Why you should make mistakes, and how to learn from them

Hello.

My name is Emma, and in today's video we are going to talk about mistakes and why we should

make them, and: What should we do when we make them?

Okay?

So, I hope you're making mistakes; very, very important when you're learning anything.

Whether it's math, science, English, French, Spanish, Chinese - you want to make mistakes.

Okay?

I cannot say that enough.

If you're not making mistakes, then you're doing something wrong because if you're making

mistakes it means you're actually using the language or, you know, you're actually...

It's very important in the learning process to make mistakes.

So, in this video I'm going to teach you six ways or six steps on how to improve with mistakes.

Okay?

So, before I get started, I just wanted to again say: Please, please, please make mistakes,

especially when you're learning a language because mistakes equal good learning.

Okay?

So, I...

You know, I know a lot of students when they go out and they're talking to a native speaker,

they feel so embarrassed.

"Oh my goodness, I just...

I can't believe I just said that.

I made a mistake with the present perfect.

Oh my god", it's not a big deal, you should be making these mistakes.

So, the first step on how to learn from your mistakes is: Give yourself permission to make

mistakes.

Okay?

You want to tell yourself it's okay, and I can't stress this enough.

Tell yourself: "I need to make mistakes.

Today I'm going to try make mistakes.", "Another mistake?

Yay me.

Woo!

Very good."

Okay?

So give yourself permission.

Don't look at mistakes as a bad thing because they are not a bad thing.

Mistakes, when learning a language, are actually a good thing.

So, step two: Once you give yourself permission to make mistakes, you should start to know

your mistakes.

Okay?

What are the mistakes you're making?

So one way you can find out what mistakes you're making is you can ask your teacher,

or your friend, or, you know, somebody you're close to, maybe your classmate.

You can ask them: "What's my biggest mistake?

When I speak English, what's my biggest mistake?

In my writing, what's my biggest mistake?"

Okay?

So a lot of the times other people can help and tell you what your biggest mistake is.

Another thing you should be asking: "Why is it a mistake?

What is the problem with this?

Why is it a mistake?"

Okay?

A lot of the times with students I've found, and I'm also guilty of this, I remember in

university I would write an essay and I would get all these comments on my essay and I'd

also get a mark or a grade, you know, like A+, B, whatever.

And I remember always looking just at the percent I got or the grade, and not looking

at the comments.

Those comments that your teachers write actually tell you a lot about the mistakes you're making,

so please, please, please see that, read it, focus on it, and think about it.

Okay?

Whatever your teacher writes on your essay, on your test, take a moment to really think

about that mistake.

Also, another way to know what mistakes you're making is you can think about what mistakes

are common for people speaking your language.

So, for example, if a Spanish person is learning English, maybe they say: "I am agree", which

is fine in Spanish, but in English it's a mistake; or maybe if you're Brazilian, you

want to say the word "red" but you say the word "head" because the R sound and the H

sound, I think, you know, with Brazilian students this is often a pronunciation mistake.

So think about: What mistakes are common for your culture?

We have a lot of resources on this on engVid actually, where you can actually see common

mistakes for your language.

Okay.

I'm going to get into this in a moment with the next step, but I'll just say it right

now because I really want you to think about this: When you ask somebody: "What is my biggest

mistake?", try to focus on one mistake.

The issue a lot of students have is they go up to their teacher and they tell their teacher:

"Please, tell me all my mistakes.

I want to know every mistake I'm making."

That is a problem.

You don't want to focus on every mistake; it's too difficult.

Focus on one or two mistakes.

Okay?

You don't need to focus on all your mistakes at the same time; start small.

Okay, so now let's look at steps three, four, five, and six.

Okay, so, again, you're going to be making lots of mistakes and that's good.

When you're correcting your mistakes, you don't want to focus on fixing all of them,

because if you do that it's going to be really difficult and tiring for you, you're not going

to be that successful because it's too much work, and also if every sentence you're saying

you're fixing your English, it's going to be difficult for the listener to understand you.

So, what I recommend is: Choose a mistake you want to work on.

Prioritize the mistakes.

Which are the most important mistakes to fix, and which mistakes can you fix later; they're

not so important right now?

Okay, so for example, one mistake I think is the most important to fix is any mistakes

that are very embarrassing.

Okay?

So these are the mistakes where when you say them, people laugh, they think you said a

bad word or, you know, it's something very embarrassing.

