3 Keys to Learning English

Hey, funny, I've got my keys, you've got your keys.

Hey, James from EngVid.

I got my keys out because, well, Mr. E and I

want to use a key, specifically, he's using

that key, to teach you the three key subjects that beginners should study.

And what I mean by that is when we say a key

subject or area, there are three things that

if you start this particular way, your study

in English will be fun, exciting, and you'll

get really good at it.

Now, sometimes people study different things

in English because they think, "Oh, I have

to study this first and this first", and it actually makes the job of learning English

harder.

So, this lesson, we're going to give you, well,

we're going to give you some home building.

We're going to talk about homes, and in doing

so, we will teach you about learning English.

So, can I tell you a story, a real quick story about three little pigs?

If you're my friends from Muslim countries,

we'll change it to the three little chickens.

Same story, you change the visualization.

Okay?

Anyway, a long time ago, there were three little pigs, chickens, and they lived in a

forest, and there was a piglet called "Strawsy",

one called "Woodsy", one called "Brixy".

Now, I'm not going to go through the whole story, but the one...

One pig, chicken, had a house made of straw.

It wasn't a very good house.

It was easy to blow down, and there was a wolf that wanted to eat the little piglets

and chickens, and he would blow down their houses.

So, he blew down the chicken's house that

was made of straw, then he blew down the one

made of wood, but the brick one he couldn't blow down.

And the reason why I'm telling you this story

is because the brick one had a great foundation,

it was made from a great blueprint, and

when he built that house, there he is there.

Nobody can knock him down.

That's what I have in mind for you in this lesson, so let's go to the board.

First one we're going to talk about is the ground.

When you're a beginner student, just put away the English books, put away...

This is just one particular lesson, so in this lesson I'm asking you to do this.

Put away the books and the movies and that, and start with simple vocabulary.

A lot of times when you're a beginner, you're trying to grasp and get everything.

I've got to do grammar, listening, conversation,

all of these things, and simply if you get

some basic vocabulary, it will help you a lot in your way of communication.

Things that you want to learn, here's an example of vocabulary.

This is a door, this is a roof, and this is a window.

When we build a house, we start at the foundation,

and the foundation is basically the ground,

and in language, the ground is vocabulary.

If you have very good vocabulary, you can actually start communicating with people.

Water, drink, I. Grammatically, that's bad,

but at least I know you want water to drink,

I think.

Right?

So, words we want to start with are some basic words.

Words like "I", right?

We want words like "I" because, well, I am human, I want to communicate.

"You", so you know that I'm speaking to you.

We might want to go, "Where", like, "Where toilet?"

"Toilet", basic vocabulary, and already I've said, "Where is the toilet?"

I don't have to have the grammar, you can understand it, and so can other people who

speak English understand when you're speaking to them.

So, like, when we make a house, and Brixie the Pig, when he made his house, strong, we

need a good foundation, and that starts with good vocabulary.

Okay?

Now that we've done that, I'm going to introduce

you to a word, a vocabulary word called "blueprint".

If you've ever seen when someone makes a house,

they have this paper, it's called "blueprint",

on sort of a bluish paper, like this, and then it will have something like that.

I know this isn't a house, but it will have

diagrams of how the house should go together.

And here, you will notice I put "roof", there

is a roof, there is a house, and there is

the foundation.

Remember, the foundation is grammar, so what is this that I'm talking about?

This is grammar.

Grammar.

Because after you learn vocabulary words, like "I water", isn't it quite enough that

I'm thinking, "Is there something wrong with your brain, son?

You can't say more than 'I water'?

You water what?

Yourself?

Flowers?

The grass?

Talk to me, son."

So, then we need grammar.

Grammar gives structure to our vocabulary.

Who is the subject?

What?

I.

So, one of the first things we want to work on is, like, subject-verb agreement.

Right?

What does that mean?

Many students make the mistake of saying "she go" instead of "she goes".

"He want" instead of "he wants".

Subject-verb agreement is one of the basic grammar principles we want to learn.

Yeah?

Then, we can also look at prepositions.

What?

"Prepositions of place", "on", "I work", I'm sorry, "I walk on the street", "I live

in a house", "Will you meet me at 10 o'clock?"

Prepositions of place and time help us to organize our world, yeah?

So we can look at prepositions, we can look

at subject-verb agreement, these are the type

of things, and things like the simple past to

tell me there's a time that I did something

and now I am doing something, I'm changing, things are moving through time.

So knowing subject-verb like pronouns, then

knowing, I'm sorry, prepositions, where things

are in time and space, and understanding that

there's a difference in time brings a fullness

to the language, and that's why we need grammar,

because it brings structure so people understand.

Just like you would never put the roof on the bottom of the house, grammar tells us

A goes to B, B goes to C, and then we have a house.

Well now that we've got our vocabulary, simple

things, and now we've built the house or we've

got a blueprint for what the house should

look like, it's not a house, we're just saying

we must do these things to create one, then we must build a house, and there is Brixie

there in his house, no wolf's going to blow that over.

My god, I just sounded like a terrible 1950s

commercial, no wolf's going to blow that over.

Right Jack?

Anyway, so we build, and how do we build, because we've got grammar and vocabulary,

that is through speaking and listening.

We use active listening to take information

inside so we can actually learn more, because

we learn more from listening, even though I love to talk, than we do from talking.

So we combine these two to listen to others'

vocabulary, other grammatical structures,

we take that information in and we do what's

called active listening, we pay attention

to what someone's saying so we can get ideas

of what they mean from the context, what's

going on around us, and the words they're using.

Then we use questions, we ask questions to facilitate or help us learn.

We ask questions as in, what does that word mean?

Why did you say it that way?

What was wrong with what I said?

Can you help me with these things?

We actively use questions, not just talking about

things like, oh the weather, I ask questions

to improve my knowledge.

So with active listening and asking questions,

we can get a lot of knowledge, we can get

a complex level of language.

Finally, we take those two together with then speaking clearly.

Finally, I say speaking.

We're clear speech.

With good vocabulary, with good grammar structures,

after listening and asking questions, we can

clearly give or we can be very clear in our

conversations with others, direct with them,

give them the fuller meaning of what we're trying to say, and have true communication.

These are the three things that beginners want to focus on.

A foundation, work on the grammar, sorry, grammar, work on your vocabulary.

Get a solid base on...

I keep saying grammar, I want to say vocabulary.

Get a solid base on your vocabulary.

That is the ground floor, that is the foundation.

There are 200 words you need to know to get your basic 20% of English.

"I am", things like that, simple words, but you need to master these words because they

often become sentences, simple sentences, in

which we will then use grammar, and that's

the blueprint, how we put it together, yeah?

And then from that, we can start building

into speaking and communicating with others,

and we can enhance that, enhance means make

better, by using active listening where you're

not trying to speak when someone's saying something to you.

You're quiet and you take in the information,

and when you're taking it in, you will have

questions, and we use those questions or active

questions to break down what we need to know

further so that we can have clear communication with others.

If you're a beginner student and you follow this plan, this key, this one, two, three

keys, the three key subjects you need, you won't need me.

But until that time, I know where you need to

go, www.eng-as-in-, sorry, www.eng-as-in-English,

vid-as-in-video, and subscribe if you've watched

any of, you know, this video and many more

and got something from us because we want to be there to help you when you need it.

Anyway, you have a great day.

We'll talk soon.

Ciao.