Work out your English!

[singing]

"The eye of the tiger." Hi. James from www.engvid.com, singing one of my favourite

workout songs: Rocky Balboa, "Eye of the Tiger". You'll notice that Mr. E has on a cape, a

spit curl -- you know, curl -- from Superman. That's coming out June 14 -- advertisement.

But anyway, he's working out. Look at those chest muscles -- pectorals, chest muscles.

And those arms -- biceps. He's a super worm because today we're going to "Work out your

English with Mr. E." Okay. Anyway, why are we doing a workout for something that's mental,

right? It's not physical -- "physical" is body; "mental" is mind. Well, really they

have something in common: they're both good for you. A workout changes your body and makes

it something you want it to be. Learning a language is the same. You're actually changing

the structure of your mind. You're changing things in your brain so you can get a certain

result: a new language or a new way of thinking. The principles, or the way we go about it,

are almost the same. I'm going to break it down because sometimes people get confused

with ideas for learning and think it's difficult, but they understand, you know... you run:

your heart is good. You lift heavy weight: your arms get big. Same thing. Let's go to

the board. Okay, "R", "W", "N": three basic blocks of

any workout. Anybody who's very big and strong will tell you you need these three things

in order to get in good shape and to be strong. Well, what are they?

Let's start off with the one that everybody knows best: A workout -- a "workout" versus

a "program". Now, I have this on the board for a reason. "Working out" in English means

to exercise or do actions to change your body -- make it stronger. In this case, a "workout"

is like a lesson. This is a lesson. This would be a "workout". It's one time -- you go in.

You do it, right? But it's not the same as a "program". A "program" is a few workouts

put together with an idea. You want to get to somewhere, all right? In this case, to

get there, we want to learn English. That's what we want to do. That would be the "program".

The "workout" would be the lessons that we take in order to learn the program. Simple

enough? You're saying, "Okay, I know this. Why are you teaching me?" Well, what most

people don't know, to get the most out of a workout, there are three variables -- three

variables or three things -- that you must do. There is "intensity", "duration", and

"workload", okay? So "intensity": How much you do. Sorry, "intensity" is how hard you

work. "Workload" is how much you do. And "duration" is for how long. Well, in learning a language,

there are three answers to this. So if we start off with, let's say, intensity. Do you

passively -- and passive means just sit there and watch. You're not speaking. You're not

active. You're not doing anything. You just listen, or you just read: that's passive.

We can really make it more intense by taking the information that you hear and you read

and using it right away by writing something like writing a response on www.engvid.com

-- you know, send us a comment -- or talking to somebody. You learn a lesson -- automatically

going out and talking about it. That's really intense, okay? So that's the "intensity".

You can change it from being passive to active or both.

The second one we can look at, as I said, is "workload". What is the "workload"? How

much are you doing, right? Are you doing a page or are you doing grammar? Are you doing

verbs -- sorry, are you doing, you know, vocabulary? What are you doing? Each subpart of it is

harder. Writing is harder. It's a big workload -- right? -- versus learning ten vocabulary

words. What's your workload like? And the other one is "duration". Personally,

when I study, or if I'm studying a language, I like to put in at least 30 minutes. I don't

have to do ten hours. In fact, sometimes doing too much is not good. But how long are you

doing? Five minutes, and you say you're studying? You're not studying. 30 minutes is like the

bare minimum, you know, just the smallest amount. Maybe an hour is good, maybe two hours.

So let's look at those three variables in a workout, and as you change them you'll notice

your ability to learn English gets better and better or goes down, right? So remember

what we said: There's "intensity", which is how hard you're studying; "workload", how

much you're studying; and "duration", how much -- how often -- not how often, but how

long do you study. Five minutes? Ten minutes? An hour? Okay? An hour a day is great. You

don't need more. Watch a few of our videos. Okay, next: "Program". I told you the "program"

is a large thing. A "workout" is one thing; the "program" is all the things. What do you

want? You want to learn English, so you need a program. You need to put it in such a way

that it works. Well, there are also three variables for this. "What?" Yeah, there're

three variables. Number one, you have to -- when you're looking at a program for learning something,

for -- let's talk about language. You have to be consistent. You study today, but not

for six months? That's not consistent. Your workouts are no good. They're not going to

help you if you do them every five months. It's got to be consistent. Daily is best.

