How to get fluent in English | Canguro English

chess one of the oldest and most well known games of skill and strategy in the world and one of its iconic players is Garry Kasparov whom many people consider to be the greatest chess player that has ever lived now let me tell you something surprising about me I know how to play chess just as well as Garry Kasparov you probably don't believe me but it's absolutely true and at the end of this video I'm going to prove it to you and I'm also going to show you how knowing how to play chess as well as Garry Kasparov is exactly the same as fluency in English [Music] hello and welcome to kangaroo English I'm Christian and today I am going to be answering a question that I get asked every single day how can I become fluent in English you only have to spend a few minutes on the Internet to realize that there are a million different opinions and systems and methods for learning a language and I'm not really interested in adding any more opinions to this mix so today what I want to do is I want to look at the science what does the science tell us is the best way to learn a language now spoiler alert some of the things are maybe a little bit surprising but a majority of the answers to this question really what you and I would consider common sense the first thing which is really important for you to realize is that you are biologically prepared to learn a language the linguist Steven Pinker described it as an instinct to acquire an art and I think that's a really perfect way to put it because learning a language isn't always a scientific process there's so many things about language that are what we consider art beauty imagination emotion but you no matter how old you are no matter how many other languages you speak you are a language learning machine now something which might be surprising to you is the power of affect on the language learning process basically how your emotions how you feel can affect whether you learn or not and this is proven in study after study and there are four categories of effect that both students and teachers need to pay attention to so the first one is motivation obviously it's really important to be motivated or you're not going to reach your goals when you're learning a language the second thing is attitude how do you feel about learning English do you enjoy your classes is it something you look forward to or do you hate it the third thing is self-confidence it's really important for you to feel in yourself that you have the abilities to do what you need to do with your language and finally anxiety if you don't feel comfortable if you feel like there's a lot of pressure on you to perform and you're not ready then you can completely shut down and stop learning altogether for me the most powerful quotation about the power of affect on language learning is from the linguist Earle Stevic who said success in language learning depends less on materials techniques and linguistic analyses and more what goes on inside and between the people in the classroom language is a social construct and it's really important to include all of the social aspects of learning in the learning process the next thing we need to talk about is Grandma what's the best way to learn grammar now a lot of people think that grammar is language but it's not grammar is just a part of language and not even a big part and grammar will not give you fluency there's a difference between accuracy and fluency some people can be very accurate when they speak but they can be not fluent and people can be very fluent and not a cure what grandma gives you is grammar gives you the accuracy and that's why it's important to study but only as part of a bigger learning process now the scientific research tells us that the best way to learn grammar is not the traditional way the traditional way to teach grammar was to give the students rules and structures to memorize but this is really boring and it's not very effective what we want to do is we want to teach grammar in a communicative context we always want the students to be using grammar with meaning of course it's all about communication so there are four types of grammar activity that has been proven to be really effective the first type is structured input basically I want you to give me input about a very specific grammar point and you can do this in various ways I could ask you to fill in a survey I could ask you some yes-or-no questions I could ask you to put things in order or to match things together using a specific grammar point so for example if I want to teach you about the difference between adjectives with in and Edie I don't just tell you the rule I do this the boy is interesting I am interested in his work the film was boring I was really bored and then I'll ask for your input tell me about something that you're interested in and tell me about a time when you were really bored by forcing you to give me this should input you are learning the grammar rule in a communicative way the next type of activity is actually one of my favorites and that is consciousness-raising basically I hope the students to discover the rules for themselves so imagine that I want to teach you about prepositions of time I'll give you this paragraph the class is in February at 7:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday in the morning at 6:00 is the other class and I'll ask you to underline all of the time prepositions okay so in February at 7:00 on Wednesday in the morning 6:00 so then the student can see that okay so with months we use in with days we use on and with times we use at and again it's all about learning this grammar in context the next type another one of my favorites is PPP presentation practice and production so first I will present a grammar point I will for example tell you that today we're going to practice the third conditional and I will explain that it's to talk about imaginary things in the past and we use if and past perfect and then would have now practice so I can give you some