Today you're going to learn 2 strange ways or two different
ways to learn English effectively.
Now, I don't see a lot of students doing what I'm going to
explain here, but I think that these two ways are super
effective. They are really effective when
it comes to acquiring English and being able to talk about
subjects that you like. So what we're going to do is
talk about the power of inputs first, how most people get their
input, and why you should be doing this too.
And then we'll talk about the two different methods that I
think you should also try. But before we do all that,
hello, my name is Jack. Welcome to this podcast.
That's a fluency podcast. If you are new here, then
subscribe to my episodes, this podcast, and also listen to some
episodes after this one. Let's start with input because
input is so important when it comes to learning English.
And you can think of this as things that you read and things
that you listen to or watch. So reading a book is input.
Listening to this podcast is input.
Watching a movie in English is input.
Listening to somebody when they speak is input, and I like
antimoon.com and the way they explain things.
So I'm just going to summarize what they say here when it comes
to input and output and why this is so important.
And I'll leave a link to this article in the description.
But basically you get input and you read and listen to sentences
in a language, and then you understand these sentences and
then they are stored in your brain.
And then when you want to say or write something in English, your
brain takes those sentences that you have learned and allows you
to express yourself. And you can be flexible in this
too, because if you learn a certain sentence, you can adapt
this to whatever you want to say.
For example, if you've learned I'm excited about going to the
party, you can adapt this to I'm excited about seeing you later.
So we're always adapting the sentences that we've learned and
the more sentences we get, the more vocabulary we have and also
the more that we understand grammar.
So when it comes to input, this is really important to read a
lot, to listen a lot, and also to watch things.
Another important thing here about input is there's also a
model that talks about comprehensible input.
And this means being able to understand what you are reading
and understand what you are listening to.
And a lot of this comes down to what you know, the language that
you know. But it's also important to learn
things and to watch things, listen to things, get input on
the things that you're interested in for two reasons.
Firstly, you're going to be engaged, you're going to be open
to this language. And secondly, we often talk
about things that we're interested in and we hang out
with people who have similar interests.
So if you like fishing and you go fishing all the time, then
you're going to talk about fishing when someone asks what
did you do yesterday? Oh, I went fishing, I caught
some fish, etcetera. So in summary, input is super
important because you're going to see language being used
naturally and you're going to internalize these sentences,
these chunks of language, these phrases, and then you'll be able
to imitate this and use your own sentences when it comes to
writing and speaking. Therefore, you should always be
looking to get more input. The more the better, but make it
comprehensible so it's not too difficult for you.
And also read and listen to things that you are interested
in. OK, so let's talk about what
most students do here before we talk about the two other ways
that I want to share today. So most students do things like
change their phone into English. That's the first one.
This is actually such a great thing to do because you're going
to get the repetitive language on your phone and you can take
this a little bit further by using apps in English as well.
So if you're on social media, let's say Twitter, then follow
English accounts or accounts that are in the English
language. You can also listen to podcasts
like this one. Right now, you're getting
comprehensible input because if you're listening to this, you
probably understand most of what I say.
And I'm sure you're thinking, well, this is not true when it
comes to movies in English or having conversations, and I've
talked about that before. But just in summary, that's
going to take time. And it's important to build up
your listening abilities by getting comprehensible input.
So don't feel bad about the fact you can't understand movies if
you can't or you can't understand people when they
speak in real life. Just do what you can do now and
know that you're always going to improve if you keep getting
input. And then two other ways that are
really popular is to watch TV in English.
I love this way as well. It becomes more comprehensible
the more you watch. So the more you watch TV, the
more comprehensible it becomes because you're going to
understand the characters, understand the way people speak,
and it's going to be a lot more comprehensible if you stick with
ATV series and one TV series that I recommend at the moment,
something I really enjoy is called Ted Lasso.
Now it can be quite difficult to understand certain characters.
Sometimes I struggle because they speak quite quickly and
there are a lot of cultural references, but it really shows
a good difference between British English and American
English and also the two cultures.
And then finally, I really like graded readers for reading.
And this is where companies take books and they adapt them for
different levels. So this is perfect for
comprehensible input. Find books that are at your
level or just above your level and enjoy reading them.
The more you read, the better. OK, so so far you've learned
that input is important. The more you get, the better.
But you want to get comprehensible input and also
listen and watch things that are interesting to you.
So just to go back to following accounts on Twitter, follow
accounts that are interesting to you.
Choose the topics that you like to talk about.
Again, if you like fishing, then follow accounts in English that
talk about fishing. After a while, you're going to
get used to and learn the different vocabulary that people
use to talk about fishing. And now it's time to talk about
the two other ways that you can learn English and get lots of
input. Now, the first way I think is
great because most people who are learning languages are also
interested in learning in general.
And this is something that I found with a lot of my students,
that they have this desire to learn new things.
So people generally who like to learn languages, like to learn
music as well or learn how to play a musical instrument.
And what I'm going to say now is this, when it comes to learning
new things, do this in English and get excited about learning
new things in English. I'm going to use a different
example other than fishing. Now let's use the photography
example. So let's say you are certainly
interested in photography. You've just got a new camera and
you're thinking, OK, I need to learn how to use this camera.
