Free English Class! Topic: Bad Habits 🕖🧂🚗 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello everyone and welcome to this English lesson

where I'm going to talk about bad habits. Bad habits of are

of course things we do that aren't good for us or maybe

they just annoy other people. Um they're kind of the opposite

of good habits. There are things you do in life that are

good for your health. They're good for you and other people

appreciate it when you do them. Bad habits are the opposite. I

was looking through my lesson topics and I realized that I

had done lessons on chores and errands and happy things and

daily routines. And mostly I talked about good things. And I

thought I should Do at least one lesson where I talk about

something negative. So today, we're going to learn a little

bit about bad habits. The first bad habit I want to talk about

is something that maybe children or teenagers do more

than adults and that's biting your nails or biting your

fingernails. This is something people do sometimes because

they're nervous. I don't want to say who but when I was a

kid, one of my siblings would bite their nails and they would

bite their nails so that they never had to clip their nails.

Um that's how much they off. So, it's something people do

when they're nervous. It's something people do. It's a bad

habit. It's something people do um which isn't really good for

them. Um I'm not sure if it's bad for your teeth but I think

it's bad for your fingernails if you're always biting your

fingernails. I do not bite my fingernails. By the way, as we

do this lesson on bad habits, I will freely admit which bad

habits I do. Biting my nails is not one of them. Me. This might

be one of my bad habits, eating late at night. So, I have a

rule that after supper, I'm not supposed to eat anymore, okay?

But sometimes, at nine or 10 o'clock at night, I will have a

snack. Sometimes, I have a midnight snack. A midnight

snack is a snack you have when you get up in the middle of the

night and you kind of, maybe you go to the bathroom, maybe

you go to get a drink of water from the kitchen and you decide

at the same you're going to have a cookie or a piece of

cake. So, eating late at night is a bad habit. Um certainly

having a midnight snack can be a bad habit as well.

Procrastinating. I am not a procrastinator. I do not

procrastinate. Procrastinating is when you leave everything to

the last minute. When I plan my English lessons like today's

lesson, I have the lesson all finished the day before and I

do a practice lesson. I actually go live and do a

little quick practice to make sure everything is working but

some people do procrastinate. They are guilty of

procrastinating. Their bad habit is procrastination. So,

I've used a number of different versions of the word

procrastinate there but certainly, leaving things to

the last minute is a bad idea. It can really get you in

trouble. Students are often guilty of procrastinating. They

often procrastinate. Talking with food in your mouth. This

is not something I do, usually. I don't do this but it's

considered rude and considered a bad habit especially in

Canada. I'm not sure if this is true in every country. So, I do

have to say that some of the bad habits I'm talking about

are cultural but in Canada and I believe in the United States,

it's considered a bad habit. It's considered rude to be

eating chewing and talking at the same time. It's not

considered uh polite. It's considered rude. So, talking

with food in your mouth often something that children will

do. Adults don't often do this but children sometimes will do

this. And then of course, children also sometimes have

the bad habit of chewing with your mouth open. Or chewing

with their mouth open. Again, this might be cultural. Um and

there's nothing wrong with chewing with your mouth closed

or open. I know in different parts of the world, it might be

different but in Canada, we will often remind our children

to chew their food with their mouth closed. Take a bite. And

then chew with your mouth closed. So, chewing with your

mouth open can be a bad habit that children develop when

they're younger. Smoking. So, I wanted to mention this. When

you do a lesson about bad habits, it can make people feel

bad about themselves. I'm not doing this lesson to point out

bad habits and to tell people that they should feel bad

because of their bad habit. But smoking is one of the bad

habits that isn't good for you. It doesn't maybe just annoy

other people because of the smell. It's actually bad for

your health. I cannot past judgement though on people who

smoke because I, myself, was a smoker a long time ago. So, I

understand that this bad habit is also addicting. Nicotine in

the cigarettes is very addictive and it makes you want

to keep smoking. But smoking is is a bad habit. I think we all

just have to admit that. Um for all of you out there that do

smoke, who are trying to quit, I wish you all the best. I

think it would be great. Fidgeting. So fidgeting is when

you move for no reason. Um that's actually called a fidget

spinner. A fidget spinner was this little thing that was very

popular a number of years ago. Um but fidgeting is uh doing

things like this. Maybe even making noise. Um you know if

you kinda sit and you're just constantly hopefully that's not

all going in the microphone. If you're just constantly moving

we would say that you are fidgeting. And fidgeting Can be

a bad habit that some people have. Some people fidget. Some

people move all the time. Maybe you're in a movie theater and

the person behind you is kind of just um kicking your seat a

little bit repeatedly. Maybe they are someone who fidgets a

lot. That can be a bad habit. It's a funny word, isn't it?

