Hi there.
Do you kind of have a hard time speaking English?
So maybe you've studied English in your hometown, or at a school, or online at www.engvid.com,
and you think that your grammar's pretty good, and... You're just shy. And maybe you live in a country
and you don't have English speakers around you, and you don't know how to practice speaking.
So, there's one really wonderful resource-it's not a textbook, it's not a webpage, and it's
not on YouTube-it might be living in your house. It could be beside you, it could be
next door, or it could be in the park. Do you know what this is?
It's a child, or children,
and we like to say "kids". So, I'm going to teach you how to improve your speaking without
really doing too much or spending a lot of money.
This is the trick: Talk to kids. They are amazing. Kids will always want to talk to
you, because they are fun, amazing guys. So, it's really easy to talk to kids, because
first of all, they choose the topic. You maybe are:
"I don't know what I'm going to say to this person",
so if you... If you see an adult, or someone who goes to your school, and think:
"I don't... What...? What am I going to talk about? I... I... I don't... I don't... I don't know."
Kids just choose the topic, they just talk to you about whatever they want, so that's cool.
Another thing about kids is if they're learning English, if you're in Canada or an English-speaking
country, luckily enough, children are learning vocabulary and they're learning grammar. Now,
their brains are like sponges. They learn, the teacher corrects them. Their grammar is
absolutely perfect, with a couple exceptions. They will learn and they will be able to correct
themselves. So, their grammar and vocabulary is amazing.
It might be a little bit better than mine. A little bit, not that much.
And the last thing is children know, this says: "a lot of slang". If you look at a lot
of new videos or music, kids listen to this music, and that's where we get slang from;
we get it from performers who make new words. So, kids know a lot of slang, and to you,
they know new words. One of the big problems that a lot of people have when they come to
an English-speaking country is that they've learned older words. Maybe they learned from
an older person, or they have old textbooks. What happens is we don't use those old words
anymore, and when we do, the person kind of looks at you weird because
that's a really old word.
So, what you want to do is you want to find a child. Oh! Where could I find a kid?
Here's a kid now. Hah. Huh. What's your name?
Mohamed: Mohamed.
Ronnie: Oh, hi, Mohamed. Where are you from?
Mohamed: Libya.
Ronnie: Wow. I've never been to Libya. How is it?
Mohamed: It's pretty sunny, and it's pretty extremely hot there. Like, it's pretty hot.
Like, you can go to the beach every single day.
Ronnie: No way.
Mohamed: It is actually possible, if you want.
Ronnie: How's the beach?
Mohamed: It's, like, I can swim there for 25 hours, and I will be tired.
Ronnie: 25 hours, that's a lot. And what about the water? Is it clean?
Mohamed: Yes.
Ronnie: It's really clean?
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: Yeah? Mohamed, if somebody talked to you and they said: "Oh, hi, how are you?
How are you? How are you?" How do you feel about that?
Mohamed: That's annoying.
Ronnie: Oh, oh, okay. I'm sorry. And... And what if somebody told you what to do, like:
"Hey, you, sit down. Stand up. What are you doing?" How do you feel if someone said that to you?
Mohamed: That means they're just bossy people that want attention.
Ronnie: Oh, that's a good point, yeah. Do you like people like that?
Mohamed: No.
Ronnie: No. Would you want to talk to them?
Mohamed: No.
Ronnie: Okay.
Mohamed: I would like to have better friends that actually do good things.
Ronnie: Yeah, that's a good idea. Do you know people that do good things?
Mohamed: Yeah. Like, pretty much all of my friends, and mostly my mom.
Ronnie: Oh, your mom does good things?
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: Aww.
Mohamed: Yeah, she does a lot of things to me.
Ronnie: Yeah? That's awesome. Mohamed, what's your favourite colour?
Mohamed: My favourite colour is phosphoric orange.
Ronnie: Glow-in-the-dark, florescent orange?
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: Like your shoes?
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: Cool. You got some cool shoes.
Mohamed: Thank you.
