Mister Jones and me. Hey. James from engVid. How are you? Nice day outside;
thought I'd do a lesson. Today's lesson, actually, I want to teach you... it's
more about hints... helpful hints on how to learn English. I'm gonna give you
four things you can do to help you learn English. These are things that teachers
do when they have a classroom. It's not that they tell the students they're
doing this, but I believe that these are the four things we kind of all kind of
do to make the classroom interesting for you to learn. And if you adapt these for
yourself, you'll probably find that you're gonna find learning fun, and
effective, and efficient. So, let's dive into them, shall we? Number one, numero
uno, ichiban. I wish I could say it in another language, but that's how it is.
Number one is this: Know the animal in front of you. Here's what I want you to
do: A little test. Close your eyes, and I want you to imagine sitting in front
of a cat. What would you do with the cat? Maybe pet it. If you're not a cat
person, dog, okay? You pet it, play with it, what have you. But you know that
animal's friendly. Now, I want you to close your eyes again. This time, I want
you to imagine a lion that hasn't eaten in 30 days. How do you act towards that
animal? Not the same as the cat. "Know the animal in front of you" means: Know
the person you're dealing with. In this case, as a teacher, I would look at my
students individually and I would say: "Okay, this student likes to be, you
know... challenged. This student has a difficult time learning", and I would
adjust the lesson slightly for each student. But in this case, you're
student number one, so you really have to sit down to know who you are. What
does that mean? When do you like studying: The morning or at night? Do
you like audio stuff? Do you like visual? Do you like to read? Know
yourself. Don't just go by what the guidelines say or teacher says; know
yourself. Know the animal that you're dealing with. Student number one —
that's you. Okay.
Number two: The environment. When I walk into a classroom, I look around. Is it a
messy classroom? Is it a big classroom? Is there noise around the classroom?
What's going on? Okay? So, I have to take these things into account. Do I
have all the supplies; all the things I need to teach? Maybe I have to do a
lesson by myself; maybe I have a nice whiteboard. Not today, but usually have
a nice whiteboard with a worm on it. I'm missing Mister E. Okay? So, maybe I have
all that stuff. But when I don't have that stuff, I have to adapt. So, what I
mean, say lesson number two: Lesson number two is situation and environment.
Like my friend who's yelling for his dog; just got to adapt. Right? So, look
at your situation/environment. Are you studying at home? Are you studying in a
library? Are you studying in your school in university? What are the factors that
are going to help you? Is there are a lot of light; low light? Is it
nighttime? Is there a lot of traffic? See? People visiting Canada. Yeah,
anyway. So, once I know my environment, I have to adapt to it. So, first, I have
to know myself; rule number one. Rule number two: What's the situation or
environment?
So, what's rule number three? Rule number three is interesting. It's:
Questions. Questions, questions, questions. And you're probably thinking:
"Well, questions. What are you...? What are you talking about? Am I gonna
question myself?" Yeah, you are. In a classroom, I use questions in two ways.
One, to get students to actually be active in the process of learning. So, I
will ask them questions, like, you know... "When did the War of 1812
start?" Okay? Yeah, you got it. They will start thinking; they'll process
information. I've got their attention. And now I've got their attention,
they're ready to learn. Okay? I also ask questions for clarification to make sure
they understand. So, I say: "Well, if this happened and this happened, what
else could happen?" This tells me how deeply they've taken in the knowledge.
How this works for you — give you an example for reading. Before you open a
book and read it, ask yourself the "w" five. Now, I had one student say to me:
"Well, there's... it's not 'W' five; it's like 'W' seven. There's: 'Who',
'What', 'Where', 'When', 'What', 'Why', and 'How'." I'm like: "Yeah." We have a
TV program in Canada that it was: "Who", "What", "When", and "Where", and "Why" —
that was it. Yes, there are more, but the investigation... oh, sorry; that's a
nice, long word. When people do news reports, they usually stick with the
basic five; the other two are added on. So, you want to ask these questions of
yourself: "What am I reading? Why am I reading it? Who is important? What is
happening?" No. "What are?" Those five. By asking those five things before you
start reading a book, then you read — you'll notice that your brain starts
picking up the information. The same thing can be said in a conversation.
Before you engage in a conversation with someone: "Why are we having this
conversation? Who am I speaking to? What's important about it? How will
it...? How is...? How will things be changed or how will the outcome change
because of this conversation?" It's going to change the way you actually
interact in the conversation. So, you can do the same thing when you're
studying. If you ask yourself questions, like: "Why am I studying this text or
this particular grammar? Why is it important? What will it change?" you
will quickly notice that you'll get more out of the lesson. Okay? So, we've done
one, two, three questions. Right? Questions to get information, and then
questions to check understanding. Right? And you can do that with grammar as
well, like: "Why is this grammar important?" But you can also say: "Why?"