Fidgeting. When you fidget. You want me to say it one more

time? Fidget. Not exercising is a bad habit. Exercising is a

good habit. So, this is a good example of something where

there's two complete opposites of each other. If you go for a

walk or a run every day, if you work out, if you do, if you do

things to stay in shape, you are exercising. Not exercising

can be a bad habit. Some people are in the habit of just laying

on the couch all the time, maybe watching Bob the Canadian

videos, I'm not sure. But certainly, not exercising is a

bad habit. Staying up late. So this can be uh children or

adults. Um sometimes people uh will not go to bed on time.

They have a bad habit of staying up late. They tend to

find things to do late at night. Maybe they go out with

their friends. Maybe they read a book late like this little

kid is doing. Um but getting a good night's sleep is a good

habit. Staying up late can be a bad habit. But it doesn't to be

if you don't need to get up early the next morning staying

up late is a lot of fun but if you go to bed at one or two in

the morning and you need to get up at five or six I would say

that's a bad habit slouching I am guilty of this so slouching

is anytime you sit in a way that's just not good we call it

bad posture if you always work bent over if you're always like

this at your desk your spine curves a little bit. We would

say that you are slouching. You can slouch backwards. You can

slouch forwards but certainly bad posture is not good. This

is one of the reasons why at school, I use a stand-up desk.

So, I do not sit very often when I'm teaching. I have an

adjustable desk. My teacher's desk goes up and down and I

usually keep it at the top position. I like to stand when

I teach and I like to have good posture. I like my shoulders

back, uh my back straight. My head not like leaning to one

side or the other. Too much screen time. So, this is a

relatively new one. Um sometimes kids spend too much

time on their phones. Adults are also guilty of this. I am

definitely guilty of this. I think I get way too much screen

time. Now, this past year, it wasn't really my fault. Um I

was teaching from home, working from home, doing YouTube from

home. All of that involved being on a computer but screen

time would be anytime you use your phone or a laptop or a

computer. Anytime you're staring at a screen, we

consider it screen time and in North America and maybe other

parts of the world, um I'm just laughing at Modes. Be fun if

you did the entire lesson in that position. No, I'm not sure

I could do that. Um anyways, a lot of people spend a lot of

time on screens and it's it can be a negative thing. It can be

a bad habit. Drinking can be a bad habit. Now, I'm not sure in

your country whether you consider consuming alcoholic

beverages good or not. In some parts of the world, it's

considered good. In some parts of the world, it's not a good

thing but certainly, having too much of it, we can all agree is

probably a bad thing. Drinking too often and too much can be a

bad habit for some people. Littering. When I go for a walk

along my road, there is often garbage in the ditch. People

often throw their garbage out the window of their car while

they're driving so littering can be a bad habit. People go

through the drive thru. They get a coffee and something to

eat and then when they're done drinking and eating, they just

throw the litter. They throw the trash out the window of

their car. It makes me a little bit angry. Sucking your thumb.

So, sucking your thumb is something that kids do. Kids

often will suck their thumb. Sometimes, they'll have a

blanket that they carry with them and they'll suck their

thumb. I think this is bad for your teeth. I'm not sure but it

is a bad habit that parents often try to get their kids to

stop doing. I sucked my thumb when I was a kid. I had a

blanket that I carried around with me. I'm not sure until

what age. So, when I was really, really young, I had a

blanket and I sucked my thumb and I remember my mom trying to

convince me to stop. I think she put salt on my thumb once

um so that I wouldn't suck it but I think it tasted good that

way. I'm not sure. Can't remember all the details that

far back but I was definitely a child who sucked my thumb.

Being on yourself. So this is something that people can be

guilty of doing. This is a bad habit where when you do things

you often are annoyed with yourself or angry with yourself

um because you feel like you didn't do a good job and so in

English we have phrases like you beat yourself up over it or

you're hard on yourself. Um in your mind you just think oh I

didn't do a good job. What's wrong with me? I should have

done a better job. So being hard on yourself can definitely

be a bad habit being late this is similar to procrastinating

but not exactly I'm usually on time for everything I go to but

there are people I know who are always late whenever we have

meetings at school the meetings start at a certain time and

usually we have to wait five or 10 minutes for some people to

come because they're always late. That to me if you were to

ask um what bad habit annoys me. That this is another one

that annoys me a lot. I don't like it when People are late.

