Hello and welcome to go natural English if you didn't already know
I'm your American English teacher Gabby Wallace here to help you with your English fluency and confidence and
especially in this lesson with your listening skills now if you improve your listening skills, you're
automatically going to improve your fluency because if you can hear something then you're more likely to be able to replicate it in your
Speaking so if you want to improve your English fluency and especially your listening skills then keep watching
Let's begin in your English class your teacher may have given you a long list of
individual vocabulary words to memorize
I know my teacher did in elementary school when we had to memorize vocabulary
words and middle school and then in high school in my Spanish language class and in
college in my Spanish language class and my French class and basically
Every language class I've ever had my teacher always gave me a list of
Individual vocabulary words to memorize and then I memorized them for the test
And I did pretty well on the test and then when I went to speak that language
With native speakers of the language whether it was Spanish or French?
I
Couldn't complete a full sentence all I could think of were individual words
So my fluency was really horrible of course this doesn't really apply to English because it's my native language
But with languages that I was learning like French and Spanish I was having a huge problem with
fluency and also with listening
I couldn't understand what native French speakers or Spanish speakers were saying it was extremely difficult to understand them
unless they spoke only in individual words yes, no one -
It doesn't work like that in real life most of the time unfortunately although sometimes. I got lucky and
People would speak in one-word sentences
However in real life. It's just not like that right
I think you know what I'm talking about so what I want to tell you about today is the opposites of
learning individual words
Learning multiple words together
two or three words
for example in the sentence
How is it going?
How is it going forwards?
But this is a phrase that's used so often that you should learn these four words
Together as one unit there's no need to memorize them separately you're going to get a lot
Farther in your English fluency if you memorize them together
How's it going? It even sounds like one word and this is called a chunk when you learn more than one word together
It's called chunking
Another example would be the answer to this question. How's it going good? Thanks?
Those are two words, but it's kind of a chunk because you say them so often together good
Thanks good. Thanks. It almost sounds like one word so I want us to take this a step further
Let's talk about
thought
chunking in longer sentences because
beginners learn individual words like good
Thanks, how
is
It's going
Intermediate learners will learn chunks like how's it going good?
Thanks, but advanced learners are going to learn how to create their own chunks in longer sentences
So these are called thought chunks. We're going to look at an example about how to identify
them and
how to produce them so identify them produce them and
Hear them and recognize what the important words are that you're hearing so this is going to improve your listening skills
By listening for chunks, and not just individual words
This is also going to improve your speaking skills because you're going to speak in a way. That's more intelligible more understandable to other
Native speakers and also more interesting
Using chunking is going to make you sound more
Interesting so keep watching, and I'm gonna show you how to do this with an example
Let's look at an example from one of the longest sentences in literature it has 96 words and it's one
Sentence so we're gonna take a look at how to identify thought chunks, and how to stress the word in the thought chunk
That is the most important one now when you're listening you want to listen
For the stressed words because those are the most important even if you don't
Hear the other smaller words that are less important
It's okay, because you're still gonna be able to understand the main idea and that's gonna help your listening skills a lot
Okay, so I'm gonna read this first without stressing and without making any thought chunks
And let's see how that goes and how easy that is to listen to and also how interesting it is here
We go as he crossed toward the pharmacy at the corner
he
involuntarily turned his head because of a burst of light that had ricocheted from his temple and saw with that quick smile with which we
Greet a rainbow or rose a blindingly white
parallelogram of sky being unloaded from the van a dresser with mirrors across
Which across as across the cinema screen passed a flawlessly clear reflection of Bo's sliding and swaying not our barley?
But with a human vacillation produced by the nature of those who were carrying the sky these bows as gliding facade
So that was pretty difficult to listen to you right, and I'm guessing you may have fallen asleep
Or you may have clicked over to another video, but if you're still here
thank you so much because now I'm gonna show you how to
chunk words together into thought chunks, and how to stress the most important words as
He crossed toward the pharmacy at the corner he
involuntarily
Turned his head
because of a burst of light
That had ricocheted from his temple and saw
with that quick smile with which we greet a rainbow or a rose a
blindingly white spiral Ella Graham of sky
Being unloaded from the van a dresser with mirrors across which as across a cinema screen
Passed a flawlessly clear reflection of bows
sliding and swaying not our Burley
but with a human vacillation
produced by the nature of those who were carrying this sky these bows this gliding facade so
I think you're gonna hear where we paused and which words were more stressed
That makes your speaking so much
clearer so much more interesting and easy to understand and
You should listen for stressed words to improve your listening to really catch the most
Important words to catch the main idea
And if you need clarification from there you can always ask a question
So I hope you enjoyed this quick lesson if you'd like to get some of my best
lessons directly into your email inbox
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So thanks so much for watching, and I hope to see you again in another lesson soon bye for now