Hi, Bob the Canadian here.
I have a carrot, and I have a stick here with me today
because I want to talk about motivation.
Apparently, a long time ago, if you had a donkey
and you wanted the donkey to move forward,
you could use the carrot as a reward.
You would hold the carrot up in front of the donkey,
and the donkey would step forward
to get the carrot as a reward.
And if that didn't work, you could use a stick,
which is a lot meaner and I think if I had a donkey
I wouldn't use the stick, I would use the carrot more.
But we're not here to talk about donkeys,
we're here to talk about how you can stay motivated
when you are learning English.
So in this video, I am gonna give you 10 tips.
I'm going to tell you about 10 things that you can do
to stay motivated when you are learning English.
(bright music)
Number 10, keep track of your learning.
At the end of every day, if you have a calendar,
put a check mark on the calendar to indicate
that you learned some English that day.
If you would like to write a few sentences in a notebook,
put down the date and write down a few sentences
about what you learned that day.
The reason you would want to do this is so that
in the future, you can look back and see a record,
see a visual reminder of all the work that you have done.
It's really exciting to look at a calendar
and to see three months work of check marks
on every single day, indicating that you learned
a little bit of English on that day.
It can be highly motivating.
So, number 10, keep track of your learning.
Number nine, reward yourself.
This works in exactly the same way
as the carrot I talked about earlier.
Decide that if you study English that day,
you can have a small piece of chocolate
at the end of the day, or decide that if you study English
for five days straight, you are allowed to go out
and have a yummy, tasty, expensive cup of coffee.
Knowing that there is a reward for doing good work
will motivate you to do the good work.
And, you can kind of flip this
the other way as well, where you can deny yourself
the reward if you don't do the work.
So you can always think, if I don't study English today,
I don't get that yummy piece of chocolate.
If I don't study English this week,
I don't get to go have that yummy, expensive cup of coffee.
So, either reward yourself, or deny yourself
the reward to motivate yourself.
Number eight, measure your progress.
I am a big believer in measuring what you have learned.
I am a big believer in testing yourself
to make sure that you know it.
So, if you can, design little tests
that you can give to yourself and that
you can grade yourself to measure your progress.
Maybe use Quizlet or another online testing
platform and look at your results.
If you get seven out of 10 one day,
try to get eight out of 10 the next day.
If you can find ways to measure your progress,
it helps you to really know what you know.
Sometimes in our minds, we can think
we know something, but until you measure it,
until you test yourself, you will not know.
So, design little vocabulary tests, maybe design
little fill in the blanks listening tests,
and do them, and do them until you can get 10 out of 10,
and then create a new test to measure your progress.
Number seven, turn it into a competition.
If you are learning English, and you know someone else
who is learning English, try to become competitive
with that person if they would like to do that.
Try to see who can learn the most
vocabulary words in one day.
See who can learn the most new English phrases in a week.
So, turn it into a competition.
If you use an app like Duolingo, this is built in.
You can actually compete with other people
to see who can get the most experience points each day.
So, excellent way to motivate yourself
by having a competition with one or two other people.
You can also use other people in a couple more ways.
You can learn English to impress someone.
So maybe there's someone who you would really like
to impress, you could learn English and then show them
that you have learned more English to impress them.
Or maybe you could just say to someone,
like your mom or a relative, just say I am learning English.
And then just the fact that you've told someone
that you're learning English might actually
motivate you to learn it more everyday.
Number six, create a routine.
This doesn't work for everybody, but this
is highly motivating for most people.
If you decide that you are going to have a daily routine,
and a weekly routine for learning English,
you are more likely to be motivated
to learn English on those days.
When you say to yourself, on Mondays I'm going
to do some English reading, every single Monday,
it will, in your mind, create this desire,
and you will be motivated to read on that Monday.
Again, this doesn't work for everyone,
but some people really like routines,
and this can be a really good motivator.
I did a video on this a while ago.
