LEARN ENGLISH PODCAST: YOU MUST DO THIS TO IMPROVE FAST (+ BEST METHOD)

- [Jack] Well, hello, this is Jack

from ToFluency.com, and this is the "To Fluency" podcast,

where you can learn English with me on YouTube

and soon to be on other podcast areas or apps let's say.

Now, today, we are going to talk

about deliberate learning versus passive learning

and more specifically,

why you need to embrace difficult moments,

why you need to learn to love

when things get a little bit difficult with your learning.

So I think this episode is going

to be very valuable for you,

and you're going to learn a lot.

And at the end, I'm just going

to go over my favorite method,

which ties everything together,

which will summarize what I'm talking about in this episode.

I'm also going to give you some examples

from my life as well,

which will help you understand just the importance

of this concept of embracing when things get difficult.

Now, to embrace something means to learn to love it,

to see it as a positive thing instead of a negative thing.

But before we get into that, let's just talk

about deliberate learning versus passive learning.

I'll give you an example.

So deliberate learning is something

like learning grammar rules.

So let's say you are in a language school

and your teacher says, okay,

let's learn the present perfect.

This is when we use it. These are the rules.

And you have to focus on that and try to memorize it,

try to learn these concepts.

Whereas, passive learning is

when you are watching a TV program in English

and you are just naturally getting that input,

which I've talked about a lot.

It's so important to get input

because that's how you're going to really absorb English

and just get used to the English language.

But the opposite of that, again,

is deliberate learning, grammar rules,

when you focus on learning new words and phrases,

when you use a method that I'm going to talk about later,

when you try to learn how to say a word

that is difficult for you to say,

and you practice this a few times,

and you practice it again next week.

That is deliberate learning.

Now, deliberate learning needs more focus.

It needs more focus.

Because, let's say,

you are watching a YouTube video in English.

You can sometimes just switch off.

Maybe you're doing this when you're cleaning the house

or on your way to work or when you're exercising,

and you can multitask a little bit with this

because you don't need all of your focus all of the time.

It's watching a video,

listening to something while doing other things.

Whereas, deliberate learning,

when you're studying grammar rules,

you're giving this task all your focus.

It's harder to do.

There's more energy needed, more focus needed on this task.

And I know from experience and I also know

from comments on my YouTube channel

that it's often the case when you start something

that is a little bit more difficult

and then you think, ugh, this is too hard.

I can't do it.

Let's just listen to a podcast episode instead

or let's just go on YouTube

and see what videos are available right now.

And I do this too.

So if I'm trying to focus on something with my work,

it's a little bit difficult,

I'll switch the tab and just check my emails

or I'll check out the YouTube tab

and see, oh, is something new there?

What can I have a look at?

Or I pick up my phone and check my emails.

So this is a big problem,

and I think it's actually getting worse.

I'll leave a link to my video

where I talk about social media and how addictive it can be

and how it just takes away our focus a lot of the time,

but the concepts I really wanna talk

about today is to embrace the difficulty.

So this means to really get excited, okay?

Excited about when something is a little bit too difficult

for you or when something seems quite hard to do.

And the main reason for that is this.

This is where you grow.

This is where you're going to improve the most

is finding something that's difficult

and learning how to do it.

Let's talk about some examples.

I'm gonna give an example

outside of language learning first.

and this will help you understand.

So for me, I am trying to improve,

and I always am, my ability to play soccer.

So I play soccer for a couple of teams

and I'll go to the field once or twice a week

on my way home from work and do some soccer drills.

So this is deliberate learning here, deliberate practice.

Whereas, just playing a game is more,

it's not as deliberate

because you're not working on specific things.

Instead, you're playing a game.

But when I go to the field to practice,

I'll do specific drills with my left foot, especially.

And at first, these drills are really hard.

It's difficult to explain what drills they are

but just imagine I'm trying to do some advanced things

with my weak foot, with my left foot,

which isn't as strong as my right foot.

So at first, when I start a new drill,

I am falling over.

I'm missing the ball.

And if somebody is watching,

they are probably thinking this guy is terrible at soccer,

but it's not that I'm terrible at soccer,

which maybe I am, but it's I'm doing a new drill

that is very difficult to do.

So at first with anything new, it is hard to do.

And there was a new drill I started the other day

and I thought, ugh, I can't do this.

And in your head, you're thinking,

maybe I should just do something else.

Maybe I won't ever be able to do this.

But for the past two or three weeks,

I've focused on this drill

and I'm very close to doing it

to a level that I'm very happy with,

and it's all because I changed my mentality

and thought, okay, when a task is difficult,

this is when I grow.

Because this task is something I can't do now,

but if I learn it, then this means

that I'm improving in a very specific way.

So that's an example with soccer.

It's the same with learning the guitar.

Maybe there is a cord,

like a very special thing you have to do

with your fingers to make a specific sound,

but you can't do it at first.

However, if you think, okay, I'm going to do this.

I know it's hard now, but if I keep practicing

and be consistent with it,

then I'm going to master this skill.

I'm going to reach a stage

where I can just do it automatically.

It's the same with language learning too.

Now, an example from my life

is I found Spanish pronunciation very difficult.

I had a big problem with saying specific sounds,

like the R sound,

and it's very difficult or different in Spanish for me.

But I went through a period where I embraced this difficulty

and I improved in all these areas,

and I did the things that, in Spanish,

where I really had to focus on improving.

I really had to focus on those specific tasks.

That's when I improved the most.

I also did the input, the listening, et cetera,

and that helped too.

But for me, what really moved my Spanish forward

was embracing the difficult things to do.

At this stage, however, this is important.

Not all things that are difficult are going

to move you forward, okay?

