I have a small problem, I'm going to get my assistant to help me.
This is my shtick, or my gimmick.
Later on ask me what those are and I'll be happy to tell you.
He's wearing his little scarf, this is his university scarf.
Mr. E is ready for education.
So what are we going to work on today?
Grammar.
Yeah, okay.
Tell you something new, like you've never heard grammar before, right?
What do you got in grammar that...
Oh, my favorite one.
Teacher, I have trouble with the present perfect.
Teacher, I have problems with the simple past.
Teacher, I don't know why you say used to instead of used to.
By the way, these subjects have been covered on Envid, so go check out Envid and you'll
see all of these and that'll help you out.
But my job today isn't really to teach you grammar, I'm going to use one grammar template,
or one grammar lesson, you might say, to teach you a way that I think is the most effective
and quickest way in order to learn English.
In fact, I'm going to start calling all these lessons the most effective and quickest way
to learn English, ever.
Or, go somewhere else.
I'm not joking.
All right, but I'm going to teach you a way that will probably help you be able to put
things together in your head.
Now, this isn't good just for English, it's good for anything you want to study, okay?
So, let's look at it.
We're going to look at grammar, for instance.
With grammar, you're usually going to be given a title, and that's the beautiful thing.
That's what makes it easy.
You know what you're going to study.
There's never been a time, or hopefully, if you have a teacher, you walk in the room
and they say, "We're going to study something that will tell you about time," and then
put things in logical, consequential order for you so that you can understand what people
are saying in English.
"Leave the room immediately."
Okay?
Usually, even the poorest grammar teacher will say, "Today, we're going to study this subject."
All right?
So, the first thing you want to do on your page is put down the title.
The title.
"What am I going to study?"
Okay?
Boom.
Write that out.
Now, here's what I suggest you do.
See?
Say, "Oh, nice.
I'm such a nice guy.
I'm going to help you today."
Here's what I suggest you do.
Ask the teacher what would they think that particular subject, whether it be simple
present or simple past, the continuous form, what would it...
Oh, if you're in Britain, the progressive form, the simple progressive, the past progressive,
whatever.
Okay?
Continuous progressive.
What would it represent?
What...
It's a trigger word.
So, one of the things that's going to be here is going to be called a trigger word.
Now, "trigger" comes from the use of a gun.
When you have a gun...
Okay?
You can see.
This is how I draw worms.
This is how I draw guns.
Okay?
Before you fire the gun, this is called the trigger.
That makes the bullet come out.
So, that starts the process.
So, we want to have something that will start the process to help you getting all the information
that you need.
This trigger word is important because it must help you remember what the subject is
you're studying.
So, instead of putting title, because title is a little bit vague, I'm going to put subject.
Okay?
So, what is the subject?
Then you need a trigger word.
What word is going to help me remember the title and by helping me do this will help
me do the definitions.
So, I don't have to think anymore.
I'm good to know.
One word will take me one direction and then the other direction.
Okay?
So, what we want to do is ask a trigger word.
So, you say, "Teacher, what is the best way to explain this?"
With one word.
That's the key.
One word.
The teacher shouldn't give you a sentence.
You don't need a sentence.
That's what definitions are for.
Okay?
If the teacher should, then I have to start giving you definitions.
The trigger word is a bridge, you might say.
You're going over water.
So, here's some water.
And you need to get over the water.
Because there's land over here and land over here.
You're saying, "I want to go from point A to point B, but I don't know how to swim.
How do I go?"
Well, we build a bridge.
And that bridge is your trigger.
That will take you from the subject to definitions and then take you to complete understanding.
Alright?
So, we've got a trigger word, then the definitions.
From the definitions, what you want to go there after that is do some diagrams.
What people forget, usually, our brains...
Well, we're video cameras.
Video cameras.
Video cameras have listening devices.
Absolutely.
But they take pictures.
And from the pictures, we get a view of our world.
Right now, close your eyes and then try to imagine your room without thinking of a picture.
Come on.
Imagine where you're sitting in the room without looking at a picture.
Can't do it, right?
As soon as you think room, boom, chair pops up, you see a chair in your head.
So, you know right away that our world is structured by pictures.
So are your thought processes.
So, if you can get a picture for it, you'll actually get a basic understanding of it.
But this should come off to the definition.
Because, as I said, video cameras also have listening devices.