What about review? Well, once you learn something, you've got to review it, right? You've got

to review what you're learning, go over it. That's why teachers have tests. I did a video

where I talked about the testing method and why they tested in a certain way. You have

to go over. What did I learn? Review it. Review it. Go over it. It'll help your memory.

And finally, you've got to clean up the garbage, like, correct your mistakes. When you make

a mistake, correct it, okay? Over the long term, if you're correcting the mistakes, you'll

find that the consistency -- the reviewing and the correcting of the mistakes -- your

English will just improve and flower. Before you know it, you're speaking the language,

not learning the language. I know you like that. I do, too.

All right, so we talked about a workout. Now, everybody thinks that's it. You work out.

You just lift these huge heavy weights, and you run, and everything's good. Sorry to tell

you: The human body doesn't work like that and nor does your mind. You work out, but

you need something called "fuel", or something to make it work. When I was talking to you

about your workload, in learning lessons or learning methodology -- method -- what we're

talking about here is nutrition. Nutrition is the food you put in. If you work out and

you eat bad food, you will get a bad result -- lots of work; no return. But with nutrition,

what we want to talk about is -- well, what's "nutrition"? What you put in. What are you

studying? Okay. I often tell people study what you like. It makes more sense. Now, that's

at the beginning, okay? But I also have to look at, when I'm talking about nutrition

-- it's what type of information you're taking. There are two types of English, really. There's

what I call "bar English" and "business English". And I would teach this to my students because

they would come in and say "I'm studying for IELTS and TOEFL, and I need to know all this

academic stuff." And I went, "Great, so are you not going to ever go out in a foreign

country and talk to English people? You're just going to sit in a room and sign documents?"

-"Why, yes, I'm going to have beer with them." -"No, you're not because you don't know 'bar

English'." "Bar English" isn't just you go to the bar and you drink and you say, "Hey

man, give me another beer, or, "Dos cervezas, por favor." You know, it's not that. It's

what we call "social English". It's the contractions: "I wanna go" or "I'm gonna" that you shouldn't

use when you're using formal English, especially when writing. No. No, no, no, no, no. But

you do when you speak, and it makes people more comfortable -- the idiomatic speech,

which isn't necessarily good for an office environment, but it's quite acceptable and

expected when you're at a bar, at a beach, and with your family. Okay? This is what I

put "nutrition" in. Stuff you should take in. You should balance off the academic with

a little bit of the social. It'll make your life more whole, and you'll find that you

can actually go out, talk to people, and that will enhance your learning, okay? Cool? You

like that? Why do I have "out"? I've always said when

people work out -- because sometimes I dabble. "Dabble" means to play in something. It's

not also what you put in, it's what doesn't come out. So in layman's terms, which means

common people terms: No poo poo; no good. Okay? So you're taking all this stuff in,

the bar room and the business and that, right? But what are -- what are you taking out? I

touched on it on the workout. You've got to correct your mistakes. A lot of people take

in bad English because they study something badly or they don't correct anything, and

continue with it. Well, those mistakes build up, just like bad food builds up and creates

a bad body. After a while, you've studied a year. You have so many mistakes. It's almost

impossible to fix. So you give up, saying, "I will never be good." In computer words

or language, parlance -- "parlance" means wording -- "garbage in, garbage out". I'm

telling you take in -- know what you're taking in. You need the academic. You need some social.

Work on those aspects. You also need to watch what you don't throw out -- things that are

useless to you -- you may never even use. Why are you learning medical terminology?

You're not a doctor; you're a garbage man, right? Know how the garbage machine works.

