How NOT to Learn English, part 2

"Hangover 2." Who would actually want to do a movie about another movie in a lesson? That's

stupid.

"Hi. James from EngVid." Uh-oh. I was just reading in the paper. There was a movie called

"The Hangover." Go watch. It's kind of funny. They did a second movie called "The Hangover

2," and I thought it was a really dumb idea until I thought about what I'm doing today.

I did a lesson before called "How Not to Learn English," and this is "How Not to Learn English

Part 2." Please forgive me, "Hangover" people, star of the movie.

Once again, I went back to my classes, sat down. I was about to teach, and after I finished

this lesson, I had one or two students go, "Teacher, very funny. That was a funny lesson."

I thought, "Yeah, it was." I had this student. A new student came in the classroom, so I'm

about ready to teach. Well, imagine if I was about ready to teach you right now, and I

said, "I would like to..." No pen. No pen. No pen. You'd go, "What? Dude, you're not

prepared. How can you teach when you don't have your stuff?" Well, this is what happened.

I had a student come in my classroom, sit down. Good-looking guy. No, good-looking.

Superhero-like. Batman. Sat down, sitting up straight, looking at me with a steely

glaze. That means very serious. Very serious look. "I'm ready to learn." Then there was

a problem. I said, "Okay, everybody, take out your pen and paper. I want you to write

down..." He just looked at me. "Teacher." I go, "What?" "I have no pen. No paper." Honestly,

I did this. I took him up. I took him to my boss, the guy who owns the company I work

for, and I made him go up to the boss, and I said, "Excuse me, sir. What kind of a business

is this?" Of course, my boss was like, "Why are you asking?" I said, "I'm sorry. I'm confused.

I need to help my student. What kind of an institution do I work in?" My teacher, my

boss said, "A school." I go, "A school? A school? Excuse me, boss. Sorry to bother you

because I know you're a busy man, but what type of things do you need in a school?" He

started to smile. He goes, "Well, I don't know. Pen, paper, books." I go, "Pen and paper?

Oh, my gosh!" Okay, so in part two, in part one, I talked about the right attitude. What

is the right attitude to learning? If you want to not learn English, do these things.

Here, I'm going to give you some practical guides for coming to a classroom. If you follow

these behaviors, you'll learn very well, but this lesson, of course, is how not to learn

English. Try not to do what's in red. This is the bad thing, okay? We've got Mr. E. He's

a good student who wants to graduate from EngVidU. I could think of another word with

"U" at the end of it, but that's besides the point. Sinister Snake, he's a bad student.

Drinking beer, smoking cigarettes. Be careful of him. He will make you fail, okay? Not Mission

Impossible, but this is your assignment. First thing, don't come prepared. What do I mean

by don't come prepared? Well, try not to bring these things. Pen, oh, sorry. See, I'm prepared.

Pen, pencil, paper, don't bring those things. Who needs to write? Now, some of you go, "James,

you're old. We don't use pen and paper. We have electronic media." I go, "Great. Then

don't bring this either. Don't bring a laptop, because you don't need to take notes. You're

a genius, right? You know all this stuff. That's why you're going to school, right?"

Okay. What's the other thing people fail to do when they come to class? Well, if they

do bring a pen and paper, they don't do this. The next thing they do is this. Don't do this.

An English to English dictionary. I actually usually explain to students. I've got videos

where I say it over and over and over again. If you use an English to English dictionary,

and I say dictionary, right? Dictionary, not electronic dictionary. Paper. Look, I'm putting

everything so there is no mistake. A paper English to English dictionary. You will learn

English by accident. By trying to find one word, you have to look at other words, and

this goes in, believe it or not. Not the first time, but you'll use the dictionary a hundred,

a thousand times, and words will come in, and you'll see how word families are formed.

If you look at our... We've got videos on Vocabulary Pyramid, where we explain how English

has a base, and then we add on to it. You'll notice this, actually, when you go through

the dictionary. Determined, predetermined, right? Indeterminate. You go, "Oh my gosh,

they're similar." It's like, "Yeah, they are. They're word families." So, you'll learn English

by accident. Kind of cool, huh?

What's the third thing? "Turn off your cell phone." I love it. There's nothing better

than being at a very important point. Salient, salient point. Then, some person goes, "Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Tonight? Tonight's good, yeah. Let's go, teacher. One second, okay? You just

keep talking. Teacher, keep it down. Keep it down. I'm on the phone. Can't you see I'm

on the phone, teacher? Please, stop the lesson. Stop the lesson." Yes. This is a very funny

movie. The Hangover 2. It's similar to this. No English lesson. Don't do it, please. Take

it off. You're here to learn. Phone, in your bag. It doesn't exist for 45 minutes to one

hour. Cell phone, turn it off, all right? How about this one? Remember, these are the

things you should do to be this guy. If you don't do these things, good for you. Three.