Using your phone at dinner, this is considered a bad habit

um and it's related to screen time. If you go out to eat with

people and you spend the entire time on your phone, then, what

was the point of going out to eat? So, it's considered polite

to not use your phone at dinner. When my family gets

together, at Thanksgiving or Christmas, um I really

appreciate the fact that my brothers and sisters, they

don't use their phones at dinner. We just talk and have

nice conversations. Talk during a movie is a bad habit. I've

noticed I wanna blame teenagers too much but I've noticed when

I go to the movie theater, quite often there are a lot of

teenagers there who talk during the whole movie and talking

during a movie, I think is a bad habit. I think you should

sit quietly and appreciate the movie that you are watching.

Worrying too much. So, this is a hard one. We had the question

earlier. How do you stop a bad habit? I'm someone I think who

worries too much. I think um it's because I'm a dad. I think

dads and moms naturally worry about their kids a lot but

worrying too much isn't healthy. It's a bad habit. I

don't know how to fix this bad habit. But I certainly spend

too much time worrying. Especially if um my children go

out at night and if they're supposed to be home at 11 PM or

midnight and that time has come and gone and they're not home

yet. I start to worry. I worry that they were in a car

accident or that something bad has happened to them. But

worrying too much um is not not a good thing. Gambling. So,

gambling, this has um there are different opinions on gambling

around the world. Um gambling is something that once again,

things that you do in moderation can be quite fun but

I think if you're going to the casino every day and constantly

losing money, that's a bad habit. So, certainly, there are

probably a variety of opinions on whether gambling is a bad

habit or not, my opinion would be this, if you are doing

something that's To yourself or that causes you to lose money

regularly then I would say it's a bad habit. Um I live close to

the casino in Niagara Falls. I think I've been to the casino

twice in my life. More to just have a look than to gamble. I'm

not really a gambler. You can probably tell from my

personality. It's too risky. Texting while driving. So when

I go for a walk, I see a lot of people driving by and some of

them are speeding which is another bad habit. But some

people are in the habit of texting while they drive. So,

every once in a while, a car will go by while I'm walking

along the side of the road and I'll see the person driving

like this. They'll be looking down while they're driving and

I think, oh, you are texting and driving. So, texting while

driving is a bad habit and if you get stopped for it, you

certainly get a big fine. You don't want to get fined. Uh you

don't want to do that and get a fine. Listening Music Too Loud.

I was guilty of this for a good part of my life. I loved

putting on headphones. I had a really loud sound system when I

was in university and I still do. I don't turn it as loud

anymore but this can eventually damage your ears. Um children

uh really like to get earbuds or headphones so they can

listen to music quietly. But sometimes at school um

teenagers especially they'll have their earpods in and I can

hear their music from across the room and I think oh that is

a bad habit uh listening to music so loud. Overeating, we

kinda covered this one a little bit but eating too much can

certainly be a bad habit. Um I'm guilty of this one as well.

You sometimes think if you exercise a lot, you can eat

whatever you want but I'll tell you this, that's not true. You

cannot exercise your way out of a bad diet. What that means is,

you can't eat whatever you want just because you exercise. It

doesn't quite work that way. You have to eat healthy and

exercise. But I'm guilty of this one. This is one of the

bad habits that I have. I tend to overeat. Too much salt. So,

this is interesting. Like, I know a few older people where

the doctor has said, you need to cut back on salt. You have

high blood pressure or other problems because you're eating

too much salt. In North America, we tend to put salt on

a lot of our food. If you buy frozen food from a grocery

store in Canada, frozen food for some reason has a lot of

salt in it. If you, in fact, if you eat two slices of pizza

from the frozen food section. I think it's enough salt for your

whole day. Fast food, hamburgers, french fries, all

have a lot of salt in them. It is the main way that we flavor

food in North America. And uh one of the problems with that

is that people uh consume far too much salt and it causes

other health problems. And then of course we have too much

sugar. So until a few years ago um I don't think this was

considered a problem. Um we that too much salt was bad some

people think too much fat is bad but now they're thinking

it's more sugar that is the worst thing to have as well as

sorry along with too much salt in our diets in North America

we eat too much sugar there is literally sugar in everything I

had a friend come over once um from China and he commented

that all the food in the United States and Canada tasted sweet

he said the hamburger bun tasted sweet everything he felt

like it had sugar in it and I said yes It does but certainly,

eating um too many sweets or eating having too much sugar in

your diet is a bad thing. Bad habit if you eat it a lot.

