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  • Hi. James from engVid.

  • You notice?

  • I was reading.

  • It's not a special skill.

  • Most of us learn it, but the problem is when you go to another language it's difficult

  • sometimes to understand what's on the paper and be able to use that.

  • So today's lesson is about mind maps.

  • Mind maps?

  • Yeah.

  • Wait a second, mind maps and reading.

  • I did a general lesson earlier on.

  • Somewhere in the link you can look down and you can find it, go back, you can watch it.

  • But in that lesson I didn't give any specific examples on mind maps.

  • I'm doing this particular lesson to address that.

  • So, if you're here going: "Yeah, I want to learn about mind maps and reading", this is

  • your lesson.

  • Hold on two seconds.

  • We're going to discuss what the benefits are, what the benefits of reading are, then I'm

  • going to give you a very detailed mind map explaining what parts you should do for what,

  • and that'll help you with reading.

  • Are you ready?

  • Let's go to the board.

  • All right, E, what's up?

  • "It's all Greek to me."

  • Omega, it's not the best symbol, you probably can't see it, but Greek.

  • In English we say when something's Greek to me, it means we don't understand it.

  • A lot of times you'll get a big contract when, you know, you have your cellphone and there's

  • a bill and it's: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah",

  • and you're like: "I don't understand it. It's all Greek."

  • I know you understand all of the words, it's just they're put together in such a way it's

  • difficult, and that doesn't matter if you're reading your own language or another language.

  • But there are a lot of benefits when you're learning another language that reading gives you.

  • And a lot of people want to talk and listen, but reading has some power.

  • And let's address that now.

  • Okay?

  • So mind maps are reading comprehension.

  • Don't worry if you haven't seen the mind map, it's coming up in a second or two.

  • But the first thing I want to talk to you about is reading helps you understand the

  • way that the language is put together.

  • Most of you will come and...

  • You come to engVid to learn vocabulary and grammar, but that doesn't help you with syntax,

  • that doesn't help you with putting the words together in a logical way.

  • Reading does that because...

  • Well, let's face facts, when you're reading someone is actually speaking to you but they're

  • not in front of you.

  • So the problem is if they're not very clear and they don't use the language well, you

  • won't really understand them.

  • Right?

  • So reading teaches you how to...

  • The language is put together, where the verbs go, and when's a better place to use the verb

  • or a noun, and how you can show expressions. Okay?

  • Reading also teaches you how to speak by showing you the way that the language is used by the

  • native speakers.

  • Huh? Well, if it's a fiction book they actually say:

  • "-'Johnny, are you coming?'

  • -'Yes.' Dah, dah, dah, dah",

  • and they show you how we use the language.

  • So not only do you understand how to put the language together by looking at it and going:

  • "Ah, comma here, period here", but then they say:

  • "Hey, this is how we speak."

  • So if you follow this you can actually use that kind of method or sys-...

  • Not system.

  • You can follow those words and actually speak like we do.

  • All right?

  • Number three, vocabulary.

  • I talked about it up here.

  • Reading introduces vocabulary in a natural way.

  • Have you ever had a teacher or read a book where they have 20 words and they say:

  • "These are your 20 words"?

  • And when you look back, you're like:

  • "Why did they teach me these 20 and not these 20,

  • and why this word and not that word?"

  • Well, when they're reading they're saying: "Here's words", and you can see the vocabulary,

  • you can look at the picture that it's in-and that's a key that I'm going to say picture;

  • I'll come back to that-and you can see: "Ah, that's how it fits, and now I have an understanding

  • of the word not just by dictionary definition, but how people actually use it in real life

  • in that language."

  • Okay?

  • So at the end of it I say: Reading is good for you, like an orange.

  • You know, you have orange juice?

  • Delicious.

  • It's good for you. Right?

  • But there is a key that you have to remember, and that is: Reading is difficult if you don't

  • know 80% of the vocabulary, and this is where the mind map comes in.

  • If you don't know 80% of the vocabulary you won't understand most of what is on the paper.

  • But the funny thing is if you see a picture, even if you don't know all the words, you

  • can understand how that picture goes together.

