Power Moves for Learning English! Hacks and Secrets to Better English Learning!

Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

If you've watched some of my other English lessons

here on YouTube, you'll know that I'm often recommending

that people who are learning English like you

do the following,

you should be reading in English.

You should be writing in English.

You should be listening to something in English.

You should be speaking English

and you should be learning new vocabulary.

In this video, though,

I'm going to take that to another level.

I'm going to show you a few things you can do

to start to combine those different areas of study

so that every minute you spend learning English

is just more powerful.

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Well, hey, welcome to this English lesson.

Before we get started, if you are new here,

please click that red subscribe button

and give me a thumbs up if this video helps you learn

just a little bit more English.

Well, let's start by looking at three ways

that you can combine reading and listening.

The first thing that I recommend that you do

is to find YouTube videos

that have perfect word for word English subtitles.

Then you should do the following.

Watch the video once with the subtitles on

and actively read the subtitles.

Then watch the video a second time

with the subtitles off and actively listen

to what the people in the video are saying.

If you know how to get the transcript of the video,

you could also read the transcript

before you watch the video.

By the way, shameless plug here.

I have another YouTube channel, I'll put a link up there,

where I do four English lessons a week

and they have professionally made

perfect word for word English subtitles.

And the full transcript is in the description of each video.

So if you wanted to try this method,

you can try it over there.

The second thing that I recommend you do

is to pick a new English song every week,

but to read the lyrics at least four or five times

before you start listening to the song.

Or listen to the song a lot,

read the lyrics once in a while

and listen to the song again.

It's just a really good way

to combine reading and listening.

The last thing that I recommend that you do

is if you are reading a book in English,

see if you can find the audiobook of that same book,

then read one chapter and listen to the next chapter

and then read the next chapter

and listen to the next chapter.

These three things,

finding good YouTube videos with good subtitles,

reading lyrics before listening to the song,

and alternating between reading and listening

when you are reading a book are just great ways

to combine reading and listening.

Let's look at three ways

that you can combine reading and writing.

The first thing that I recommend you do

is if you are reading a book

that you write out the first paragraph of every chapter.

So when you get to chapter one,

write out the first paragraph.

When you get to chapter two,

write out the first paragraph.

The second thing that I recommend that you do

is if you are reading the news or reading a book,

take some time after you read to summarize in English

what you have read.

When you summarize something,

it means you write a shorter version

of what you have just read.

So first thing you should do,

write out the first paragraph of every chapter.

The second thing you should do

is summarize the things that you have read.

The third thing you can do to combine reading and writing

goes back to music again.

When you find a song you like,

maybe take the time to write out the lyrics to the song

five times as you read them.

This is a great way,

not just to be reading and writing the lyrics,

but to begin memorizing them

for a later step I'm going to show you

at the end of the video,

which I call the ultimate super power move

when you are learning English.

So let's look at three ways

that you can combine reading and speaking.

The first thing that I recommend that you do is this.

When you are reading a book, read every other page out loud,

so read one page quietly

and then read the next page out loud.

Don't do the out loud part at a library.

You're going to have to be at home when you do this,

but certainly read some of the book quietly

and read some of the book out loud.

The second thing I recommend that you do

is find a play and then read the script of the play

with a friend who is also learning English.

You can do this over the phone.

You can do this over the internet.

You can do this in person,

but find a play that has speaking parts for two people,

and then read the play out loud with a friend

who is also learning English.

The third thing that I recommend that you do

to combine reading and speaking

is to find a really good English poem

or to find some really good quotes in English

and memorize them.

And then whenever you are driving or by yourself,

say them out loud.

So actively look for small little things in English,

like poems or quotes, memorize them as you read them.

And then when you have time, say them out loud.

Maybe when you're driving is a good time,

maybe on the subway is not a good time.

But this is another good way

to combine reading and speaking.

Let's look at three ways that you can combine

writing and listening.

The first thing that I recommend that you do

is find a YouTube video that you like

and play it back at a slower speed

and try to write down every word that you hear.

This is incredibly difficult.

You will probably need to pause the video from time to time.

You'll probably need to rewind the video,

but certainly give this a try,

play a video and try to write down every single word.

If that doesn't work for you.

If that's too difficult, try this second thing.

If you can get the transcript for the video,

remove some of the words and then listen to the video

and try to fill in the blanks.

Try to write in the words that you removed.

Both number one and number two

are great ways to practice your listening

and your writing at the same time.

The last thing that I recommend

is that if you listen to a news article,

that you very quickly afterwards try to write down

what the news story was about.

Don't do this during the story.

Listen actively to the news story,

and when it is done then try to write down

what you have heard.

Let's look at two things you can do

to combine writing and speaking.

And these are kind of inverse of each other.

They're the opposite of each other.

The first thing you can do is you can

say something out loud in English and then write it down.

The second thing you can do

is you can write down something in English,

and then you can say it out loud.

Try to do this about things that you have done that day.

Try to say a sentence about something you did that morning,

and then write it down.

Try to say out loud a sentence about something

you're going to do later that day, and then write that down.

And then the inverse,

try to write down a little bit about your day,

write a little bit about what you did that morning

and a little bit about what you're going to do that evening

and then read them out loud.

So this is a great way to combine writing and speaking.

Let's look at three ways to combine listening and speaking.

The first way is to shadow someone.

When you shadow someone in English,

it means that you play a portion of a song

or you play a portion of a video, and then you hit pause

and you say what the speaker has just said.

This can be done very easily with YouTube videos,

and it's a great way to combine listening and speaking.

The second thing you can do

is to memorize your favorite parts

of all of your favorite songs.

Then when you are listening to the song

and that part of the song begins, you then sing out loud.

Again, this is something better done while you are driving

or when you are by yourself,

but certainly memorize parts of songs that you really like.

And then when you listen to that song,

then make sure you sing that part out loud

when that part starts to happen.

And the third thing is kind of a simple recommendation.

The best way to practice listening and speaking

is of course, to have a conversation.

So if you can, find an English tutor.

There are various websites

where you can find English tutors.

I recommend Preply, there's a link in the description below.

But one of the best ways to practice listening

combined with speaking is of course,

to just have a real English conversation.

There are of course, many more ways to combine reading,

writing, listening, and speaking.

And I'm sure that you know a few yourself.

If you do, please let us know in the comments below.

But I want to give you a power move.

I want to give you a way to combine

all four of these into one.

And it has to do, again, with songs.

If you like listening to music,

make sure you read the lyrics to a new song.

Make sure you write the lyrics out five or 10 times

so you can memorize them.

Make sure that when you are listening to the song,

there are parts of the song where you sing it out loud.

So that way you have combined reading,

you have combined writing,

you have combined listening and you have combined speaking.

And just the last thing here before I go.

During all of these things,

you should be working on the fifth and very important thing,

which is learning new vocabulary.

Whenever you are reading,

whenever you are writing,

whenever you are listening and whenever you are speaking,

you should be actively maintaining a personal dictionary

and learning new words and phrases.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here,

I hope this video was helpful for you.

Again, if you are new here,

please hit that red subscribe button.

Give me a thumbs up, if this video helped you learn

just a little bit more English.

And if you have a little bit of time,

why don't you stick around and watch another video?

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