Fluent in 15 Minutes: The Native English Vocab-Building Machine

all right let's see how we're doing uh post a  comment and let me know if you can see this I  

think we are going live though I think I'm just  going to get started and guess that uh you two  

will will do its thing I am Drew Badger the  founder of Englishanyone.com and the English  

fluency guide and today uh in this little episode  of fluent in 15 uh the whole purpose of this new  

series is to actually get you fluent in particular  things as we focus on them so you don't really  

become fluent in the whole Language by trying to  study everything you become fluent in pieces of it  

and this is why you can probably speak fluently  about some things but maybe not others so as  

you improve your fluency in particular things by  knowing them really well by erasing doubt that's  

when you start speaking uh so what we're going to  do today we're going to focus on this book and I'm  

going to give you some naturally varied review  and naturally varied review is different from  

typical repetition where we just take something  and repeat it or you hear the same thing again  

and again I'm going to read this same story a few  different ways and I'm going to try to keep this  

under 15 minutes uh or at least around that and  then I'm going to do something different which  

is I will come back again in another live video a  few minutes after this one finishes so I've never  

tried this before we'll see if it works but I  thought I would break this into two different  

videos uh so let's get started so uh what I'm  going to do first is just tell you uh help you  

understand what's happening in the story just to  make it clear and then I'm going to go back and  

we'll look at some of the vocabulary and then we  will go through and actually read the story and  

I recommend you go back maybe watch this video  two or three times so you make sure you catch  

everything so the basic idea of the story is there  is a little Mitten right here and a Mitten if you  

don't know the difference a mitten is when we  have all the fingers together a glove is like  

this so if you have a mitten you've got the thumb  here and the separate finger little area for the  

hands over here uh and then we've got a mitten  in this one so a glove versus a mitten so I'm  

going to go through this quickly I apologize if  I'm not answering any comments uh but I really  

want to make sure I get through all of this uh  within 15 minutes impossible so the mitt so very  

interesting story I'm just going to go through  show you the pictures and just talk about what's  

happening the first time we go through it so I  often do this with my own kids as I'm teaching  

them new vocabulary so the point of this is I  call it like a vocabulary building machine it's  

really a way of learning that helps you understand  the vocabulary uh so you get fluent automatically  

without having to study anything so here we just  have a uh a grandmother with her grandson and the  

grandson is asking for a new Mitten but he  wants white ones so he wants a white Mitten  

and his grandmother says well maybe if we make a  white Mitten for you or two white mittens you're  

going to lose them in the snow but he says no  no I really want to have white mittens and so of  

course he goes out and what does he do he drops  one of his mittens so he's already lost it he  

just got out of his house you know maybe like a  few feet from his house and he has already lost  

the Mitten so he's climbing a tree uh and then he  forgets where the Mitten is Maybe he's going off  

you can see his Footprints here he's continuing  to walk but then something else I zoom in there  

for you a little mole finds the Mitten isn't that  interesting so it's winter here uh I think this  

is a supposed to be a Ukrainian uh story but you  can see obviously it's a very cold place and this  

little mole is looking for someplace warm and  he finds the Mitten and he climbs inside of it  

but next a rabbit comes and then the rabbit says  well I want to get inside that Mitten also and  

obviously you can probably guess where this story  is going but you see other animals also trying to  

get inside the Mitten so next we have a hedgehog  trying to get in and if you look at the pictures  

up here you can see what's going on kind of next  or coming up next in the story so a hedgehog gets  

in the Mitten and then an owl comes and gets in  the Mitten oh my goodness and then a badger so if  

you're wondering like my name Drew Badger this is  the animal that that's from the badger all right  

so Badger also is trying to get in the Mitten and  you see they're stretching the Mitten out as they  

continue to to try to climb in there and everybody  trying to fit inside this tiny Mitten and of  

course the animals get bigger and bigger now we  have a fox and you can see the next animal over  