Skipping breakfast. Now, I'm not sure this is considered a

bad habit anymore. It used to be considered a bad habit but

now people are starting to do um what do they call it?

Intermittent fasting. Where you don't eat for 16 hours a day

and then you only eat for 8 hours and they're finding that

maybe skipping breakfast isn't a bad habit. So, I will let you

side. Maybe you can tell me in the comments what you think. I

really like having breakfast. I usually have a fairly large

breakfast and then smaller meals for the rest of the day.

But it's possible now that skipping breakfast is a good

habit. Although it used to be considered a bad habit. Uh

being a perfectionist. Let me just check where I am here.

There we go. A perfectionist is someone who wants everything to

be perfect. I am not a perfectionist. Well, normally,

I think I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. I think if my

kids watch this, they might laugh. A perfectionist, if they

were to make an English lesson, everything in the lesson would

need to be perfect before they put it on YouTube. Um if you

were um uh If you're someone like this guy mowing his lawn,

he's out with the scissors to make sure every blade of grass

is the same height. We would consider that uh being a

perfectionist. So, why would this be a bad habit? Well,

there's kind of dismiddle ground between procrastination

and perfectionist or doing everything late and doing

things perfectly. You just have to do things so they're either

good or very good because if you're a perfectionist, you

might spend way too much time on something. Here's a good

example. If I was to wash my van, it would take me about

thirty minutes. If I was a perfectionist, it might take me

all day and then there would be other things I wouldn't get

done. So, being a perfectionist is one of those things. So this

might seem like a funny one. Saying yes too often. This is

something that uh I think I was guilty of a long time ago. It's

good to say yes when people ask you to do stuff. It's good to

be helpful. But it's also good to say no once in a while.

Here's a good example. You don't want to help someone else

so much um that you forget to take care of yourself or your

own family. Okay? So you want to say yes. You want to say yes

as much as you can to what other people ask you to do uh

but you don't want to do it too much because you might end up

just doing things for other people all the time and not do

anything for yourself. Daydreaming. So daydreaming is

when so some of you might be daydreaming right now. So

you're supposed to listen to me during the lesson. Um it's kind

of your choice but you might just be kind of daydreaming.

You might be thinking about oh later today I might call my

friend um oh what do I need to so daydreaming is when you

start to think about other things when you're supposed to

be doing something else. Students often are guilty of

this. Quite often students will daydream in class instead of

doing the work that they are supposed to be doing. So

hopefully none of you are daydreaming. I'll snap a little

bit to wake some of you up. Are you there? Wake up. Stop

daydreaming. Pay attention to the lesson. Grocery shopping

while hungry. So this isn't really considered a bad habit

but this is something that's not good to do. It's not, okay,

I put this one here just for myself. If I go grocery

shopping when I'm hungry, I usually buy a lot of extra

things that have a lot of sugar in them. So, if Jen gives me a

list or if I make a grocery list and if I go to the grocery

store and I'm full, if I'm not hungry, I buy what's on the

list and I come home. If I go to the grocery store after

work. I usually end up buying some cookies and I might buy a

chocolate bar at the grocery store. Um it's just not a good

idea. So, not necessarily a bad habit but this is definitely

one of the Canadian's bad habits. Grocery shopping while

hungry. Eating out too much. So, this doesn't say eating too

much. We already covered that under overeating. I think that

we talk about overeating. I think we did. Yes, we did. Um

but eating out too much can be a bad habit. For a lot of

reasons, if you eat breakfast at home, if you make a lunch

and take it to work with you or school and then, if you make

supper at home, it's actually cheaper but some people find it

very convenient, especially in North America, especially in

Canada, to go through the drive-thru to get breakfast, to

get a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, to go out and get

food at lunch with some people from work or school but eating

out too much is really expensive but it's also not

healthy. So you end up probably eating too much salt. Probably

not enough vegetables especially if you're eating

fast food. The only vegetable on this plate I think there's a

little bit of lettuce over there. And then it looks like

there might be some tomato on the hamburger. But eating out

too much can be a bad habit. Um it's expensive and it's

unhealthy. I like to eat out though. I don't eat out very

often but uh um yeah it is yummy isn't it to eat out and

it's so convenient you just give someone money and they

give you some food how can you go wrong leaving the lights on

this is something children do and I put this one on

especially because my children do this they have a habit of

leaving the lights on in their room even during the daytime

it's a mystery to me um but I'm sure that there are things I do

as well that are a mystery to them. They leave their lights

on. I leave my I don't put my shoes in the closet. So we all

have our little strange things we but this bothers me because

I pay for the electricity. So, when I see the lights on in one

of my kids' rooms during the day uh or just when they're not

in there, it's it bothers me and I think it's a bad habit.