type of grammar activity to practice maybe you have to fill in the blanks maybe I will ask you to conjugate only the something where you have to practice the grammar points and then finally production I will ask you to produce your own sentences in the third conditional and again in this way we're moving from a grammar rule all the way through to communication the final type is negative feedback it's basically when the teacher corrects the student when they make a mistake so imagine it in class that the student says I go the supermarket yesterday so there's a couple of problems that the verb is not conjugated and we're missing the preposition so the teacher repeats I went to the supermarket yesterday now negative feedback only works under two conditions one is if you do it in limited quantities you cannot correct everything that the student says wrong because then your class will be will be a disaster be horrible for the teacher and the student and the second thing is the student must be paying attention the teacher must encourage the student to notice when they make mistakes and notice when you correct them so basically we can't learn grammar out of context as an isolated thing we have to study grammar in a communication context the next thing is vocabulary what is the best way to learn vocabulary and in general all of the science agrees on one thing and that is it's really important to have a lot of input as much input as possible so reading is fantastic it might be the most effective way to learn vocabulary flashcards spaced repetition software like Anki or memorize all of this stuff is scientifically proven to increase your vocabulary but there's some important considerations okay so the first thing is that you have to choose material that you enjoy if you are not enjoying it the power of effect comes in and closes your mind and you don't learn the second thing is that you want to be learning at your level plus one so you want materials that are just one step above the level that you have now because if they're too easy you don't learn if they're too difficult also you don't learn and again the same with the grammar you shouldn't try to learn vocabulary in isolation your brain does not store things in isolation your brain is series of connections the more connections that you can make with new vocabulary the more probability that you will remember it so you need to learn the vocabulary in context and then use it in a conversation and then write it down then learn it again at the beginning of this video I told you that I know how to play chess just as well as the Russian Grandmaster Gary Kasparov and it's absolutely true I know that this is how you set up the board I know that on its initial move the pawn can move one or two spaces but it must take another piece on the diagonal I know that the rook can only move in a straight line but the bishop can only move on a diagonal I know how to play chess I know all of the rules of the game so what's the difference between me and mr. Kasparov practice fluency in English is exactly the same people spend all of their time learning how to speak English learning the rules of English thinking that this will take them to fluency but it doesn't work for chess and it doesn't work for English either if you want fluency you have to practice fluency is the result of playing the game so ask yourself do you want to play chess like me or do you want to play chess like Garry Kasparov when I was preparing for this class I spent a long time on the internet listening to other people's opinions about the best way to learn a language I've read lots of blogs I listen to podcasts I spent a long time watching videos on YouTube and and after a while I noticed a pattern emerging and that was that people who were against the scientific methods or maybe you could say the common-sense methods they all had something to sell you know the guy who said that it's not necessary to produce English to speak English you can you can learn English only through memorization he has a website specifically for memorizing things you know the guy who tells you that you can be fluent in in in 90 days you know has an entire business built around this idea and it actually makes me a little bit angry because one I think that they're not only hypocritical but they're spreading misinformation miss truth but the main reason that it makes me angry is because people who subscribe to their ideas are on the path to failure and and that makes me upset because you know you tell someone that learning a language is easy that they're going to be fluent in in ninety days and then when they fail they give up you know if you if you speak to people who learn languages either for their for their work or or as a hobby you know polyglots they'll tell you it's a lifetime and it's not easy and all of the common sense the basic stuff it actually works so you have to ask yourself you know what what do these people do you know look look at the professionals and and copy what they do which is of course get motivated work really hard and and have patience and you have to enjoy it you know all of the people will tell you that that it's about enjoyment otherwise why would you do it so I just want you all to beware of false prophets in the world of language learning well I hope that you found this class interesting and I really hope that it helps you on your journey to learning English this video was made possible by all of my amazing sponsors on patreon so if you would like to become a patron and sponsor free English education then please check out the link below and if you would like to see any more videos about the English language then don't forget to subscribe I'm Christian this is kangaroo English I'll see you in class [Music]

Channel: Canguro English

Views: 440,065

Keywords: fluency in english, english fluency, become fluent in english, get fluent in english, canguro, learning english, learn english, english grammar, grammar

Id: cxwRViDKwEg

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017