So, for example, if you make pronunciation mistakes where you want to say: "I'm going

to the beach today", but you accidentally say this bad word in English, then this is...

You know, this might be a bit embarrassing for you.

It's the same with the words "sheet" and "shit".

There're tons of them, actually.

Another example of an embarrassing mistake, I remember when I was in Quebec learning French,

I made this mistake and I was embarrassed.

I wanted to say: "I'm bored", which means, you know: "I'm feeling bored.

[Yawns].

I'm bored right now."

But instead...

Instead I said: "I'm boring", which makes it look like I'm a boring person, so I insulted

myself by mistake and everybody laughed.

So look for when people laugh at what you say.

Anything embarrassing, those are the mistakes you really want to fix.

Another type of mistake that you can prioritize or choose are the mistakes that are very easy to fix.

Okay?

The nice thing about fixing these mistakes is you feel really good about it.

You know, sometimes when you're learning a language you start to feel bad because you

think: "Ah, I'm always making mistakes."

Choosing an easy mistake to fix can give you more confidence.

Okay?

So it's good to fix the easy mistakes.

An example of this is pronunciation.

With the numbers, a lot of students have trouble pronouncing numbers.

They try to say: "13" when they really mean "30" or vice versa, and people who are listening

don't really hear what they're saying.

We have a lot of videos on how to pronunciation numbers.

Very easy thing to do, very quick thing to fix.

So, you know, we'll post a link for these types of mistakes after.

Another thing that you can also prioritize or focus on is mistakes that cause a lot of

confusion.

So, you can focus on mistakes that when you speak the other person has no idea what you're

talking about.

Okay?

So, I'll give you an example.

If you say to somebody: "Oh, I listening."

Even though you made a grammar mistake, they understand what you said; there is no communication issues.

They understand you.

Yes, you made a grammar mistake, but they understand your meaning, so that's okay.

These are the mistakes you can correct a bit later.

Now, if you compare this to, for example, a common Brazilian mistake...

And I'm not picking on Brazil today, it's just the mistake I was thinking about earlier,

like I said, Brazilians often make mistakes with the pronunciation of R and H. If you

say: "I like head", but you really, really mean to say: "I like red", then that's going

to cause a huge confusion for the person who's listening to you.

Okay?

So, focusing on the mistakes that cause confusion are good mistakes to focus on.

You can also think about choosing mistakes that you make a lot.

You know, maybe, for example, you're always making mistakes with "ed" and "ing", and every

time you write something, your teacher writes back: "Oh, another mistake with 'ing'.

You need to fix this."

If you keep seeing the same mistakes, maybe try to work on those, too.

So you can use this as a way to prioritize.

Again, don't fix everything at once; pick a couple of mistakes to work on and just focus

on those.

All right, now let's look at some more steps on how to fix our mistakes.

Okay, so step four is when you actually fix the mistake.

Okay?

So once you know what mistakes you're making and which ones you really want to focus on,

then you fix it.

So, how can you fix your mistake?

Well, first of all, you can get feedback from a teacher, a classmate, a friend, a native

speaker, you know, just anyone you know who speaks the language or is learning the language.

And what you can do is you can ask them: "Please correct me when I make this mistake.

I don't know when I make it in conversation.

I want to fix it, so please tell me when I make a mistake with this word."

Or: "Tell me when I forget, you know...

Forget 'the' in the sentence."

That one probably isn't a good one because you'll probably be doing that a lot, but ask

your teacher to focus on that one mistake with you, or your friend, because that way...

Your teacher is not going to want to correct every single mistake because they're going

to worry about overwhelming you with mistakes and discouraging you.

So your teachers actually like to focus on mistakes, so if you ask them for a specific

mistake to help you with, they'll probably be very happy to do that.

Another thing you can do is you can look at our website at www.engvid.com.

We have a lot of resources there for mistakes, common mistakes people make, how to fix them.

So, check out our website for a lot of examples and, you know, for more practice.

There are also a lot of other online resources, you know, there's a lot of blogs, a lot of

different websites you can go to where you can actually check and double check how to

fix the mistake.

If it's a speaking mistake, a good idea is to actually tape record yourself speaking.

I have students who make the same mistakes a lot, and they don't hear themselves making

the mistake.

So when they speak, they say: "Oh, no, no, that's what I said.

No, no, no problem.

That's what I said."

