What’s up everyone? I'm Andrea, your RealLife English fluency Coach.
Although English is my native language, I’ve spent years of my life learning Greek and Spanish,
so I’ve been in your shoes - I know exactly what it’s like to know all the grammar and rules,
but still be nervous when words that I know I’ve learned just don't seem to come to me.
And although this may sound like a far off dream for you, I want to invite you to imagine yourself
speaking English confidently and naturally, automatically connecting your thoughts in a
fluid rhythm that anybody can understand. What is that like?
In today’s lesson, we are going to focus on the number one key to advanced fluency that
is going to help you to effortlessly learn and remember vocabulary the natural way!
Let’s look at this sentence: Nice to meet you,
where are you from? (put “read out loud” on the screen) Now repeat after me: Nice-tuh-me-choo,
where-r-ya from? (2x - Give them a chance to listen and repeat).
When I say, “Nice-tuh-me-choo, where’r-ya from” (and you repeat after me), I’m not speaking
or teaching you word for word, because your fluency depends on your ability to automatically
recall, interpret and express yourself in units of meaning, which are called word chunks.
This lesson is divided into two parts:
First, I'll help you understand what chunks are and why they are so important.
Then, you are going to practice using them with me
with three different exercises that you can start doing to improve your fluency.
And right at the end I have a really special surprise for you.
So make sure you watch all of this video to check out what that surprise is.
So, before I teach you everything you need to know about this powerful fluency tool,
if you want to take your fluency beyond the classroom and into the real world,
and be able to understand fast English, to speak confidently with anyone, and connect to the world,
then I invite you to become a RealLifer. Just like Mr Thunder who says he now understands about 90%
words in our lessons through learning with us, making our lessons highly effective!
So now let's help YOU understand our lessons confidently, too. Just make sure you click on the
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Word chunks are a sequence of words that come naturally together to express
an idea. For example, when you first learned "Nice to meet you",
you didn't study each word in the sentence. You simply learned them
altogether, and even how to answer it by saying "Nice to meet you, too!", right?
So, we can say that chunks are " a string of words that we can find in our memory
as a ready-made unit."
In this first part, I will help you to understand why word chunks are one
of the best ways to advance your fluency in English. Let's start with a simple exercise.
I'm going to say a list of words and I want you to memorise all the items in the exact
same order I say. Do not take any notes and do not pause and replay the video, ok?
Ready? Here we go.
All right! What were the words on the list?
Hum... How did you do? The words and the order was:
Touch, Drink, Well, Jump
Now, let's add some challenge to it. Listen and memorize:
Can you tell me them now? Here they are.
So, you may be thinking "Okay, Andrea. I'm here trying to memorise
words and sentences. But, what's the point? How does that help me improve my fluency?"
In both activities, you had to memorise a list with four items,
right? Well, here's the reason why chunks are such a powerful tool.
The cognitive workload, that is, how much your brain had to
"work" to memorise the items was exactly the same for both lists.
“The human brain’s working memory has extremely limited processing capacity. It can only process
4 items simultaneously, regardless if one item equals one word or four or five"
What does that mean? This means that while
for the first one, you memorised only four words,
for the second you memorised 22 and your brain used the same amount of energy in both cases.
Let's look at a practical example. Let's say you’re learning food vocabulary. So,
instead of going on and on with a list of 10 words to describe food,
it'd be much more productive to learn them within a chunk. Look!
Instead of learning and trying to memorize Ripe, bitter, mild and acidic, go for...
This banana is not ripe enough to eat.
Coffee leaves a bitter taste in the mouth
That chicken had a very mild flavour
Some great desserts are made with acidic fruits, like lemon pie, for example
The chunks contribute to fluent speaking because you won't have to construct word by word when
speaking. It will free your "thinking capacity", that is, decrease the cognitive workload your
brain has to go through as words will be understood and recognized as one single unit.
Think of the example I just showed you. When talking about food, you already say bitter taste,
mild flavour and acidic fruits rather than each of these characteristics separately.
Now, I want to invite you to start noticing chunks every moment you're studying English.
And the best place to start is with our free masterclass.
You’ll be able to check out how our Native Immersion course works and start understanding
fast native speech and the vocabulary and pronunciation we use in real life!
To try that for free right now, just click up or the link in the description to sign up!
In this first exercise, I'll teach you the pronunciation of
some chunks you can start using right now to sound more fluent.
The first one is I'm going off on a tangent… First, contract the verb AM to 'm -
I'm. Repeat after me. Then, connect OFF with
ON and A - OFF ON A [oh-fun-uh] Your turn. Finally, work on your intonation.
Your voice goes up and down I'm going off on a tangent...
Let's try? Repeat it with me I'm going off on a tangent
Now, let's put this in context. Repeat after me "I'm sorry I'm going off on a tangent here,
but I always get excited when someone mentions Harry Potter.
Shall we go back to the financial report?" The next one is I guess what I'm trying to say is
First, contract the verb AM to 'm - I'm. Repeat after me.
Then, connect what with I'm - What I'm [wha-uhm] Your turn.
Reduce the word to to tuh and stress the words guess and trying.
Let's try? Repeat it with me I guess what I'm trying to say is
If you want to understand daily conversations and practise your listening skills with the British,
American and Australian accent, then why not check out podcast? You can listen to
it while cooking, walking your dog or doing housework! I’ll link it down below for you!
Moving on to our next exercise, let's look at how chunks can help us learn collocations,
that is words that are commonly used together, like the verb depend is always followed by the
preposition on or that you always say do, not make your homework.
So the best way of doing this is trying to apply those words to many different contexts. So,
I will show the chunk and you will repeat it, completing it with different words each time.
First, let's use What do you say we go for a coffee after work? to invite someone out.
Repeat it after me.
What do you say we go for a coffee after work? Now, it's your turn.
Catch a movie / have a drink / grab a bite
Now, let's practice asking another question to invite someone out. Repeat it after me.
Are you up for a walk in the park? Now, it's your turn.
Change the part in blue to the picture you see.
In this exercise, we'll have a conversation about life and work in the city. In a traditional
classroom, you'd probably learn words like outskirts, commute, city centre and residential to
talk about the place where you live. Here, you'll learn and practice them as part of the chunk in
a conversation. Let's do this twice. First you ask me the questions. Then, you answer them, ok?
You: So, tell me, where do you live?
Andrea: I live in a small town on the outskirts of a very big city.
You: Oh, interesting! And do you also work there?
Andre: No, I have to commute from Oakwood, my town, to London every day.
You: I see. How long does it take to get to the city centre?
Andrea: I actually work in a residential area. I'm a physiotherapist so I go to people's homes.
Andrea: So, tell me, where do you live?
You: I live in a small town on the outskirts of a very big city.
Andrea: Oh, interesting! And do you also work there?
You: No, I have to commute from Oakwood, my town, to London every day.
Andrea: I see. How long does it take to get to the city centre?
You: I actually work in a residential area. I'm a physiotherapist so I go to people's homes.
If you liked this lesson, don't forget to click on the thumbs up and also let
us know in the comments. You can now continue practicing with me, Ethan,
Ollie and other learners. Embark on a Global Adventure and join the list to be a tester of
our exclusive speaking and listening app! Just click the link in the description to sign up.
Freebie: Memrise deck with chunks from lesson So, at the start of the lesson I said I had a
special surprise for you, well, you'll have the chance to continue practicing
the chunks we studied with a special deck on Memrise that we’ve created for you.
It’s a free gift we’re giving you for learning with us!
Just click on the link in the description down below to sign up to Memrise and download it.
It’s that simple! So now it’s time to go beyond the classroom and live your English!