Ronnie: They're kind of like my shoes. And what's your favourite sport? Do you like sports?
Mohamed: Yeah. My favourite... I have... I like a bunch of sports. They're mostly baseball,
basketball, soccer, and sometimes football. Like, maybe.
Ronnie: Why sometimes?
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: Why sometimes?
Mohamed: Because it's... Like, I think it's a pretty rough sport.
Ronnie: Mm, you don't want to get hurt.
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: Right. Who's your favourite baseball team?
Mohamed: The Blue Jays.
Ronnie: Oh, good choice, good choice. Toronto! Do you know the Toronto Blue Jays' song?
You know what they sing?
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: What is it?
Mohamed: It's... It goes like this: "Let's play ball." That's in the end.
Ronnie: Oh. Do you know the beginning?
Mohamed: So: "Blue Jays! Blue Jays!"
Ronnie: Yeah, it sounds like that. That's good.
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: And who's your favourite baseball player?
Mohamed: I forgot his... It starts, like, with an "R" or something.
Ronnie: Ra-ra-ra-ra?
Mohamed: No.
Ronnie: Oh, not Ra-ra-ra-ra. I don't know. I know Bautista.
Mohamed: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I... When I was in childcare, a bunch of,
like, months ago, they were watching the baseball game, and they're like:
"I'm cheering for Bautista."
Ronnie: Yeah, that guy's good. And who's the guy that hits really long...?
Or hits really well? Joe... Joseph, Josh... Josh...
Mohamed: Yeah, Joseph Josh.
Ronnie: Joseph Josh. [Laughs] That's our favourite guy.
Mohamed: Or whatever his name.
Ronnie: We don't remember. Good. Okay. Mohamed, what do you like to do for fun?
Mohamed: I like... I sometimes, if I'm, like, tired and I go home, I sometimes want to play
video games for like 30 minutes or sometimes, like, one hour. And then I get off.
Ronnie: Ah, what kind of video games do you like to play?
Mohamed: I play, like, those video games that have a bunch of guns in them.
Ronnie: Cool. Bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang.
Do you...? Do you have a favourite video game that you play?
Mohamed: GTA V.
Ronnie: GTA V. And do you have a YouTube channel?
Mohamed: Yes, I do.
Ronnie: No way. What is it?
Mohamed: It is: "Mohamedgta5gamerahmed_bay96".
Ronnie: Awesome, Mohamed. Check out Mohamed's YouTube channel, check out my YouTube channel.
We'll see you again soon. Bye.
Mohamed: Bye.
Ronnie: I do caution you: There's one thing that I've forgotten to tell you that's quite important.
The first one is that not all children like when adults talk to them. Some kids are
shy. Now, Mohamed, jump up here. He's not shy. He likes to talk to people.
Mohamed: Yeah.
Ronnie: But you have to be careful. So, some kids don't want to talk to you. So, we're
going to go over some things that you shouldn't do when you talk to a child. The first one
is: Don't talk to them in a baby voice. So, a baby voice is... Would be how you talk to
a baby or a dog: "Hi. How are you? What are you doing? Oh, you're so cute."
Mohamed: Please stop.
Ronnie: [Laughs] Sorry. Okay.
The other one is: Don't talk down to them. Now, they might
be shorter than you, but we don't want to make them feel bad or you don't want to make
them feel like they're not very good people. So, if you tell kids what to do all the time,
you want them to feel comfortable. You don't want to tell them what to do.
Go get me some Coke.
Mohamed: No, I'm not.
Ronnie: Oh.
Mohamed: Please do your own things.
Ronnie: Okay. I will. And the last one is: We have to respect people's personal space.
It doesn't matter if it's a child or an adult. You have to be careful not to touch children,
and I mean that in a lot of ways. But there's a thing we have called personal space, so
even adults, kids, they don't like it when you touch their head, or: Oh, you're so cute.
This might happen. You don't want this to happen on the subway. Okay?
So be careful. And we're gone. Okay. Bye.