But when they actually record themselves and listen to themselves speak, they're surprised

because they can actually hear: "Oh my goodness, I actually didn't say that."

or "Oh, I forgot, you know, the article", or: "Oh, I didn't actually use the present

perfect here."

Okay?

So tape recording yourself and listening for that mistake is a great way to become self-aware.

Another piece of advice is: Choose an appropriate time to correct your mistakes.

Okay?

If you're doing a presentation, maybe you're going to feel a lot of pressure and stress,

and maybe that's not a good time to focus on fixing your mistakes.

Maybe that's a good time to focus on just communicating in general, or maybe, you know,

you're in a meeting and you have a lot of information around you, you're trying to listen,

you're trying to do so many different things that maybe that's not a good time to focus

on fixing your mistakes either.

It's good to focus on fixing your mistakes in the classroom, during your free time, if

you go to a restaurant or a bar or something with a bunch of friends - these are great

times to focus on fixing your mistakes.

Another thing you can do is...

This is something you can do at home on your own.

Visualization where you imagine something in your head is actually really, really powerful.

It...

You know, there's a lot of research into this on how just imagining something actually can

do so many different things to your brain.

So, when you're learning a language, visualizing is actually very important; it can really,

really help with learning languages.

So, one thing you can do is you can imagine yourself, you know, making the mistake and

then correcting it.

Or you can imagine yourself saying, you know, the sentence perfectly, and really think about

it, and keep imagining it.

The more frequently you do this, the stronger your brain gets at recognizing these mistakes

and, you know, the more likely your brain will prevent you from making these mistakes.

So, visualization is very, very good to do.

Okay, great.

So now we're going to look at some more things you should do when you make a mistake.

Okay, the next step is: I think it's very important to keep a journal, or a diary, or

some sort of written record about the mistakes you're making, so that way you can go back

and you can check, and you can see: "Wow, look at how much I've improved."

You know: "I used to make this mistake all the time.

Now I only make it, you know, every so often, but not...

Not that often."

So, you know, it's a great thing to do to keep track of your mistakes.

So, keep a journal.

You can write: "This is a mistake I want to fix: When I speak English I always make a

mistake with the present perfect.

I always, you know, forget 'have'", or, you know: "I always confuse the past simple and

the present perfect."

So whatever your mistake, you can write it down.

You can also write down some things that you did right.

Okay?

When you're learning a language, you're so focused on the mistakes you're making and

you're so focused on: "Oh no, I made another mistake.

Oh no, I did this, I did that."

But a lot of the times people forget their accomplishments and the things they're actually

doing well.

So, I think it's really good to think about those things.

So, for example, maybe you, you know, made a mistake with "does", but you spelt the word

"dog" right at least, okay?

So you can write that down.

"Today I forgot 'the', but, you know, I wrote this word correctly or I used a really good

word today."

So remember: Keep track of your accomplishments, too.

You can also keep track of how often you're making the mistake, because this can actually

show improvement.

You know, maybe at the beginning I made the mistake 15 times today, and then after working

on it: "Wow, okay, I only made the mistake twice today.

I feel really, really good about that."

Okay?

It's okay to make the mistakes, it's just, you know, looking at how to improve and just

having some kind of measure can really help you feel good about yourself and really encourage

you in your English journey.

Okay, my next step, step six, again: Remind yourself it's good to make mistakes, and also,

you have to understand people who know the language are always making mistakes as well.

English speakers, people who are born with English as their first language in English

countries make mistakes all the time.

You may not realize it, but, you know, if you ever ask an English speaker: "Oh, 'lay'

versus 'lie'", or if you ask them: "How do I use 'whom' versus 'who'?"

most English speakers are not going to know because they do make a lot of mistakes in

a language.

Everybody makes mistakes, and so it's okay if you make mistakes, too.

It's something that you should be doing when you learn a language.

Okay?

So, I hope you've enjoyed this video.

I'd like to invite you to subscribe to my channel; I have a lot of great resources there

on all sorts of different topics, from mistakes to pronunciation, to grammar, and vocabulary,

just so many different resources.

I'd also like to invite you to visit our website at www.engvid.com; there, you can find a lot

more resources on, again, all sorts of different things.

And you can also take our quiz.

I'm going to put up a quiz about this video.

Just make sure that you understood everything and to practice some of these ideas in this video.

Finally, I'm also going to put some links in our description on some videos I think

that might be useful for you, especially videos to do with mistakes.

So, until next time, take care and thanks for watching.