Cool? Anyway, and the final one is "Rest". Everybody

knows -- not everyone; silly to say. But a lot of people who work out realize quite quickly

that you can work out, and you can eat the right food, but if you don't get adequate

-- and "adequate" means "enough". If you don't get enough rest, the problem is your muscles

won't grow because your body is always repairing or fixing itself, okay? So that's what we're

looking at here when we talk about rest. You need to grow. You need to get bigger. And

you need the time to grow. People grow over time. Things grow over time -- so do muscles.

Language is the same. You need a break. You're like, "What? You told me I have to work out

hard and all this intensity and all this. I've got to watch the garbage I put in and

all" -- yeah. But you need to rest. You need two forms of rest. You notice I have "breaks"

and "time out". Breaks: when you're learning, if you learn in chunks, take 20 or 30 minutes.

Work on something. Take a break. Five minutes, ten minutes, take some air. Walk around. Let

it sit, okay? What do I mean, "let it sit"? Let the information go into your brain, and

then come back. Don't always cram. "Cram" means taking something and pushing it in again

and again into something, okay? Don't cram. That's bad. It's not enjoyable either. Don't

cram information. What you want to do is put the information. Give it time to settle. Come

in a little bit, then come back to it. You'll find that you understand it a little bit better.

So take breaks in your learning. After 15 minutes of learning, 30 minutes, 45 -- take

breaks. They've found that in learning language, 20 to 30 minutes is very good for the brain

to get the information and learn from it. Now, that's a break while you're learning

a lesson or in a workout. But in a program -- see I'm coming back to this again. In a

program, take a time out. Now, what I mean by "time out" is going to sound funny. Take

a time out from actually learning, sitting in front, reading books, being in class. Take

a break. Don't do any language. But when you go outside, try and use your language. Try

and use it in a natural environment. I know for some of you, I know don't live in countries

where English is a primary language, that will be a little difficult. So people like,

a Spanish person in America -- United States -- they would find it easier, or a German

person because there're so many English tourists. But take a break from actually active learning.

The "learning curve", we call it -- what I found with students was that they'd come in

here, and they would go up, up, up, up, up, and then there would be called a "plateau"

-- a place where they would stay -- and then they would say "my English is going down".

And I would say, "Actually, it's not going down. Your brain is analyzing and learning.

It seems to you down. So one day when you go, 'Now my English better', it was always

here, and it was always going up. You just didn't see it until it came here. Your brain

needs time and so do you. So what I want you to do is -- I want you to take a break right

now. That's right, take a break because I'm finished this lesson. But before I do, let's

do the review. People always say the most important part

of the workout is actually the rest so you can get the information. But to go over it

again, work out. There's a difference between a "workout" and a "program". A "workout" is

the lesson you're studying, okay? Work on the process in that lesson. There's a video

on that process. Go check it out. You'll see it -- another learning lesson. The "program"

is the end goal, what do you want, and what workouts or what lessons are you going to

study to get to that end goal. A student is different than a businessman, which is different

than a person vacationing. They'll all have different programs, and have to have different

workouts to get there, okay? Remember that. Next, "nutrition": just like your workout,

what are you going to put in your body? What are you filling yourself with? Is it more

social -- bar talk -- or is it more formal -- education or business? Don't forget you've

got to clean out those mistakes. When someone's correcting you, or you find a mistake, correct

it. If you leave the garbage in -- don't take it out -- it's going to make you bad, okay?

Garbage in; garbage out; good nutrition; good learning in: mistakes come out. And finally,

rest. Take breaks while you're learning as well as a longer break, maybe a day or two.

Give your time -- yourself time. Give your brain time to think and absorb. Cool? You

like that? Well, it's our break time, okay? Because this

is a workout -- a www.engvid.com workout. www.engvid.com, I just said it. So please

go to -- Mr. E -- www.engvid.com, where "eng" stand for "English", and "vid" stands for

"video". Hey, and don't forget to subscribe because you'll get my latest video every week,

every month, every year, whenever. All the new ones come up, and you'll be the first

one to know. It'll be right on your page. Anyway, have a good one. I'm out. Super E

-- he's gone from "Mister" to "Super". This is a break. Remember: you have to come back

and study another video later. Ciao.