So there's a term in English called the comfort zone.
When you're in your comfort zone,
it means you're doing something
and it's really, really easy for you and enjoyable
and you just really like doing it
and you don't have to work very hard.
When I teach, when I'm in a classroom,
I've been doing it for over 20 years,
I'm in my comfort zone.
It's really easy for me to do that job
because I've done it for so long.
But if you are in your comfort zone
while you are learning English,
that's not always a good thing.
You should be in your comfort zone
sometimes when you're learning English,
but you should also push yourself out of your comfort zone.
You should do things that maximize the time
you are spending learning English.
In this English lesson, I'm going to show you
five different things that you can do
to get yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit
and to learn even more English for every minute
and every hour that you study each week.
(light upbeat music)
Well, welcome to this English lesson
where I'm going to help you get out of your comfort zone
a little bit while you're learning English.
If this is your first time here, though,
don't forget to click that red subscribe button
and give me a thumbs up if this lesson helps you learn
just a little bit more English.
Well, what's the first thing you can do
to get out of your comfort zone a little bit?
Well, the first thing that I recommend
is that you identify the weakest link in your learning.
If you are spending some time each week
reading, writing, listening, and speaking,
find out which of those four
is the one that you're not spending enough time on,
or the one that you're avoiding
or the one that you don't enjoy doing,
and then prioritize the weakest link.
So let's say you love reading, writing, and listening,
but you don't do very much speaking,
identify that as the weakest link
and then plan to spend even more time
having English conversations.
This isn't fun.
Actually, none of the things I recommend
in this lesson will be fun,
but I guarantee you, if you prioritize the weakest link
in your learning, it will accelerate,
it will speed up your English learning
and you'll learn English even faster.
The second thing you can do to get out of your comfort zone
is to make sure you're not always talking
about the same things.
Let's imagine you have an English conversation
with someone once per week.
There's a possibility that you talk about
the same things all the time.
You might talk about work, you might talk about school,
you might talk about the latest TV show that you've watched
but it's important to talk about other things.
Here's a great suggestion.
There is a website called Wheel Decide.
Put a whole bunch of English subjects into the wheel
and spin the wheel and then force yourself
to talk about that subject
the next time you have an English conversation.
One of the ways to get out of your comfort zone
is to deliberately choose different subjects
to talk about when you have an English conversation.
And of course, this also works for other areas,
it's not just for English conversation.
You should be choosing a variety of things to read.
You should be watching a variety of things.
And when you are writing, you should force yourself
to write about a lot of different things.
So try Wheel Decide, it's a lot of fun.
I really enjoy it.
It might help you get out of your comfort zone a little bit.
The third thing you can do
to kind of get out of your comfort zone
is to make sure you are reading above your level
at some points during the week.
It's good to read things in English
where you understand all the words and all the phrases.
That's good practice as well,
but you should be reading some things during the week
that are really hard to read.
You should find some things to read where
you do have to look up a lot of the words
so that you're learning new vocabulary
and you're seeing more complex English phrases.
So the third thing you can do to make sure
that you are not staying in your comfort zone
is to find books that are harder to read.
Maybe you are reading on the webpage
called Simple Wikipedia, which has simplified English.
Try starting to read articles on the normal Wikipedia.
Maybe you're using the simple Wiktionary webpage
which has simple definitions of English words.
Try using the real Wiktionary
and see if that helps you kind of push yourself
out of your comfort zone
to do something that's just a little more difficult
and a little more rewarding.
The fourth thing you can do to get out of your comfort zone
is to do something called intentional verb tense usage.
And this works really well with writing.
So you can try this activity,
it's called later today, right now, and earlier today.
And the way this writing activity works is like this.
You sit down and you write a sentence, or more,
about what you're going to do later today.
This forces you to use a future tense.
Then when you are doing that thing,
you sit down and you write about some of the things
that you are doing in that moment.
And you start by saying right now
followed by a good sentence.
Then when you are home, you do the earlier today portion.
You sit down and you write about things
that you did earlier that day.
Here's a quick example using one sentence
for each verb tense.
You could say this, "Later today, I will go to the park."
When you're at the park,
you would then sit down maybe at a park bench
and write, right now I am at the park.
I see a man walking his dog.
Then when you are home, you sit down
and you write in the past tense.
Today or earlier today, I went to the park
and I saw a man walking his dog.
So writing practice with intentional verb tense usage
can be a great way to push yourself out of the comfort zone.
The fifth thing that you can do
is you can think about how you're using subtitles
when you're watching videos.
There are a wide variety of ways to use subtitles
including not using subtitles at all.
But here are some suggestions.
If you are watching a video
and there are subtitles on YouTube,
you can actually open up the full transcript.
This opens up a lot of possibilities as well.
You could read the transcript before you watch the video.
You could watch the video
and then read the transcript afterwards
and then watch it again.
You could use the actual subtitles
and have them on while you watch the video and read them.
You could watch the video with the subtitles off,
then watch it with them on.
You could watch it with the subtitles on
and then watch it with them off.
I think you see where I'm going here.
Subtitles and transcripts for videos
and for when you are doing listening practice are awesome,
but there are a lot of different creative ways to use them,
including, like I said at the beginning,
turning them off completely eventually.
So make sure you are being creative
with how you use subtitles and how you use transcripts
when you're watching videos.
It can just be a really cool way
to enhance the learning you're doing
and the other cool thing is it kind of tricks you
into watching things more than once.
And any time you can do something over and over again
when learning a language, it just increases
the amount of English that you will remember.
It's an awesome technique.
So just be very creative with how you use subtitles.
They're awesome.
We have a phrase in English to get more bang for your buck.
And I would say this, if you are studying English
and you are only doing the things you like and enjoy
and maybe the things you find easy,
you're not getting a lot of bang for your buck.
For every minute or hour that you put into studying English,
you're not learning as much as you could.
I think it's important to always have this thought
when learning the English language,
what am I going to do this week that is hard?
You can certainly plan to do a whole bunch of things
that are easy or at an intermediate level,
but you should always think to yourself
what one or two things am I going to do this week
that are hard, that are going to push me
out of my comfort zone,
and help me learn just a little bit more in English?
Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.
Thank you so much for watching this little English lesson.
If you're 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 English lesson?
(light upbeat music)