How about this one? "Try not to ask questions of the teacher." Don't bother the teacher.

They're busy teaching. They don't want you to learn. They're teaching. They're busy.

If you have a teacher, I mean, you're lucky. You're coming to EngVid. That's right. We're

the good guys. It's for free. Free. Yeah, I know. Check your pulse. Free. Cool. Now,

tell a friend, okay? Do me a favor. It's free, so tell a friend. Get them to watch. But you're

usually paying money for teachers and books. I, as a teacher, believe that it is my obligation

to give my time to you, so when you talk to me, I can help you. Why? Number one. When

you open your mouth, I know what your problem is. So, what does that mean? Well, I hear

you speak. I go, "Okay, doesn't understand negative questions. Has a problem with tenses.

Doesn't know how to formulate a question." All of these things come when you open your

mouth and speak to me. It doesn't have the correct vocabulary. So, when you put up your

hand and ask a question, suddenly, boom, I'm like, "I now know what I need to teach you."

All right? So, please, bother me. Bother other people. How about number two? Okay? Number

two. Clarify. A lot of times, students come to class, they don't understand what the teacher's

actually saying, and they need someone to clarify. All right? They sit there, and they're

confused. I had a student, I was explaining something to the student off the class one

day, and the student smiled and said, "Thank you, teacher. Blah, blah, blah." And then

the next day, the student didn't come back. I was surprised. They were a good student,

always on time, and very good attitude. And I saw them later on. I said, "Oh, I missed

you this morning." They went, "Oh, no, I changed class." I went, "Why?" They thought, when

I was speaking to them, because I had talked about something, that I had actually said

they were bad and they should leave, and I said, "Thank you." And they took it as, "Okay,

I will change." They didn't understand, but they didn't ask any questions. So, I couldn't

help them. All right? Next. What's the next reason you want to ask questions to the teacher?

Well, we've got to clarify for information, right? We've got that they can help you with

what your problem is, and there's one other little thing. Hold on a second. I want to

check something here. Hold on. This is... Well, deeper understanding. When you usually

read something one time, you get a general understanding. You might remember a couple

of things. When you read it again, you have a couple of questions, usually, about what

you read, like if you believe everything. When you read it a third time, you have an

understanding of what the person meant. When you ask questions, not only does it clarify

what the teacher wants, but it gives you a deeper understanding, because once they answer

those questions, you can get another question to understand deeper, go deeper. All right?

We want to do this when we're learning anything, whether it be English, science, math, psychology.

Deep understanding means it stays with you longer. All right? How about we go here? Next

one. Oh, sorry. Number three. Always watch and never participate in group work. Group

work. You're working within a group. I give group assignments for one reason. Number one,

it goes back to deeper understanding. Why? Because when students... I'm just going to

put "under" here, and "under" means understanding, so under dot. I'm just going to put "under."

I'm running out of room. Okay? Deeper understanding, so you go here, here. Okay?

When you talk with a group, my thing I usually tell students is, say, "Why?" If somebody

tells you two plus two is four, you say, "Why?" The student then has to go to, "Okay, well,

look. One, two. One, two. Four." It shows the student speaking, understands the subject

they're talking about, and it lets the other student learn. They work together to deepen

their understanding. By participating in group work, you help each other study. That's number

one.

Number two. This is effective. Calm. Effective communication. When you're in a group work,

what I like is because you are studying a language... We have conversation classes where

I teach, and I say, "I don't believe in conversation. I prefer communication." And when somebody

says, "Why?" Effective communication means somebody understands you. I ask you a question,

you give me the information I require. If I don't ask the question properly, you give

me information I didn't ask for.

"Where is the closest McDonald's?" "In your bum." "Oh, sorry. I thought you said, 'Where

is the closest toilet?'" "I didn't understand you." Effective communication. You speak,

they understand, they listen, they understand, right? And by the way, McDonald's? Food sometimes?

Anyway, effective communication. You want to communicate effectively. So participate

in group work, right? One, two, three. We've got like eight different things that you should

be doing that people don't do. I see this every day.

Now, on this side. Do not do assigned homework. Yeah, don't do that. You paid money to learn,

but you don't want to. Number one, it's practice. When you do the homework, the practice helps

you learn, right? Because you go through, you've learned the question form, you keep

practicing it, practicing it, so you can remember it. So we practice to remember. When you don't,

okay? REM means remember, not REM sleep, okay? Remember. I'm running out of room, man. Okay?