Sorry. Yeah, okay. "Why? Why it would change in this situation", and that will
check your understanding. Because as you know, with English, I usually say
there's an 80% rule. I can give you a rule, but it's only 80% true. After
that, what happens is: 20% of the time, something kicks in and it doesn't make
any sense. Right? There are a lot of... a lot of rules, like the verb "to be" is
one of those things — an odd verb.
Okay. So, the last one I will introduce you to — number four — is... see that? E
was here. I told you he didn't come. He was drinking again. That's why he's not
on the job. Guy's taking a holiday; drinks, and then pollutes the
environment. He's a bad worm. He's like one of those worms you find in the
bottom of the Mexican tequila bottle. You know what I'm saying? Drunk worm.
Anyway, sorry. Took me off. So, back to number four. All the other things I was
telling you about is taking in your environment and understanding what's
going around you and yourself before you do the work. Now, if you want to get the
maximum out of any work you're doing, what you want to do is be very detailed
in instructions or giving details. Now, for me, that's giving a class
instructions to do something. I don't just say: "Do this, do this". I have a
picture in my mind, and I literally say that picture out to them. So, you know:
How does that apply to me? You got to give yourself detailed instructions on
what you want to do and accomplish when you're studying. "When I'm done studying
today, I want to know these three verbs. And I want to know how to use them in
this situation." Very detailed, so that when you're doing the studying, you're
going to take the most out of it. Do what is necessary. Don't waste time on
that stuff; that's not necessary. Like, learning the three... I had this great
guy — love him to death — his name is CJ, and I used to teach with them. You
could ask him about a verb tense and how it came in. Now, when I would teach, I
would say: "You use it like this." Okay? CJ could go through the last 40 years of
how it was brought about, when it was initially said, how it has been used in
this way, in 1872 something happened — it was... And I'm like: "I don't know
that stuff. I just say: 'Do this and do this.'" Right? CJ could do all that,
which is great; but in the grand scheme of things, it may not be necessary for
what you want to do. Okay? Keep that in mind. It is good stuff. Because once you
understand how something has changed, you might know why it doesn't work in a
certain situation. You'll go: "Okay. It wasn't designed for this." Right? But if
your job is just to do X, then you want to put your work and your energies
toward X. And when you have more time, you can go to Y, Z, and everything else.
And in this way, if you take these four things I've given you, you're going to
find that you're taking... you might say: "secrets of the teachers" that they
don't teach you in the classroom. But you're going to be able to take that
stuff and utilize it for yourself to maximize your learning. In other words,
you just made your home a classroom. Cool?
Anyway, homework for today: Try it out. Take a subject — reading, writing
conversation, whatnot — take five minutes, and I want you to do the first.
Sit down and first thing: "Okay. Do I like to...?" If it's reading: "Do I like
to read?" A lot of people don't like reading foreign languages, English
included, simply because it takes them too long. So, you might go: "I love
reading, but I don't want to read in English." Okay. Keep that in mind,
knowing that that's going to be something that might stop you. Knowing
yourself is half the battle. Ask G.I. Joe. Sorry. Childhood thing. Okay. So,
G.I. Joe. So, that's something you want to do. Or maybe you enjoy reading, and
you say: "You know what? Of all the tasks in English, this is the one I can
get the most out of because I love it." Okay? Know who you are. Environment. Do
you have a lot of light in the room to read? Is there not enough light? Is
there a lot of noise? Do you have to change the environment or the situation?
Or is it the perfect environment? Yeah? Check that out. Number three. What's the
next one? Ask yourself some questions. "Okay. What do I want to get out of this
text? What do I want to learn? Or what do I want to, you know... do with
speed?" Sorry; I'm just making it up because I'm doing it on the fly, here.
But you might say: "I want to read faster, or I want to learn something
specific." Number four, as I said, it's especially for reading — you want to ask
yourself questions, like: "Who is in it? What is important? Why is this
happening? How did it...?" You will notice — boom — a complete difference in
your experience and your studying English. It won't be you studying
English; it'll be you studying, and that's the whole thing. You studying to
better yourself and to learn something new. Once you got the pressure off of
that it's English, you're going to find it's gonna be a whole lot of fun.
Anyway, that's your homework. As you know, I always give you homework. Can't
give you a test, because I got no board behind me. But the test might be...
yeah, here's a test: At the end of this video, I want you to go down below, if
you're on YouTube or if you're on engVid — write the four things I gave you. Try
and see if you can get them in order. Every one you get, we'll give you 100
million dollars. (laughs evilly) It's a James Bond thing. You'll... you'll get
it. Anyway, gotta go. It's a brilliant day, and I think I'm gonna go for a
walk. Ciao.