here A bear and so a bear tries to get into the  Mitten too and wow they've really they've really  

stretched stretched the hell out of this Mitten  so really stretch it a lot to stretch the hell  

out of this Mitten and of course the last little  animal you can see the little Footprints over here  

it's a little mouse and the mouse comes and sits  on the Bear's nose and tickles the Bear's nose  

a little bit and the bear sneezes and W all the  animals go flying out and the Mitten goes flying  

up into the air and the boy Nikki is his name he  sees the little mitten falling down and he says  

yeah look at that I didn't lose my Mitten it's  right there so he catches it and then he goes  

back home to his grandmother and he says look I  didn't lose my Mitten but one of them is really  

stretched out so that is the story of The Mitten  all right so the first thing what I'm trying to  

do is just help you understand the context of  the story so we have a little boy he wants to  

have a new Mitten or a new set of mittens uh  and so he asks his grandmother grandmother to  

make them he loses it you have different animals  that are climbing in uh so you understand it's a  

pretty easy context to understand you can see the  pictures and what's happening now I'm going to go  

through and go through some of the vocabulary for  the actual story I was just telling you what's  

going on and now I want to go back through this  and make sure you understand what's happening so  

here we are again uh again the point of naturally  varied review is not just to repeat something but  

to change it a little bit and each time you go  through you should notice a a little bit more  

and actually discover some things yourself without  me giving you translations or explaining things so  

here we are the uh the little boy over here and  I'm going to read you the story but we'll maybe  

just cover some of the vocabulary as well once  there was a boy named Nikki he wanted mittens as  

white as snow so that's a common pattern as white  as snow as big as something else we're going to  

compare uh two things so as white as snow but his  grandmother says if you Dr drop a white Mitten in  

the snow it will be hard to find hard to find  so you could say hard to locate or difficult  

to find hard to find his grandmother told him  but Nikki wanted Snow White mittens so there's  

another way of saying describing something as  really white so you could say white as snow or  

Snow White mittens so Snow White notice there's  a little uh Dash in there so Snow White mittens  

so much that Bubba made them for him and so when  she finished knitting so to knit the mittens she  

has to take the two little sticks and knit the  mittens together uh when she finished knitting  

Nikki put on the mittens and went out to play so  he went outside to play but it wasn't long before  

one Mitten fell off all right so we have something  Mitten is on his hand and then it falls off all  

right so there are different ways we could express  this you could say he lost the Mitten or he  

dropped the Mitten or it just it came off it fell  off these are all perfectly fine ways to express  

this a little mole found it and crawled inside so  we talking about the movement a little mole very  

close to the ground he crawled inside it was just  the right size so he decided to stay a rabbit came  

hopping by so the rabbit came by or the rabbit  came close but he was hopping so the rabbit came  

hopping by so if you come to visit or someone is  visiting you you can say they came by your house  

but in this case we talk about the movement we can  add the movement of the rabbit and the rabbit came  

hopping by and he wiggled in next to the mole  he wiggled in next to the mole a a hedgehog  

wanted to get warm the mole and the rabbit made  room for him so they opened up some space they  

made room for the Hedgehog now Hedgehog that's a  little bit prickly he's got some little spines on  

his back and here we have uh the owl didn't want  to be left out so to leave someone out means to  

forget someone or to not include someone so often  if we have a party or something another person or  

a child or somebody says well I want to do that  thing too so the owl didn't want to be left out  

they didn't want to leave the owl out so the mole  the rabbit and the Hedgehog had to move over so  

there's another way of expressing that same idea  of making room or making space they had to move  

over the little Mitten was getting crowded getting  crowded so now we have more animals filling up the  