Go check out my lesson on listening, effective listening.
Alright?
That should help you.
Alright.
Now, you want to get the definition to get an understanding.
But to complete that understanding, you want a picture.
If you get a complete picture, you'll notice just by closing your eyes and seeing the picture,
the idea, the definition comes up.
Cool.
Alright.
After that, you'll do what standard teachers do, which should be, well, not should be,
usually a good idea, to do the form of the verb and then to do the structure of the verb.
Okay.
The last thing I usually do when I teach are special cases or special instructions.
So you're going to look here, and if you look on the board, I basically outlined my formula
for teaching.
But here's the beautiful thing about it.
It's your formula.
Now, when you go to a class, you can literally have something written out like this for you.
Right?
Alright.
Where you can organize your work so each part leads into the next part.
What am I saying?
Yeah, I know.
It's easy to talk, but then you usually have to show it, right?
You need a demonstration because it means nothing to you right now.
So why don't we start off with the, in my case, or my belief, the best one to start off with.
I'm going to start off with this simple present.
The simple present.
Well, first of all, that's the subject, so I'll put it up here.
Simple present.
Now, by the way, start your watch.
My watch is here.
I'm going to teach you the simple present in five minutes.
What?
Yep, five minutes.
Are you ready?
Ezekiel just got his watch out.
Go ahead.
Start.
Alright.
Starting now.
Simple present, how do we start?
Trigger word.
Simple present.
In my mind, the present is forever.
It's permanent.
And you go, "Why?"
Well, simple present is true.
Truth.
Alright, I say true.
I'm going to erase that because it's kind of messy.
Okay, I'm going to go over here.
I say the simple present is about truth.
It's permanent.
Now, you're going to say, "How can you say it's permanent?
You haven't taught me anything."
I'll give you a second.
I will.
I'm going to say the simple present.
I'm going to say it's about truth.
The important about truth is it has to be true now, yesterday, and tomorrow.
What do I mean?
I'm a teacher.
I was a teacher yesterday.
I believe in my mind I'll be a teacher tomorrow, even for five, ten years from now.
I've been a teacher for five years and I'm a teacher right now.
It's about truth.
So, it's true.
Yeah?
With me so far?
Good.
In that case, in my mind and my way of thinking, notice I've gone from the grammar lesson,
I've expanded it.
I've given you the concept of truth, which is forever.
Here's why.
A lot of students come to my class and they'll tell me, "Teacher, simple present is about
habits."
And I usually say to them, "Habit?
How do you know it's about habit?
How do you know?"
And they just say, "That's what my teacher told me."
They don't understand.
I go, "It's a habit based on truth."
They say, "What do you mean by that?"
So, I say, "Well, first of all, truth is permanent.
It's got to be true today or tomorrow or yesterday.
Birds fly.
True a thousand years ago, be true in a thousand years from now, it's true today."
Okay?
Permanent.
So, that's past, present, and future.
Right?
So, we'll just put that up here.
Truth must be true.
Right?
Past, present, future.
I've got one minute now.
I've got four to go.
Keep watching.
All right.
So, definitions.
How do you know something's true?
Well, by definition, if something's true, it should be a fact.
Notice I didn't put fact, I put true.
Some things are facts, but they're not true.
We disprove them.
We say truths are eternal or forever.
Right?
It's a fact that the Prime Minister of Canada is Brian Mulroney.
Well, that's not a fact.
It was a fact.
It's not true anymore.
See?
I don't even know because I don't like Harper.
So, I don't want to...
Oh, I said his name.
Harper is our Prime Minister.
Right?
It's a fact now, and it's true now, but it will not be a fact in five years.
It'll be another person who's Prime Minister.
So, facts can be true, limited.
Right?
Or it can be shown to be wrong.
True should be true all the time.
Right?
So, we say true.
Something must be true.
Now, how do we know it's true?
Well, often, it's repeated.
Now, you'll notice I put repeated with -ed on the end.
Why?
-ed reminds me of the past.
It starts in the past, true now, true in the future.
-ed.
Now, why don't we look at here?
What's the other part of it?
Repeated doesn't always mean something is true.
In fact, this morning I went to the washroom three times.
I've repeated it three times.
Will I do this tomorrow?
Maybe, maybe not.
It's not necessarily true, but it's repeated.
