well hello this is jack from
tofluency.com
and this is the to fluency podcast
where you can learn english with me
on youtube and soon to be on
other podcast
areas or apps let's say now today we are
going to talk about deliberate learning
versus passive learning
and more specifically
why you need to embrace
difficult moments
why you need to learn to love when
things get a little bit difficult with
your learning
so i think this episode is going to be
very valuable for you and you're going
to learn a lot and at the end i'm just
going to go over my favorite method
which
ties everything together which will
summarize what i'm talking about in this
episode i'm also going to give you some
examples from my life as well
which will help you understand
just the importance of this concept
of embracing
when things get difficult
now to embrace something means to learn
to love it to see it as a positive thing
instead of a negative thing
but before we get into that let's just
talk about deliberate learning versus
passive learning
i'll give you an example so deliberate
learning
is something like learning grammar rules
so let's say you are in a language
school and your teacher says okay let's
learn the present perfect
this is when we use it these are the
rules and you have to focus on that and
try to memorize it try to learn
these concepts
whereas passive learning
is when you are watching a tv program in
english and you are just naturally
getting that input which i've talked
about a lot it's so important to get
input because that's how you're going to
really absorb english and just get used
to the english language
but the opposite of that again is
deliberate learning
grammar rules
when you focus on learning new words and
phrases
when you use a method that i'm going to
talk about later
when you try to
learn how to say
a word that is difficult for you to say
and you practice this a few times and
you practice it again next week that is
deliberate learning now deliberate
learning
needs more focus
it needs more focus because let's say
you are watching a youtube video in
english
you can sometimes just switch off maybe
you're doing this when you're cleaning
the house or on your way to work or when
you're exercising
and you can multitask a little bit with
this because you don't need all of your
focus all of the time
it's watching a video listening to
something while doing other things
whereas deliberate learning when you're
studying grammar rules you're giving
this task all your focus
it's harder to do
there's more
energy needed more focus needed on this
task
and
i know from experience
and i also know from comments on my
youtube channel
that
it's it's often the case when you start
something that is a little bit more
difficult
and then you think
oh this is too hard i can't do it
let's just listen to a podcast episode
instead
or let's just go on youtube and see what
videos are available right now
and i do this too so if i'm trying to
focus on something with my work it's a
little bit difficult i'll switch the tab
and just check my emails
or i'll check out the youtube tab and
see oh is something new there what what
can i have a look at or i pick up my
phone and check my emails
so
this is a big problem
and i think it's actually getting worse
i'll leave a link to
my video where i talk about social media
and how addictive it can be
and how it just takes away our focus a
lot of the time
but the concept i really want to talk
about today is to embrace the difficulty
so
this means to
really get excited okay excited about
when something is a little bit too
difficult for you or when something
seems quite hard to do
and the main reason for that is this
this is where you grow
this is where you're going to improve
the most
is
finding something that's difficult
and learning how to do it
let's talk about some examples i'm going
to give an example outside of language
learning first
and this will help you understand so for
me
i am trying to improve and i always am
my ability
to play soccer
so i play soccer for a couple of teams
and i'll go to the field once or twice a
week on my way home from work
and do some soccer drills
so this is deliberate
learning here deliberate practice
whereas
just playing a game is more
um
it's not as deliberate because you're
not working on specific things instead
you're playing a game
but when i go to the field to practice
i'll do specific drills
with my left foot especially
and at first
these drills are really hard
it's difficult to explain what drills
they are but just imagine i'm trying to
do some advanced things
with my weak foot with my left foot
which isn't as strong as my right foot
so at first
when i start a new drill
i am falling over
i'm missing the ball
and if somebody is watching
they are probably thinking this guy is
terrible at soccer
but it's not that i'm terrible at soccer
which maybe i am
but it's i'm doing a new drill
that is very difficult to do
so at first with anything new it is hard
to do
and there was a new drill i started the
other day and i thought oh i can't do
this
and in your head you're thinking
maybe i should just do something else
maybe i won't ever be able to do this
but for the past two or three weeks um
i've
focused on this drill
and i'm very close to
doing it to a level that i'm very happy
with
and it's all because i changed my
mentality and thought okay
when a task is difficult
this is when i grow
because this task is something i can't
do now but if i learn it
then this means that i'm improving in a
very specific way
so that's an example with soccer
it's the same with learning the guitar
maybe there is a chord
like a very special thing you have to do
with your fingers to make a specific
sound
but
you can't do it at first
however if you think okay i'm going to
do this i know it's hard now but if i
keep practicing and be consistent with
it then i'm going to master this skill
i'm going to reach a stage where i can
just do it automatically
it's the same with language learning too
now an example from my life is
i found
spanish pronunciation very difficult
i had a big problem with saying specific
sounds
like the r sound
and it's very difficult or different in
spanish for me
but i went through a period where i
embraced this difficulty
and i improved in all these areas
and i did the things that in spanish
where i really had to focus
on improving i really had to focus
on those specific tasks
that's when i improved the most
i also did the input the listening etc
and that helped too
but for me what really moved my spanish
forward
was embracing the difficult things to do
at this stage however this is important
not all things that are difficult
are going to move you forward
okay so not everything you do that's
difficult is going to help you improve
it's also important to think about
what are the most efficient things that
i can do
with my time in order to improve
so
if you
think about this in english