To leave the lights on. Pen clicking. So, I don't have a

pen here to show you. I should have found one. I just have a

pencil but some people will click the pen. It's a form of

fidgeting um but they'll sit sometimes in a meeting.

Sometimes, students in class do this and they'll just be like,

click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click,

click, click, click, click, click. Um that's a Bad habit.

It's probably a bad habit that it really annoys me as a

teacher when students do this. I hope none of my students are

watching cuz now they'll all do it. The next time they're in my

class but if you have a pen that clicks, you might have a

bad habit of clicking it. Cracking your knuckles, I can't

actually do this. Um I don't know if this is really a bad

habit. I think it's bad for the joints in your fingers. When

you crack your knuckles, you go like, well, those hands almost

look like my hands. That's not me in the picture by the way.

Um Yeah, mine don't do it but it I think it can be bad to

kinda make all of your knuckles crack. I think it's bad for

your joints. Um I'm just not able to do it. It's never

really worked for me. I guess I'm not built the same way as

other people. Grinding your teeth. This is something that

people do in their sleep usually. It's when you put your

teeth together and you're sleeping and you kinda grind

the teeth against each other. If you go to the dentist, your

dentist might say, your teeth are wearing out a little bit

because you're grinding your teeth while you sleep. So,

grinding your teeth is um is a bad habit. I don't do this. Jen

uh does a little bit, I think, grind her teeth but um I

couldn't find a good picture of it. I think this is just an

angry child but it kinda looks like he's grinding his teeth.

So, it's when you grind your teeth is when you do this with

your teeth. You put them together and you just, yeah,

not good. Speeding is a bad habit. I see this almost on a

daily basis as well. People drive way too fast when they go

down the road. Gossiping is when you talk about someone

behind their back. So, when you conversations with people. You

can talk about, you know, something cool that your cousin

did. You can talk about something you bought. You can

talk about something. You can talk about positive things but

you can also gossip. When you gossip, you talk about um

things about other people that maybe they don't want you

talking about. So, you might say things like, um oh, Fred

bought his another car and he can't afford it. I don't know

why he bought that car. He's he's broke. He doesn't have

enough money. So, gossiping is a bad habit. It's when you talk

about People behind their backs. Students do this when

the teacher leaves the classroom. They usually talk a

little bit. Uh rambling on. Uh so this is one again that I'm

guilty of. Sometimes at the end of my live lessons I ramble on.

Rambling on is when you just keep talking. And you just

don't stop talking. Um we had a family event this past weekend.

So some of my relatives came over and some of them ramble on

a little bit. I ramble on quite a bit. It's when you don't let,

you know, when you have a conversation, you take turns

talking. Someone who rambles on doesn't let the other person

talk very much. Um when they tell a story that they could

tell the story in ten sentences, they actually use

100 sentences to tell the story. They kind of ramble on.

And it goes along with this, repeating yourself. Um this is

something that I'm doing more and more. Um you tell the same

stories more than once to the same people. Um so, when You

repeat yourself. Um yeah, it's kind of funny. The older we

get, the more likely you are to repeat yourself. The more

likely you are to have a bad habit of telling the same

stories over and over again. To other people. And then saying

um this is one that I'm guilty of. I think for those of you

that watch my videos, some YouTubers cut out every time

they say uh say um and I don't and I never will. Uh it's just

something um see I just said it. It's is something uh that

we say that was an awe, ums and awes um that we say when we're

thinking while we're talking. Um so, sorry I'm becoming self

conscious of the fact that I say um so it's making me laugh.

But saying um is something you should try not to do if you are

an English learner. Um but you will end up using ums and ahs

because it's just a natural part of informal speech. It's a

bad Habit um to use them too often. I just said um again if

you're wondering why I'm laughing. Um And then I just

said it again. Sorry, I should wrap this up. Saying I'm a lot

is a bad habit. Apparently, I'm very guilty of it.