So, we need something else to make this repetition true.
And I'm going to give it to you.
It's often.
How often do you do something, or what is the frequency?
Because frequency basically means time you repeat something, the amount of times you
repeat something in a given amount of time.
For instance, I go to school five times a week.
So I go five times one week.
Time period, one week.
Repetition, five times.
Alright?
So that's my frequency, how often.
And it's repeated.
And it's true.
If I have all of these things true, it becomes the truth.
It is the truth.
I am a teacher.
I teach five times a week.
Now, habit.
We define habit by saying repeated and often.
If you repeat it enough and you repeat it often, it's a habit.
I smoke three times a day.
It's my habit.
That's where habit comes from.
The next time your teacher tells you that, you explain to them because it's based on
frequency and it's based on repetition.
They'll go, "Oooh, student.
I have two minutes."
Well, let's look here.
What did I say about truth?
I already put the answer up here, and now you know as well.
If something's true, it has to be true in the past, present, future.
Okay?
So that means it's going to be true.
All the way this way and this way.
I know it's small, don't worry.
Go in, you'll press that little button, blow up the screen, you'll see it.
Okay?
Another part of the diagram is the ideas.
We know something's true all the way here.
What about repeated?
Well, once again, remember I said past, present, future?
Well, we're going to go all the way down here and say this and here and here.
So when we say here, we talk about repeated, it will be repeated over here.
See?
In the past, you'll do it here.
Maybe here in the present, here.
In the future, you'll do it.
It keeps happening.
Repeat it over and over again.
Yeah?
Cool.
Now, the last one is going to go down here.
Look, it's way down here.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to move it up a bit and draw another line.
Okay?
So we've done that.
Make it easy.
Frequency.
I'll put week.
Okay?
Week.
You got the word week?
Maybe not.
So let's go over here.
Ezekiel, move over.
I've got week.
So I say one week.
That is my time.
Okay?
Then I'm going to say, how many times repeat it in a week?
One, two, three.
Three times a week.
I go to the gym to work on my big muscles.
I only have a big belly.
Three times a week.
That's how many times I repeat it.
That's the frequency.
You've now learned the basics for the simple present.
You've got the diagrams.
You've got the definitions.
You've got your trigger word, truth.
Simple present, truth.
Boom.
These three things will come out.
Honeydew is true.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
These are the diagrams.
Form.
Here's my favorite.
Verb to do is the auxiliary verb for the simple present.
And all we have to do is, basically, if it's singular, third person, add "s."
Okay?
So, let's move over the form a little bit.
Okay?
So if it's singular, you add "s."
And if it's plural, no "s."
That's it.
So, they go, she goes.
Easy, right?
They walk.
She walks.
They walk.
Third person singular, so we'll put third person singular, add "s."
That's it.
He, she, it.
Finally, structure.
I won't go into that now because I'm actually running out of boardroom and time.
But you get the picture.
We do the simple or the regular structure, right?
I walk.
I work.
Negative.
I do not walk.
Work.
I don't work.
Question.
When we do a question, we actually reverse the verb with the subject.
And then the W-fiber information question where we say what, where, when, who, with
the rest.
Cool?
I lied.
It was more like ten minutes.
But you get the picture.
What, you spend an hour in another class learning I taught you in ten minutes?
Go over this.
You'll notice if you go over this three times, later on you'll go, whoa, I can't forget.
I guarantee you in two weeks you'll go, oh my god, I still remember.
Because you have a trigger word that will lead to the rest.
Okay?
More importantly, you have a structure for yourself to go into any classroom and learn
English.
You write out the structure.
You get the teacher to define it.
Teach to you.
And you will remember.
But it's worth more than a Starbucks coffee.
Anyway.
Ezekiel likes his black and tall.
Send one.
EngVid.
So, there'll be a quiz after asking you what are the things you should put down.
And then, you know, try and put it to use.
All right?
It'll help you with general grammar and advanced grammar lessons as well.
It's always my pleasure helping you.
And I'd like to be more of service to you.
So, why don't you come to EngVid.
So, I'll put it on the board.
Okay?
Just in case.
All right?
And by the way, check out other lessons on our basic grammar.
We've got a whole unit you might want to take a look at.
Coming up soon.
All right?
That's www.engvid.com.
We do our best every day to make life a little easier for you.
Have a great day.