  • Right?

  • We're going to use mind maps to create a picture for you to look at and understand, and then

  • take some of the vocabulary that you may not know and give you a really clear understanding.

  • Ready for your next adventure?

  • Let's turn to the next chapter.

  • [Snaps]

  • Okay, so I promised a mind map for reading, and voila.

  • But before I get there, I want to just go over a couple of things. Okay?

  • Why do we have...?

  • There are three reasons for the mind map.

  • I discussed what reading was about.

  • But I discussed reading, but I didn't talk about the mind map and how they actually go

  • together, and I'm going to fix that right now.

  • We want to use the mind map to do these three things to make reading much easier.

  • Do you remember I said if you don't understand at least 80%, so it's only 20% you don't understand,

  • reading something will be impossible?

  • These are the three reasons we want to go to mind maps to make that 20% just disappear

  • and work for us.

  • First, a mind map forces you...

  • Okay, so they break down...

  • They force you to break down information into smaller parts that are easier to understand.

  • Here's my fist, I'm going to eat it.

  • [Mumbles].

  • You see, I can't.

  • But if I do this, we make it smaller, it's easier to eat.

  • Okay?

  • When you have a page of information and 20% you don't understand, you just go:

  • "I don't understand."

  • But when you break it into parts you can go:

  • "Hey, I know this word, and this word works with that", it's easier for you to digest or to take in.

  • Number two, once you're finished the mind map all of the information can be seen quickly

  • at a glance.

  • A glance is a quick look.

  • When you...

  • No, that's not a glance.

  • This is.

  • See?

  • That means a quick look.

  • I want to be able to look at a piece of paper and get the picture right away.

  • And if you think about it, when you look at a picture, you don't look corner, corner,

  • corner, corner, corner.

  • You look, you see the picture, you understand it.

  • That's what a mind map does for you.

  • And finally, the third thing is there are lots of pictures.

  • You're going to notice lots of silly pictures.

  • Well, it makes it easier to remember.

  • Because let's face it, if you read something and you don't remember it, you never read it.

  • So I'm going to say that again to make sure you understand.

  • Okay?

  • If you read something and you don't remember what you read, you never read it.

  • With a mind map, because you get these little pictures, you can put a picture in your head

  • easily.

  • It's easy to recall or bring back that information and remember it.

  • So the three advantages are we can break it into pieces we understand.

  • Okay?

  • When we need the information-[snaps]-it's quick.

  • I don't need to go page, page.

  • I can look and go: "Got it."

  • And number three, I don't even have to look.

  • I can just remember.

  • Nice. Right? All right.

  • So let's take a look at a very general mind map.

  • What do I mean by general?

  • This mind map is to give you an idea, sort of like a base.

  • From here you can modify this type of mind map to use it for any other reading.

  • So if you're a business guy or you're a history person, you're like: "This doesn't help me",

  • wait, I'll show you how it can help you.

  • But for now let's go through the basic things you can do to make it easier.

  • So you've read your book. Okay?

  • You're reading through the pages.

  • While you're reading it, some of the things you can do is right off the bat you can have

  • a little mind map-where are we?-vocabulary, a little arm here that goes into voca-...

  • New vocabulary.

  • With the new vocabulary, you can write the word out, go to your dictionary, find a synonym.

  • The dictionary usually has antonyms and synonym.

  • Synonym means a word that seems the same or is similar to this word,

  • and the antonym is the opposite.

  • Okay? So we can look for synonyms which may help us.

  • So you might know the word "dog", but you don't know the word "mutt".

  • A mutt is a type of dog that's mixed.

  • So that's a synonym for "dog".

  • So you can use that by using your dictionary, and this will help you remember that word,

  • and plus make your vocabulary wider.

  • Cool. Right?

  • And next thing is almost every book you read, especially if it's for school-and a lot of

  • you I know want to go to school or you're reading books-you need general information.

  • So in this kind we can put down the type of book.

  • Is it science?

  • Is it business?

  • Is it fiction?

  • Who is the author?

  • The Donald Trump haircut.

  • See?

  • It's blowing away.

  • Who's the author?

