Name: Balanced English Learning - Improve the Way You Study English
Uploaded: 2020-01-07T07:15:17.000Z
Duration: 18 min 39 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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Many English learners have similar problems, and say the same things: “I've been studying

for years, but I still can't speak fluently!”

“How do I stop translating in my head?”

In this video, we'll talk about what it means to learn English, why so many learners

have these problems, and what you can do to learn more effectively.

You can find videos, listening lessons, quizzes and professional teachers who you can study

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Let's start with a question: what does it mean to learn something?

When you say, “I learned this,” what do you mean?

All learning depends on three things: theory, memory and practice.

You need to understand ideas and concepts—theory.

You need to remember ideas and how to do things—memory.

And, you need to use things in real life—practice.

When you learn something, you need a balance between these three things, and you need the

If you don't get the balance right, you'll find it difficult to learn.

You'll waste time and energy, and you'll probably get worse results than you could have.

Let's talk about this balance in more detail.

When you learn different things, you need different amounts of theory, memorisation,

For example, think about learning to ride a bike.

No one learns to ride a bike by reading books.

Let's take a very different example: aeronautical engineering, meaning designing aeroplanes

OK, I'll be honest: I don't know, because I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but I'm

guessing that it's a lot of theory and memorisation, and less practice, because when you're designing

a plane or a rocket, you should get it right first time.

When you learn different things, you need a different balance of these three areas—theory,

Many English learners have problems because they get this balance wrong, and they get

What are the biggest problems English learners have here?

Two: they try to use theory and memorisation to replace practice.

And Four: they don't practice enough, or effectively.

These mistakes lead to all the common English-learner complaints: “I've been studying for years

but I can't speak fluently!”, “I learn vocabulary, but I can't remember it!”,

Let's see what you can do about these problems, and how you can make your English learning

In this section, we're going to talk about the first two problems: focusing too much

on theory, and using theory and memorisation to replace practice.

Actually, this isn't English learners' fault.

Many people learn English—and other languages—in a theory-heavy way at school or university.

Then, they think this is what language learning means: sitting in a classroom, doing grammar

Going to a language class might be useful.

Doing grammar exercises can be helpful in the right situation.

But, here's the key point: practice comes first.

It's more like riding a bike than designing an airplane or a rocket.

You can't replace practice by studying theory.

You can't learn to speak by doing exercises from a book.

You can't learn to write essays by reading other people's essays.

Here's a question: do you have problems speaking fluently, because you're translating

If you do, that's a sign that you've studied English in a way which depends too much on

If you do this, you end up trying to 'calculate' sentences in your head.

It's like doing complex maths at high speed.

Of course you can't speak fluently if you're doing this.

Again, theory is not useless! Studying theory is not useless.

If you want to learn to speak, you have to speak.

If you want to learn to write, you have to write.

Theoretical study should support your practice.

Let's take something which for many people is the biggest symbol of boring English lessons—grammar

Grammar exercises can be extremely useful!

But, you should only do them only when you really need them.

For example, imagine you're speaking English regularly, but you're not good at using

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Balanced English Learning - Improve the Way You Study English

present

practice

repetition

vocabulary