Here is what I recommend. Firstly, learn the key terms
when it comes to photography because when you embrace
yourself or engage in a new subject, there are going to be
all these new words and phrases that you need to learn in order
to understand this subject. So for photography it might be
composition, aperture, shutter speed, lenses, batteries,
lighting, etcetera. There are so many other terms.
Those are just some of the terms that I thought of initially.
So take a little bit of time, do a search for keywords and
phrases in English photography and learn those keywords and
phrases. The next thing to do is to get
on YouTube and start watching photography channels.
There are so many out there if you're interested in
photography. It's the same for hunting and
fishing or politics. There's so much out there when
it comes to learning something new.
For example, I love history and I'm constantly watching or
listening to history videos and podcasts.
There are so many different channels out there, and the
first step is to try different channels to see which ones work
for you. I know with some history
channels that people speak really quickly, and I personally
don't like it when I watch a video, which is really quick.
But as somebody learning English, that might be too
difficult for you. So the first step is to find the
channels that you like. Find the channels that you
think, OK, these are good ones. I like these channels.
They're interesting. The person speaks in a way that
I can understand and you just get a good feel for the channel
and then subscribe and watch those videos.
And what you're going to find is that you'll get used to the way
people speak on that Channel. So people use the same words and
phrases all the time and you're going to get that repetition.
You'll get used to the way that person speaks, their accents,
their intonation, the rhythm, the cadence in general.
You'll get used to the way that they speak, and also you're
going to get lots of repetition because when you study or learn
something new, you're constantly listening and seeing these
sentences said again and again. And they're going to use them
flexibly too. So you're going to get really
good input here, input that you should understand after a while
because you've learned the new words and phrases and you're
getting repetition, and also input that you're interested in.
So then you can learn these sentences and be able to use
them when you talk about what you're learning, what you're
interested in. So the first challenge for today
is to think about what you're interested in and what you want
to learn and then go on YouTube and find channels that help you
with that. And then if you want to take it
a step further, you can find courses too.
So you can take courses in English about any topic that you
want to learn. So maybe you want to learn how
to dance. You want to become a better
dancer. Well, use this method because
you're going to be learning something new and you're going
to be doing it in English. And because you're engaged in
improving, you want to improve your dancing, your photography,
whatever it is, then you're going to be highly motivated to
watch videos, to take courses, to keep going at what you're
doing. The next thing to do, the second
way to get input in an engaging way is to read reviews in
English. Now, I'm sure you spend a
certain amount of time most days reading reviews about things
because we're always thinking about going on vacation, buying
something new, getting some new food item.
And you can go online and read reviews in English whenever
you're going to do this in your native language to help you
understand this. What I've done is I found a
coffee machine or a pour over coffee maker on Amazon and I'm
just going to read part of the top review.
OK, Are you ready? I know that this is probably one
of the trendiest ways to make coffee nowadays, but truth be
told, when I was a little girl, my father had a very similar
coffee maker that he would have set up first thing in the
morning and after dinner. I love the ritual of watching
him make coffee the poor over way.
Now something about this is that what we're doing here is we're
using vocabulary or learning vocabulary that is specific to
coffee. Now you might not have
understood everything there, for example, a trendy way.
Now if something's trendy, it means it's popular right now.
And you can think about fashion in that way, but you're also
getting lots of natural English where people are writing in a
way that is engaging and fun to read.
People like to tell stories in reviews, especially the top
reviews. And most people here are talking
in the first person. And I remember reading some
advice from a polyglot, somebody who can speak a lot of
languages, saying learn as much as you can in the first person
because that's how you're going to speak the most.
That's the type of English you're going to use the most.
So when you read these reviews, you're going to get a lot of
first person language. Now, another reason to read
reviews in English is because you're going to get the
repetition as well, where people are going to talk about the same
things, use the same language, but maybe in slightly different
ways. So that's going to help you with
the context of what things mean. Now, you can always look things
up if you don't understand a word or a phrase.
A great example here is the idiom, truth be told.
But truth be told, when I was a little girl, my father had a
very similar coffee maker. And this just means, or this is
used to say that you're stating the truth.
Truth be told, you're stating the truth.
Now, you can do this for anything that you're want to buy
or restaurants you want to visit or places you want to go,
countries you want to visit to, and whatever you can do in those
places. And I think you'll find that we
often read a lot of reviews these days.
It's something that we we like to do in order to know what
we're getting is the best thing for us.
So start doing this in English too.
The next time you want to read a review about something, go on
Amazon.com or any website that's in English and start reading
those reviews. OK, so those are two different
ways to get the input that you need in English.
And the key to this lesson is just finding things that you do
now in your native language and think about doing them in
English instead, especially things that you are really
engaged in. So again, if you're really
passionate about photography, then start watching photography
channels and listen to photography podcasts all in
English. That repetition is really going
to help you. The repetition is so important,
but you're also learning things that you are passionate about,
meaning you want to know. You're going to persevere and do
this. You're going to continue
learning, but also you're going to learn the type of language
that you're going to use when you speak in English.
OK. So thank you so much for
listening to this podcast. It is great to have you here.
Again, if you have not subscribed to the podcast, be
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I really appreciate that. Before you go, check out the
description for some resources that I think you'll find very
useful. And also, while you're here, why
not listen to another episode? OK, I'll speak to you soon.
Bye bye.