Mitten it was becoming more crowded getting more  crowded a badger looked out of his house so look  

at that a badger was living in this tree and saw  the Mitten and he climbed right in so he didn't  

care he was pretty big and he just pushed his way  inside the mid and it started to snow so now you  

can see the weather back here getting a little bit  darker it started to snow so a fox pushed his way  

in and made himself right at home right at home so  to make yourself at home means you go into a place  

and you feel relaxed like it's your own house to  make yourself at home and this is a common phrase  

you can uh say to people if they come visit you at  your house you say oh make yourself at home it's  

another way of saying please relax and then a big  bear sniffed so he sniffed at the Mitten and the  

animals were packed in tight but the bear didn't  care so he said well I don't care if it's tight if  

there were a lot of animals in here I'm getting  in here anyway and he crawled in anyway and the  

Mitten was getting bigger and bigger and bigger  then a tiny Mouse squeezed in and perched herself  

on the Bear's nose so it's a perch like a like  a you can think about a bird perching like kind  

of sitting on top of something so the little mouse  is perching itself right on top of the Bear's nose  

and then the mouse's whiskers tickled the Bear's  nose ah two the bear sneezed all the animals flew  

out of the Mitten all the animals flew out of  the Mitten so you can say flew out or came out  

or flyed out of The Mitten Nikki saw his Mitten  sail up into the air so you could say sail up  

into the air or fly up into the air or go up into  the air or float up into the air there were lots  

of different ways you could say that and then from  the window Baba so you can see his grandmother is  

over there watching from the window Baba watched  Nikki catch his Mitten see babba he called to her  

I have both my mittens and Baba smiled then of  course he goes back into the house and sees her  

well one of the mittens has been really stretched  out all right I'll check comments very quickly  

before I read this one more time but hopefully  this is making sense if you're just joining us  

late I recommend you go back and watch this again  I'm just making this quick video so you have some  

review that you can go back and review it a few  times to make sure you catch all of the vocabulary  

all right so hopefully everyone is enjoying  this so how do you understand a vocabulary  

word I'm actually going to talk about that more in  my next video which I'll be shooting right after  

this one is finished so we're going to go back now  uh and actually read I'm going to read the whole  

story and so now that you have some more context  I've explained some of the vocabulary and what it  

means I'm going to read the story again all right  here we go so the Mitten by Jan Brett Jan Brett  

once there was a boy named Nikki he wanted mittens  as white as snow if you drop a white Mitten in the  

snow it will be hard to find his grandmother told  him but Nikki wanted Snow White mittens so much  

that Baba made them for him when she finished  knitting Mickey put on the mittens and went out  

to play it wasn't long before one Mitten fell off  a little mole found it and crawled inside it was  

just the right size so he decided decided to stay  a rabbit came hopping by he wiggled in next to  

the mole a hedgehog wanted to get warm the mole  and the rabbit made room for him the owl didn't  

want to be left out so the mole the rabbit and  the Hedgehog had to move over the little Mitten  

was getting crowded a badger looked out of his  house and saw the Mitten he climbed right in  

he uh it started to snow so a fox pushed his way  in and made himself right at home then a big bear  

sniffed at the Mitten the animals were packed  in tight but the bear didn't care he crawled  

in anyway the Mitten was getting bigger and  bigger and bigger then a tiny Mouse squeezed  

in and purched herself on the Big Bear's nose  the mouse's whis whiskers tickled the Bear's  

nose ah to the bear sneezed all the animals  flew out of the Mitten Nikki saw his Mitten  

sail up into the air from the window Bubba  watched Nikki catch his Mitten see Bubba he  

called to her I have both my mittens and Bubba  smiled and look at that all right we will end  

the video here but I will be be back in just a few  minutes uh to talk more about building vocabulary  

but hopefully you get the idea the point is to  take something and really focus on it it could  

be specific vocabulary or understanding how  to talk about a particular situation so you  

have lots of good physical examples here that you  can see and you can also learn different ways of  

expressing these if you'd like to learn more  about this you can click on the links in the  

description below this video but I will see you  uh back shortly for the next video today bye-bye