look at this english is one of the hardest languages to learn or is it is it really hello my name is matthew from peace of cake english i've been teaching english for about 10 years now and i've heard this a lot that many language learners believe that the english language is one of the hardest most difficult languages to learn of course learning a new language is difficult you need time you need to spend money on courses and books you need to lose your precious free time right however i believe the reason why many language learners
think that english language is difficult is because they or maybe even you are doing it wrong let's see what the components of english language are there are six components there is vocabulary and there is grammar and these two are also referred to as sub-skills or systems these are the basis of the language and there are four main skills there is speaking and there is writing and these two are called productive skills which means you have to produce something in writing you need to produce sentences in speaking you need to produce sentences you need to speak
you need to make sentences you need to talk right and the other two skills are reading and lessening and these two are receptive skills meaning that you receive the information and you analyze it you don't produce the information the problem begins pay close attention to it the problem begins when you focus on one two or three of these elements and you forget the rest let me give you a very quick example we need food to survive our food contains carbs proteins and healthy fats right what if i only eat carbs and cut out proteins and
fats will i be healthy what if i only focus on proteins and then i cut out carbs and fats what if i only have fats while not having carbs and proteins that might be delicious but still not healthy if i want to be healthy i need to eat a balanced diet the same is true for english language if you want to have a good level of english language if you want to be able to use the language effectively you need to have a balance while learning all the six elements but how let me explain first
thing you need to do is to learn the basics the systems the vocabulary and grammar parts right it might sound boring many students say ah grammar again no i don't want to learn grammar just teach me vocabulary but no lesson this is what you need to do start with grammar and vocabulary imagine i have started with grammar imagine i learned about simple present i have launched at 2 every day i learned about present continuous uh sorry i'm having lunch now call you back later or maybe present perfect i've already had lunch thanks i write everything
i learned in my journal and what you should do here is to keep a journal what do i do with it all right whatever happens in your day whatever is going to happen in your day or whatever you are thinking about doing during the day goes into your journal try to use the grammar you learn the tenses you learn in order to make real life sentences real life examples now i can't emphasize this enough real life sentences and examples but why because the real life examples are very very tangible you know it sticks to your
mind when you make an example about something that you are about to do and then you go on and you do it so you keep a journal in which you write the tenses and the grammar notes you learn at the same time and lessen closely at the same time that you are working on your grammar you need to work on your vocabulary and these two need to take place simultaneously at the same time it's completely wrong if for the first month i focus on learning grammar for the second month i learn vocabulary no no no
no you need to do it simultaneously after learning grammar i'm going to learn some new words right imagine i learn the new word crime i write down in my notebook crime and the meaning illegal action is that it i've learned a new word no i haven't i haven't learned a new word yet this is a mistake of many students just writing down the word without context you won't learn it what you need to do is to look for collocations what is a collocation a collocation is a combination is a group of words nouns verbs adjectives
prepositions that often go together and form a block of words for example crime is the word that i have learned i need to look up some collocations right so i start with verbs i can say commit crime i can say report crime right i can go on with adjectives and say violent crime non-violent crime or i can say major crime pity crime i can go on with prepositions and say crime against something and i can come up with some phrases like a crime wave now for each of these collocations i make a sentence for more
tips on learning vocabulary and how to do it effectively i'm going to link a video right here above my head you can click on it and watch it later but the question where do i find these collocations here's a simple tool you can use it's called ozdic.com azdek it's very helpful just go to the website type the word and you will find the collocations alright alright alright i have learned vocabulary and grammar what do i do now it is time to mix them up so in this stage what you need to do is to use
the vocabulary and collocations you have learned and the grammar you have learned in order to make sentences and write them down this is the writing stage so after learning vocabulary and grammar we proceed to writing you start writing a paragraph for example if i have learned simple present i would say anyone who commits a crime is a criminal or present progressive the news is reporting major crime against children you see i'm using the collocations as well report crime major crime crime against somebody or president perfect i can say he has committed violent crime and that's
why he is in jail now it is time to write a short paragraph mixing grammar and vocabulary up the news reported a major crime against children a group of people committed serious crime and i was thinking why would somebody commit crime major or minor violent or non-violent why does it happen why is there a crime wave in my city and now listen i have tried to use both grammar and vocabulary here so you see report crime major crime crime against commit crime commit serious crime major minor violent nonviolent crime wave and boom that is writing
all right grammar checked vocabulary checked writing checked what's next speaking but how try to explain what you have written to somebody now that somebody can be your friend your brother a sibling uh you can be family or can be no one you can just describe it out loud to yourself let me show you i was watching tv today and the news was reporting about crime crime against children and then i was thinking why would people commit crime now serious crime violent crime non-violent crime what is the reason why do people why do people commit major
crime or pity crime also you know in my town there is a high crime rate and i was thinking why is there a new crime wave in my city you can also pretend that you are doing this in front of a large audience and work on your presentation skills let me show you you know what i was watching tv today and the news reported serious crime against again again the news reported serious crime against children and i was wondering why do we commit crime huh why do we commit crime now serious crime pity crime major
crime minor crime it doesn't matter the question is why think about our city our town why is there a high crime rate here why do we have a new crime wave here this stage is very crucial because not only it improves your speaking it also gives you self-confidence and self-confidence is a major barrier for english learners who want to speak if you don't have the confidence you won't speak you won't dare to speak alright we are done with the systems vocabulary and grammar we are done with the two productive skills speaking and writing what about
the receptive skills reading and lessoning reading and listening can help you reinforce your knowledge of vocabulary grammar speaking and writing in this case i can go online i can go and google and then search for articles about crime or even the news about crime and then by reading the news by reading the articles online i can also highlight new words and phrases the new grammatical structures i see and i can add them to my notebook then i can use them in order to write something and then i can speak about what i have written so
you see this is a loop this is a cycle and all of these six elements are interconnected meaning that improving one will help improve the others and that's why i insist you should never ever leave one of the six elements out what do we do for the listening i highly recommend bbc six minutes english podcasts they're amazing here is the final diagram of my suggestion of what i think is the best method for learning english well of course there are many different opinions and theories about what the best way of learning a language is some
might say that this is not how babies learn their mother tongue however there is a big difference here between learning your mother tongue as a baby or learning english as an adult we are talking about english as your second language esl and not as your first language if it's your first language why are you watching this video babies learn a language indirectly through listening to their parents and family and friends through saying touching feeling smelling but can we do this can we start with lessening and touching and feeling and then go on with the rest
of the skills such as i don't know grammar and vocabulary later on i'm not saying it's not possible but it takes a lot of time how long does it take for a baby to speak and not perfectly think about it a baby after two or three years can say mama or papa and of course the mental capacity of an adult is much different than that of a baby so this comparison is completely wrong and therefore i highly recommend following these steps and final note if you want to receive the lesson summaries of every video i
post on youtube in a pdf file format for free just go to the descriptions down below click on the link to my website and type in your email address click subscribe every time i post a new lesson on youtube you will receive the pdf file as well i hope you've enjoyed this lesson don't forget to give it a thumbs up and if you're new to my channel click subscribe see ya [Music]