maybe memorizing verb patterns or verb
tables sorry
is difficult
but is that really going to help you
improve your ability to speak fluently
and accurately
probably not
however if you work on other methods and
i'm going to talk about those soon
and you find them difficult this is
where you're really going to grow
so use methods that are actually going
to help
and
also
get to that stage where
when you find something difficult
get excited about it because that is
where you're going to improve that's
where you're going to grow
so for example
with learning english i'm going to talk
about one main method or two main
methods now
the first one
is learning the sounds of english and
learning what to do with your mouth
in order to make those sounds
be more accurate when you speak
now i have a course called the to
fluency program if you go to
tofluency.com
and click on the menu bar
there's a link to the program there if
you want to check it out
but inside that course i go through
different sounds of english and
different areas of english pronunciation
and
people send me their recordings
when they go through this
and there's certain sounds that people
find difficult to make
there are certain
areas of the the
course as well that people find
difficult
and what i notice is that again at first
the recordings aren't as good
but with practice and with knowing what
to do with your mouth then this gets so
much better
okay
so for example some people find it
difficult to
to
say the different sounds for example
that are quite similar
for example there's the e
sound and the e sound sit
seat
sit
seat
it
eat
it
eat
where you have the short sound and the
longer sound and it's just slightly
different in your mouth
and spanish speakers especially find
this difficult
but
when you reach this stage you might
think ugh i can't do it i can't make
those sounds it's too difficult
if you think you're if you find yourself
thinking this that's when you say okay
let's go all in
let's really make this my focus now
and i'm going to do it
and it takes energy it takes focus
it's it's not
comfortable
to do this but again this is where
you're going to grow
so then you can learn how to make those
different sounds practice them record
your own voice and then repeat it um
what once you can master it
and then after a while this is this will
just become normal
it will become automatic to you when you
say these different sounds
so you can think about that with um all
areas of english pronunciation you can
practice it with all the sounds of
english
another example might be connected
speech as well or
the the schwa sound
it might be dropped syllables
it could be relaxed pronunciation as
well where you try to practice i want to
and then that goes to i wanna i wanna go
i'm gonna wanna go soon i'm gonna wanna
go soon
that might sound very difficult to say
now but again if you just practice this
you can get there
so that's one method the the other
method is my favorite method the lrc
method which is similar to the
pronunciation method but instead we are
learning phrases
so you find a phrase like i'm going to
want to go soon
you listen to the phrase you repeat it
you record your version of this
and then you listen to your phrase
and compare it to the original
okay
so that way what you're doing is again
you're really focusing on the accuracy
here
i'm going to want to go soon
now if you can't quite understand what
i'm saying here it's i'm going to want
to
go soon
but
this gets
uh
changed to the um relaxed pronunciation
to i'm gonna wanna go soon i'm gonna
want to go soon
and in order to do that you need to slow
down the audio you need to really focus
on the audio
practice saying it there will be times
when you just can't say it correctly but
again if you keep practicing and
embracing this
really learning to love
this feeling of it being uncomfortable
that's where you're going to grow that
is where you're going to really make
progress with everything
but again
don't just do this
for any type of method focus on the
methods that are going to help you
for example another example is when
you're reading a book and you want to
learn new words and phrases
it can be annoying when um you don't
understand the words
because
let's say you yeah let's say you just
have a new book it's a b2 book graded
reader
and you read a page and there's a few
words and phrases you don't understand
it can just really make you feel down
you think ugh my english isn't good
enough for this
but instead of having that mentality
think
wow
look at all these new words and phrases
that i can learn today
be curious about new words and phrases
enjoy
learning new words and phrases because
that's how you're going to improve your
vocabulary
by coming across words and phrases that
you don't understand
learning them in context and getting the
repetition over the long term
so the three methods that i've outlined
here are
learning new words and phrases through
articles and books etc
working on the english phrases imitation
method or the lrc method where you
repeat phrases and also working on the
specific sounds of english and other
areas of pronunciation
those are the three things i think
really help you move forward with your
english
and if you find yourself doing too much
passive learning then
find some time to do this deliberate
practice this deliberate learning and be
sure to do it when you can have the time
and the space to focus on it because it
is going to take more of your focus and
if people are going to interrupt you
then it won't be as easy just to stick
with it
but again
think about this in terms of
not sorry don't think about this in
terms of my english is terrible i can't
do it
think about it as this is a great
opportunity for me to improve in this
area
and it's that constant
focused learning
on a consistent basis that is going to
really move your english forward
so i'd love to know what you think about
this and
talk about your mentality um if there's
a comment section below wherever you're
listening to this talk about your
mentality with your learning
and when you've stopped learning because
it it has become too difficult or when
you are going to use this in the future
when it comes to deliberate practice and
let me know what other methods you're
going to include when it comes to this
area of english too
now if you've enjoyed this and please
share it with somebody that you think
would benefit from it and also go to
tofluency.com t-o-f-l-u-e-n-c-y
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dot com
to learn more about my methods
and also to get a free book the
five-step plan for english fluency and
if you can't find it anywhere just
search for to fluency
t-o-f-l-u-e-n-c-y on youtube or on
google to find more of what we do okay
so thank you so much for listening to
this i hope you enjoyed it i hope you
found it useful and i will speak to you
soon bye
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you