I'll put a link up here where you can establish
what type of English learning you're going to do
on each day of the week, but I certainly
highly recommend that you create a routine.
It is a great way to stay motivated
when you are learning English.
Number five, make your future self happy.
This is one of my favorite ways to motivate myself
to do almost anything, and I think it will work
really well for learning a language like English.
Think about how you could make yourself happy in the future.
How will your future self feel if you don't
work hard everyday learning English?
Think about yourself a year from now.
A year from now, your future self would be super happy
if you spent some time today studying English.
So, one way that I like to motivate myself, and I think
this is a great way for you to motivate yourself,
is to think about how can I make my future self happy?
And the way to make your future
self happy is to study today.
Number four, plan a trip to an English speaking country.
I know this one isn't possible for everyone
because it does cost money, but knowing that
you will be going to a country, either for a trip,
or maybe even for school or some
other activity, can be highly motivating.
I know for myself, if Jen and I planned a trip
to the province of Quebec where they speak French,
I would be highly motivated to practice my French a lot
before I went to that province.
So, if you can in some way get to an English speaking
country for a vacation, or for a short visit
to people you know there, I highly recommend it.
Knowing that you will be going to an English speaking
country will motivate you to practice and learn
as much English as you can before you go.
Number three, take an English class.
If you can register for and take an English class
in your city, or even take an online English class,
this will motivate you to learn English,
not just in class, but outside of class as well.
Knowing that you are going to be with other people
who are also learning English will motivate you
to impress them, it will motivate you to study
outside of class because you will want the teacher
to see that you are making progress,
and you will want your classmates to see
that you are making progress as well.
So, if you can find an English class to take, register
for that class, go every week if it's a weekly class.
Just knowing you have a class every Thursday night,
or every Saturday morning, will motivate you
to read more in English, to listen to more music
in English, and to just improve your English skills.
So, if you can, take a class.
Number two, hire an English tutor.
If you know that you are going to be meeting
with an English tutor once a week in your city,
or maybe you are meeting with an English tutor
once a week online via Skype or Facetime or Zoom,
you will be more likely to study English before you meet.
Because, when you meet with someone,
you need things to talk about, and if you're going
to meet with someone and you're going to need
to speak English, you're going to need to be able
to talk about things in English.
So, you will be more likely to read
the news in English so that when you meet
with your tutor, you can talk about the news.
You will be more likely to read another chapter in your book
in English because you'll want to be able to talk
to your tutor about the things that happened in your book.
Again, you'll be more likely to watch more English
television because you'll want to be able
to talk to your tutor about the televisions shows
that you watched the week before.
So, if you can, and if you are able to, find an English
tutor, meet with them once a week,
even if it's just for 30 minutes, and this
will highly motivate you to learn English.
Number one, book an English test.
To me, if you want to be motivated to learn
the English language, you should book a test,
maybe six months in the future.
Decide to yourself, I really want to take
an official English language test.
I'm going to do it in six months.
Go online, pay your money, and register for that test.
I think you will be motivated.
I think most people would be highly
motivated when they do that.
You would get up everyday and think, okay,
in six months I have an English test.
As you get closer to the date, you will start to study more
because you will want to do really, really well.
Booking a test will actually
help you do other things as well.
If you book a test, you are more
likely to hire an English tutor.
If you book a test, you are more likely
to read that book that you were planning to read in English.
If you book a test, you are more likely
to learn a lot of vocabulary in the time between
when you book the test and when
you actually need to take the test.
So, number one, my number one thing
that you can do to motivate yourself
is book an English test and then study like crazy.
And here's one more tip before I go.
Make sure you get a good night's sleep every night.
Sleep is really important for learning,
and a good night's sleep goes a long way
to helping you remember new things that you have learned.
Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.
I hope you enjoyed this English lesson
on how to stay motivated when learning English.
If you are new here, don't forget to click
that red subscribe button over there
and give me a thumbs up if this video
helped you learn just a little bit more English.
And if you have the time, why don't you
stick around and watch another video?
(bright music)