna start progressing
Faster, I'm sure of it. So I hope you enjoyed this video
I hope that it encourages you to be a more active learner
Let me know if there's ways that
You are an active learner that I forgot to say in this video so we can help each other
Give each other some suggestions on how to be better more active learners
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Keep learning. Bye for now