Hey guys! Welcome back to our channel. If you’re new here, hello I’m Anna - welcome.
And I hope you stick around. So this video is going to be me rambling.
I know surprise surprise! :)But I actually have some things that I want to give my take
on. I’ve been asked so many times in the comments
why don’t I teach English or make videos about learning English in Russian or Ukrainian.
For those of you who don’t know I’m from Ukraine and I live in Ukraine but I also speak
Russian. And you know maybe you’ve asked yourself
“How should I learn? Should I watch videos in my native language to learn English or
should I watch them in English to learn English?” And you know a funny thing is that right now
when I’m asking this question I have only one answer. You should learn a language in
your target language. However, I want to explain and I want to talk about some things related
to this. First of all, I want to ask those people who
say that teaching English in English to non-native speakers is stupid: “Why do you or why did
you watch my videos?” Just ask yourself this question. Because none
of my videos have Russian titles and I’ve never spoken in Russian or Ukrainian in my
videos. So, you either were searching for some educational
videos in English or YouTube recommended them to you and you clicked on them. So, something
deep down inside of you told you that watching educational videos in English might be beneficial
for you. Many of you who watch my videos regularly
know where stand on this and my philosophy when it comes to learning a language and I
practice what I preach. For those of who don’t know - I believe
that a total immersion and holistic approach to learning a language is the only way to
become truly fluent in a language. What does this mean? It means that when you
learn a language - any language not just English - and if your goal is to become fluent in
this language, you have to work on your listening, speaking, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar,
writing and comprehension, ideally simultaneously - at the same time.
What I mean by fluency is that you are able to communicate with anyone in English. People
don’t have trouble understanding you, you don’t have trouble expressing yourself.
You can have conversations on different topics, watch and understand any video or movie in
English and you understand English speakers without any issues.
Naturally, that at the beginning it blows your mind. It’s hard. Especially if you’re
starting to learn a language being an adult already. And I absolutely agree that sometimes,
especially when someone starts to learn English as an adult it matters and it is important
to have a teacher who can understand them and explain something in their native language
first. But they’re going to need move on to something more difficult (for lack of a
better word) if they want to improve and grow. When you learn English in your native language,
when you watch videos about some English expressions in your native language and listen to all
of the explanations in your native language - you don’t think in English, you don’t
immerse yourself in the language. You limit yourself. You don’t learn any new words
from those explanations because they’re not in English. You don’t hear those natural
speech and sentence constructions. When you watch educational or any other videos
in English, on the other hand, you practice your listening skills, which are highly overlooked
sometimes when people learn a foreign language, especially in the traditional educational
system where you mostly learn to read and write but not listen, understand or speak.
Then when you watch a video in English and you want to understand it you will turn on
subtitles, you will search for the words you don’t know, you’ll learn new words along
the way. And of course you’ll learn to comprehend English as it is supposed to be - in English.
You’ll learn to think in English and understand contexts, and the meanings of words from contexts.
This comprehension and learning to think in English are very important because I think
you’ve noticed that oftentimes we can’t translate something from our own language
to English literally because then it doesn’t make sense and vice versa. To be able to use
grammar you have to understand it and not memorize rules. This means that you have to
think like a native speaker. About subtitles. I do not recommend watching
movies or videos with subtitles in your native language again because in this way you’re
concentrating on reading and understanding in your native language.
English subtitle good. Your native language subtitles bad.
Yes, it’s not easy at all at the beginning and even after a while it still might be a
little tiring, not hard but tiring cuz your brain needs some time to get used to hearing
English frequently. It needs to get used to this switching between languages.
And yes, you are going to need to pause a video sometimes or replay something again
to be able to hear it clearly and search for the meanings of words or expressions you hadn’t
heard before. But it’s going to be so helpful and beneficial for you.
Yep, till this day almost every time I watch or read something I hear and come across a
new word. Especially in my case, I like to watch criminal shows and psychology related
videos. But, here’s the thing - your brain gets used to this process as it learns new
words and accumulates vocabulary, you eventually come across much less new words and it becomes
easier to spot the new ones. And believe it or not it becomes so much easier to memorize
them and understand the meaning from the context. I’ve seen too many people who have been
learning English for years but can’t have a simple conversation, they can’t make sentences.
They might know grammar in theory and might even explain it to you in their native language,
they might know a lot of words and some expressions but they don’t know how to use these, as
they put those words and expressions in wrong contexts.
Why do you think people can’t speak English after many many years in school learning English
in the traditional educational system? Well, everybody knows how to say who’s on duty
today and London is the capital of Great Britain, which is by the way incorrect. (London is
the capital city of both England and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland) You know what I’m talking about. You learn
to translate words and write down transcriptions, you oftentimes learn wrong pronunciations,
(I remember that I was shamed in school by a teacher for trying to speak properly with
an American accent) and you translate texts. Why do you think after all those years spent
learning English they still need English courses? And mind you they learn English in the years
when a human brain develops and is most active and ready to learn - when they’re kids and
teenagers. And then they take courses and search for
some other ways to learn if they need English. But the problem is that they’ve gotten used
to that system and they search for something like that, thinking that it’s the right
way to learn and that they are probably just not good at languages or aren’t capable
of learning languages, which is absolutely wrong - we just need a better approach. We
just need to look around us, analyze and think. Maybe we do need to change something?
So don’t tell me that it doesn’t make any sense, cuz I’ve been through this, learning
this way gave me very little and I know what I’m talking about. And yeah you don’t
have to agree with me. You can take or leave it.
Right now this situation is changing drastically. But unfortunately there’s still courses
that teach you English in your native language, where you sit and learn using text books,
where you learn some words, phrases and grammar that aren’t used in spoken English much
anymore or at all. With that being said, I know for a fact that
there are courses where non-native English teachers try to teach mostly in English with
new and modern approaches. And this is for you to choose. You can even ask your teacher
to talk to you and teach you just in English. Now, having said all this, I need to point
out that it doesn’t mean that those who learn English in their native language or
those who teach it this way are unintelligent, uneducated or stupid. They’ve just gotten
used to this way. They were taught like this, or they just prefer this way better.
At the end of day, to each his own, right? If you like to learn this way, if it works
for you - you do you! You have the right to do whatever you want but just don’t come
after people telling them that what they are doing is stupid. Alrighty?
And if you want to learn a new skill or deepen your existing passions while improving your
English at the same time – Skillshare (the sponsor of this portion of today’s video)
might just be the right place for you, since their classes are in English. One of the key
things about improving your English by watching, listening or reading something is that it
must be something that you’re interested in, something you enjoy and that is engaging.
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of creative classes designed
for real life that will help you stay inspired and express yourself. So, not only will you
be able to explore your creativity, break up your routine and learn some new cool and
useful things but you’ll also improve your English.
Because you guys always ask me about what you should watch to improve your English or
about ways how to improve your English. And I think Skillshare might be a great way to
do that because again, it’s engaging and practical plus they have actual English classes.
I personally have been enjoying their communication skills classes.
With an annual subscription it’s less than 10 USD a month.
And now the most exciting part! The first 1000 of my subscribers to click the link in
the description and join this cool community will get a 2 month free trial of Premium Membership
that gives you unlimited access to all of the classes.
And one more thing for those people who wanted to hear me speak Ukrainian and Russian. This
is for you. Я вам дякую за перегляд
цього відео і сподіваюсь що воно було для вам корисним.
Подписывайтесь на наш канал, оставляйте ваши комментарии
и увидимся в следующем видео.
They told me my teaching method was stupid" or "They told me the way I teach is stupid."