today we're working on the skill of
thinking in English this means you can
come up with what to say faster
join the conversation faster and join in
more easily with more confidence you
don't have to translate in your head you
can just jump right in to an American
English conversation in English this is
one of the biggest problems my students
say they have thinking of what to say
when in a conversation I can relate to
that I had the same problem when I was
living in Germany I was stuck at an
intermediate level and I had a hard time
jumping into the next phase the next
level where I was more comfortable
joining into a conversation
spontaneously the good news is you can
actually train your brain to think in
English I made a video recently where I
went over some strategies and in this
video we take one of those strategies
and we go deep it's a training video
while we train your brain to think in
English we may discover some words you
don't know yet great it's going to be a
vocabulary builder video for you too now
if you like this video or you learn
something new please like it and
subscribe it helps a lot
so today we're working on your ability
to put together descriptive sentences we
recently did a video where we looked at
a picture and named objects that was
just nouns so now we're going to be
moving on we're gonna be using verbs
adjectives
maybe adverbs in addition let's do one
together we're going to see a photo this
is of my son Stoney and my niece Emily
on a recent trip to Mexico you're going
to see it for ten seconds and I want you
to think in your mind come up with one
sentence in English it can be as simple
as it has to be now
maybe you can come up with much more
than one sentence great keep going keep
coming up with sentences until that
timer is done but if you can only do one
sentence that's fine too
okay here it is
you
did that timer in the corner stress you
out it's going to be there because I
want you to practice thinking quickly
maybe thinking under a little bit of
pressure just like it will be in a
conversation practicing it makes it
easier okay now let's go over that photo
and we're going to come up with some
sentences that you may have thought of
stony is on Emily's lap there sitting in
a white plastic chair at a restaurant
stony is eating pancakes with
strawberries on top Emily has her
sunglasses on her head they're both
smiling they look happy the floor is
tile stony has a fork in his mouth these
are just ideas of course you may have
come up with phrases that are totally
different but are accurate there's no
right or wrong here what we want to
focus on here is clearing your head and
going from English the sentence can be
as simple as it has to be just start
from a place of English from your
English vocabulary as you describe
what's happening now if you can't yet
put together a sentence that's okay to
just go back to naming objects table
chair mouth that kind of thing that is
still building the skill of thinking in
English and before you know it you'll be
able to put together simple sentences
too for everybody
building the skill of thinking in
English is going to let you sound more
natural when you're speaking English and
it's going to let you join that
conversation faster okay let's look at
another picture you have 10 seconds take
a deep breath get your mind ready to
think in English this is a picture of me
David and Stoney
you
I should have said David as my husband
okay now we're going to go over that
picture and come up with some possible
sentences and then I'm going to hit you
with three pictures in a row there at
Disney it's crowded it's sunny they're
all wearing baseball caps Rachel's
wearing a striped shirt
they look excited to be there david has
a beard it may feel silly to just
describe a picture and state the obvious
but it does build the skill and it
starts from a simple place so that no
matter your level you can start here and
you can do this building the skill to
think in English it's invaluable
here are three photos in a row ten
seconds each try to come up with at
least one sentence for each but maybe
you can come up with four or five or
maybe even more
you
okay let's take a look at those pictures
and go over some sentences that you may
have come up with then we're gonna jump
to video clips
Stoney's at the beach he's playing in
the surf
the water is foamy he's wearing a red
hat he's running out of the water this
is an action shot they're carving a
pumpkin Rachel's taking out the seeds
Stoney's watching they're outside
Rachel's wearing flip-flops rachel is
squatting Stoney is sitting cross-legged
the boys are wearing matching pajamas
Stoney's barefoot Slayer only has two
teeth Sawyer has his hand on Stoney the
pajamas are red and gray striped they're
sitting on a rug they're both smiling
let's do this same thing now with ten
seconds of video this is a little bit
more of a challenge because there's more
going on if it's too much for you than
just clear your mind and just name one
object if you find you can do that and
there's still time then come up with one
simple sentence okay what did you say
about that they're eating or they're
about to eat or Rachel is serving food
there are lots of different sentences
that you could have come up with
remember there's no right or wrong here
let's go back and watch it and we'll go
over a few more sentences that you might
have come up with watching this scene
Rachel is serving beans and rice she's
sitting on a white couch there are two
little boys in the video the plate and
fork are green it looks like they got
takeout before we move on to the next
clip I want to go over a strategy that
you can use every day to keep working on
this skill you don't need to keep
watching this video go to youtube find a
video that you like a person that you
like a channel that you like and just
watch a few seconds of the video
any video then pause it and just
describe it as much as you can in as
much detail as you can if you can't
describe it if you can only come up with
a few words to say then say those words
and as you do this your skill will build
it's great if you watch the video in
English because then you're gonna be
hearing English and that's going to be
getting your mind into the English mood
for thinking now if you see something
and you want to name it you want to
describe it but you don't know the word
then look it up in your native language
in a translating dictionary I have no
problem with that but then take that
word in English
take the new word you've learned and go
to a learner's dictionary that way you
can also read the definition only in
English in simplified terms so that you
can think of the word as an English word
you can help yourself learn it by
looking at the English definition and
then of course you'll also remember it
because you had that visual from
watching the video write it down review
it every day for a few weeks then that
word will be added to your vocabulary
and you can start using it again as you
are naming objects or coming up with
descriptive phrases
maybe that word will come up for you
again but this method the steps to learn
to think in English only work if you do
them so don't just do them with me here
do them yourself every day just a few
minutes just commit to it okay let's
take a look at another ten-second clip
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
that's gross minutes all right let's
think of some sentences together Sawyer
is on a tennis court he's wearing all
red
he puts a tennis racket in his mouth we
pushed the racket out of his mouth he
doesn't seem to care and that's it
you can do this I know you can the
payoff is huge to be able to start
thinking in English to recall words and
sentences in English and not have to
translate in your own head is gonna let
you join the conversation so much faster
you're gonna feel so much more confident
so just do it put in a little time to
train this habit you're gonna love the
payoff in the next video in this series
where we're training you to think in
English we're gonna be taking a step
forward a step higher and it's going to
be conversational prompts so not just
describing sentences but actually
answering a question in the moment I
make new videos on the English language
every Tuesday please subscribe
with the notifications and come on back
we have fun together let's watch videos
together again on Tuesday the next video
you should watch now to keep on learning
is this one that YouTube has picked for
you out of all of my videos it thinks
it's a great match for you I do too
click it and we'll watch it that's it
and thanks so much for using Rachel's
English