I'm also running out of time, so I'm going to speed up a little bit, okay? So we practice

to help our memory, so we can remember it. Teacher teaches it, you do some work, you

go home, do the homework. The next day, the teacher takes it up. Three days later, by

God, you remember this stuff. Why else would we want to do homework?

We're going to go back to this one. We're going to go back to, what is it? Clarify.

I tend to find, and students do, when you do homework, sometimes in the class, everybody's

talking because you did your group work, because you're a good student, and you thought you

really, really got it. Then you go home at night, you're sitting there at seven o'clock,

you've had dinner, you're ready, you open up your book, you start reading, you go, "What

the fuck? I don't understand this stuff." Some things you do, and some things you don't.

By actually doing the homework, you go, "Do you know what? I thought I understood something,

but I don't. So I have to go back to school, and look how it goes back. Talk to my teacher

and ask some questions to help give me a deeper understanding." You notice how this all goes

together? It helps me clarify, so I can get a deeper understanding.

Why else do we want to do homework? Prep. It's short for preparation. This is important

because a lot of you guys are studying TOEIC, ALTS, and TOEFL. I've got to be honest with

you, if you don't practice, some of these tests, you've got 20 minutes to do an essay

assignment. You've got to read it, you've got to do an outline for the essay, then you've

got to prep it, get it done, or you fail this test. You're spending a lot of money and time.

Why don't we prepare ourselves for it? It goes right back to what? Preparation. A prepared

mind learns quickly. You do the practice, you're going to keep this in you, and you'll

be ready when it's time to actually use it.

Finally, this goes to why I talked about ALTS and TOEFL. A lot of students have an idea

which I... I had that idea in school, and it took me a while to grow. Actually, when

I started teaching you guys, so thank you very much for teaching this to me. I learned

that tests are not something to be afraid. They're actually something you should look

forward to. I know, crazy, right? Bad students, he's drunk. He's drunk, see? He doesn't even

know what's going on. "Oh, you're a test? Now I've got to stop drinking? No, cool, alright."

They tell you something. They tell you two things, and both things are good. They tell

you what you know. You have now spent months, maybe even years, I mean weeks for sure, studying

English, and don't you want to know how well you're actually doing? And I don't mean it

from a mark point of view. I mean how much of the information you really understand,

how much you can really use. To me, what a test is, if I get a mark, it tells me, okay,

if I get 70 or 80, some students are happy, and I think you should be. You've worked hard,

you earned it. But what you want to do is flip it around and go, "There's 20% of things

I don't know, and if I know that 20%, I know everything. So now I want to go back and study

harder to get that extra information." I mean, and you're going, "What?" I'm going to think

about it. If you get 50, people are like, "Oh God, it's bad." It's like, no, it's great.

It's like you understand 50% information, that's the good part, you know this much,

but there's 50% you're not too sure of. So you want to maybe go back and teach her some

questions, right? You maybe want to be prepared, you know, make sure your cell phone's off

so you can listen, and then participate in the group work to make it go deeper. And look,

help me with my assigned work, because I actually have proof, and it's great. There's something

on paper saying, "Look, you don't know these things. Study those, you'll be perfect." Isn't

that kind of cool? Where else in life does somebody, you're in a situation where you

can say, "If you just learn this, you'll be perfect." Yeah? Totally different way of looking

at a test.

This is part two. I'm hoping there won't be a part three. I mean, from what I hear about

Zach, there may not be a part three for his movie. I'm hoping there's not a part three,

not because I don't like teaching this, but I'm hoping that you guys do so well that these

lessons, how not to learn English, will be gone. Not engVid. You'll always come to us,

right? Because you love us. And only we bring you how not to learn something. But you got

to know where engVid is, or how are you going to not learn your English? Ezekiel told me

a joke. He said, "How not to learn English more." Good, yeah? I'm like, "No, man. No.

You should have done some group work and you would know this is bad." Okay? There's a joke

in it. If your English is okay, you got the joke. If not, come and study more at engVid.

All right? So look, I'm going to get rid of this, because we really want to learn how

to study English, right? And where are you going to learn? Where are you going to learn

where you're going to meet a worm that's educated and a snake that drinks? You're going to go

to eng, as in English, vid, as in video, dot com. There's myself, five other great teachers,

probably more by the time you see this. Who knows? There's a whole bunch of great teachers

and my friends. Okay? Maybe you meet a... Well, I won't say it. I've got a louse that's

going to come up. A little lice or louse? We haven't decided. But I've got a name. Next

video. Anyway, have a great day.