  • Put the author's name.

  • And then when was it published?

  • Published means: When did you make this...?

  • Or, sorry.

  • When did they make the book?

  • When was it written and completed?

  • You might want this because the information might be old.

  • We call it dated, and it's no good anymore.

  • Or it could be relevant, which means it's good and useful now.

  • Right?

  • And that publishing helps you.

  • It's a quick glance. Remember?

  • You might read five books and you can quickly go through everything you need on one piece

  • of paper.

  • Especially when you're writing an essay it's important because you need this.

  • Okay?

  • Comprehension.

  • I'm going to come back to that one, because that's usually for me the last thing that happens.

  • So let's go over here.

  • After you've written down your basic information-okay?-you're going to write chapters.

  • You read it.

  • I don't care what book you read, they have chapters.

  • Well, have...

  • Sorry. Let me correct myself.

  • If they're good books they have chapters.

  • Magazines even have chapters.

  • Right?

  • Different part, you know, there's the food one, there's the investment, on clothing.

  • It's not called a chapter, but you get the idea.

  • You can put the chapter's title, the basic information because a lot of times they'll

  • outline what is in this chapter, and then you can put down the important details that

  • you get.

  • It doesn't have to be what the book says, it's what maybe you think or what the book says.

  • This organizes that information so that when you go back it's easier to remember than to

  • read 400 pages.

  • Timeline.

  • Things happen at a certain time.

  • So what happened and when?

  • For history this is perfect.

  • Now, do you remember I told you we could modify one?

  • You don't need this if this is business.

  • It's not necessary to have a timeline, but you might have something called business strategies

  • and it could be business strategies and strategy number one for marketing, strategy number

  • two for investment.

  • But let's go back again and say this...

  • We wanted to change this once again and we wanted to talk about a fictional book, the

  • life of Muhammad Ali, for instance.

  • We could change this to put down characters.

  • And when we say characters, it would be Muhammad Ali's a character, lead character, maybe his

  • brother is another character for the personality, or when we talk about the types of characters

  • that are in the book.

  • You can use it for a whole bunch of things.

  • So you can take this one arm out and change it.

  • So we could use it for business, for strategies, you could use it for fiction writing to describe

  • the characters that are in there.

  • Now, Muhammad Ali's non-fiction, but let's pretend he went to the moon, that would be

  • a fictional book. Okay?

  • So in case you're like: "He's a real guy, I know him!"

  • You don't know him.

  • I'm just saying if it was a non-fiction, the guy's name was Muhammad Ali.

  • Okay? But just you understand, but we can talk about the different types of characters in here

  • or investment strategies.

  • So this one arm can be taken out, and this way you can modify this basic mind map for

  • reading to what you're reading and doing right now.

  • Now, I talked about all of these and I wanted to leave this one to the end because

  • comprehension means to understand.

  • No matter what you read and what you're told, there's always something that you've learned

  • from that book.

  • And this is the one that you want to really keep on regardless because you might want

  • to say: "I learned this."

  • or "I got this out of this book."

  • Because when you're going back and it's been a month since you read it or you have to do

  • an assignment, it's kind of good to say in your conclusion even:

  • "This is what I learned. This is what I got from this."

  • Right?

  • Cool?

  • Well, look, I hope this mind map lesson has been really good for you.

  • I enjoyed it.

  • I'm sure you got something and you can use it.

  • And once again, if there was some...

  • You know, some basic questions you had, check in the link, there's a link to the first lesson

  • I did which was very general giving more of an idea of

  • what is a mind map and why do you use it.

  • Okay?

  • So anyway, I'd like to say thank you once again.

  • I always appreciate when you watch our videos, Mr. E and I, though he's not here.

  • Also, I want you to subscribe, and that's somewhere around here.

  • If you just look in the box you'll find it.

  • And the last thing I want to say is this: As I said, I think you found this helpful,

  • and if that's the case - do me a favour?

  • Show someone else.

  • Because if you learn something from it, you should share your knowledge.

  • That's what we do here at engVid, we'd love it if you can do it as well.

  • Anyway, have a good one and pick up a book.

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