So not everything you do

that's difficult is going to help you improve.

It's also important to think about,

what are the most efficient things that I can do

with my time in order to improve?

So if you think about this in English.

Maybe memorizing verb patterns

or verb tables, sorry, is difficult,

but is that really going to help you improve your ability

to speak fluently and accurately?

Probably not.

However, if you work on other methods,

and I'm going to talk about those soon,

and you find them difficult,

this is where you're really going to grow.

So use methods that are actually going to help

and also get to that stage where

when you find something difficult, get excited about it,

because that is where you're going to improve.

That's where you're going to grow.

So for example, with learning English,

I'm gonna talk about one main method

or two main methods now.

The first one is learning the sounds of English

and learning what to do with your mouth in order

to make those sounds be more accurate when you speak.

Now, I have a course called the To Fluency Program.

If you go to ToFluency.com and click on the menu bar,

there's a link to the program there

if you want to check it out.

But inside that course,

I go through different sounds of English

and different areas of English pronunciation,

and people send me their recordings

when they go through this.

There's certain sounds that people find difficult to make.

There are certain areas of the course

as well that people find difficult.

And what I notice is that, again,

at first, the recordings aren't as good,

but with practice and with knowing what

to do with your mouth, then this gets so much better, okay?

So for example, some people find it difficult

to say the different sounds, for example,

that are quite similar.

For example, there's the, eh sound and the e sound,

sit, seat, sit seat,

it, eat, it eat,

where you have the short sound and the longer sound,

and it's just slightly different in your mouth.

And Spanish speakers especially find this difficult.

But when you reach this stage,

you might think, ugh, I can't do it.

I can't make those sounds. It's too difficult.

If you find yourself thinking this,

that's when you say, okay, let's go all in.

Let's really make this my focus now,

and I'm going to do it.

And it takes energy. It takes focus.

It's not comfortable to do this,

but again, this is where you're going to grow.

So then you can learn how to make those different sounds,

practice them, record your own voice,

and then repeat it once you can master it.

And then after a while, this will just become normal.

It will become automatic to you

when you say these different sounds.

So you can think about that

with all areas of English pronunciation.

You can practice it with all the sounds of English.

Another example might be connected speech as well

or the schwa sound.

It might be dropped syllables.

It could be relaxed pronunciation as well,

where you try to practice I want to,

and then that goes to I wanna.

I wanna go. I'm gonna wanna go soon.

I'm gonna wanna go soon.

That might sound very difficult to say now,

but again, if you just practice this, you can get there.

So that's one method.

The other method is my favorite method, the LRRC method,

which is similar to the pronunciation method

but instead we are learning phrases.

So you find a phrase like, I'm gonna wanna go soon.

You listen to the phrase. You repeat it.

You record your version of this,

and then you listen to your phrase

and compare it to the original.

Okay, so that way, what you're doing is, again,

you're really focusing on the accuracy here.

I'm gonna wanna go soon.

Now, if you can't quite understand what I'm saying here,

it's I'm going to want to go soon,

but this gets changed

to the relaxed pronunciation,

to I'm gonna wanna go soon.

I'm gonna wanna go soon.

And in order to do that, you need to slow down the audio.

You need to really focus on the audio. Practice saying it.

There will be times when you just can't say it correctly.

But again, if you keep practicing and embracing this,

really learning to love this feeling

of it being uncomfortable,

that's where you're going to grow.

That is where you're going

to really make progress with everything.

But again, don't just do this for any type of method.

Focus on the methods that are going to help you.

For example, another example is when you're reading a book

and you want to learn new words and phrases.

It can be annoying when you don't understand the words.

Because let's say, yeah,

let's say you just have a new book.

It's a B2 book, graded reader.

And you read a page

and there's a few words and phrases you don't understand.

It can just really make you feel down.

You think, ugh, my English isn't good enough for this.

But instead of having that mentality, think,

wow, look at all these new words

and phrases that I can learn today.

Be curious about new words and phrases.

Enjoy learning new words and phrases,

because that's how you're going to improve your vocabulary

by coming across words and phrases

that you don't understand, learning them in context,

and getting the repetition over the longterm.

So the three methods that I've outlined here

are learning new words and phrases

through articles and books, et cetera,

working on the English phrases,

imitation method or the LRRC method,

where you repeat phrases,

and also working on the specific sounds

of English and other areas of pronunciation.

Those are the three things that I think

really help you move forward with your English.

And if you find yourself doing too much passive learning,

then find some time to do this deliberate practice,

this deliberate learning,

and be sure to do it when you can have the time

and the space to focus on it,

because it is going to take more of your focus.

And if people are going to interrupt you,

then it won't be as easy just to stick with it.

But again, think about this in terms of not, sorry,

don't think about this in terms of, my English is terrible.

I can't do it.

Think about it as this is a great opportunity

for me to improve in this area.

And it's that constant focused learning

on a consistent basis that is going

to really move your English forward.

So I'd love to know what you think about this

and talk about your mentality

if there's a comment section below

wherever you're listening to this.

Talk about your mentality with your learning,

when you've stopped learning

because it has become too difficult,

or when you are going to use this in the future,

when it comes to deliberate practice.

And let me know what other methods you're going

to include when it comes to this area of English too.

Now, if you've enjoyed this,

then please share it with somebody

that you think would benefit from it

and also go to ToFluency.com, T-O-F-L-U-E-N-C-Y.com,

to learn more about my methods

and also to get a free book,

"The 5-Step Plan for English Fluency."

And if you can't find it anywhere,

just search for To Fluency, T-O-F-L-U-E-N-C-Y,

on YouTube or on Google to find more of what we do.

Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope you found it useful and I will speak to you soon.

Buh-bye.

(upbeat music)