DON'T Study English | Play English

Don't. Don't study English. Do not study English. That's today's topic. Do not study English. Why you should not study English. And, of course, what to do instead.

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So today we're going to discuss a topic that comes from a book. It's actually called The Little Book of Talent. It's kind of the second book. The first book was called The Talent Code.

And it's a really interesting book. The Talent Code is about how do... How do we learn skills? How do we learn skills, right? And how do we coach? How do we teach skills the best?

So this guy that wrote the book, he went around and he looked at a lot of athletes especially, so a lot of sports. And he looked at like, you know... How do the best teams, how do the best places create great players?

So, for example, we looked at Brazil. Why does Brazil create so many great soccer players? Like, why? Why Brazil? Of course, the other countries are also good, but...

Brazil is quite famous for creating very creative and very, very, very skillful soccer players. So he was like, well, why? For example, compared to America. A lot of people don't know this, but a lot of people grow up playing soccer in America, millions and millions.

It might be the most popular... what we call little league, you know, kids sport in the United States. So, you know, people don't realize this because, you know, professionally at high levels, America's not that very good. We don't have a great professional league.

We don't have many great professional players internationally. You know, we don't win any World Cups or anything. They often don't even go to the World Cup. But in fact, though, millions and millions of Americans play soccer all through when they're kids and into adolescence, middle school and teenage years.

So millions and millions and millions, and yet very, very, very, very, very few become great players. But on the other hand, Brazil, for example, also, of course, millions play soccer, but they create a very large number of excellent players. Top, top, top players, right? Professional level that are playing in the best leagues around the world.

So he asked this question, like, why? What do they do differently? What are they doing differently? How are the kids learning differently in Brazil compared to America, for example?

Or you can pick any other large country where people play soccer, but they don't have the same results. And he looked at other countries, not just soccer. He looked at, for example, I believe it's the Dominican Republic and baseball. So this is an even stronger example.

Why? Because it's a very small country. The Dominican Republic is just half of one island. So, in terms of population and size, it's very small, but they produce a very large number of very good baseball players, like top professional baseball players, really, really good baseball players from this very small population.

Why? It's also an interesting question. And then he also looks at there are certain, not just countries, but maybe certain schools or academies, For example, I mean, he looked at, I think, one in Russia, this one tennis academy.

I can't remember the name, but this one place where kids go and they learn tennis and they're coached in tennis. And they have produced a lot of professional, high-level players.

Why? What are they doing differently? Because, you know, obviously tennis is popular around the world. There are a lot of tennis academies and they're all trying hard to be great.

So why are some getting better results? And then this guy in this book, The Talent Code, we're talking about the book, The Talent Code. How do we learn skills? How do we become great at something?

What are the secrets to being great? What are the secrets to learning a skill, learning something more quickly and better and a higher level? But not just sports. Also, he looked at music.

The writer of the book, he looked at music. There's some music academies, some music schools, some music programs, some ways of learning to play music that are also more effective compared to the normal ones.

Of course, language would be one. That's why we're here, right? So, this also applies to language. Really, any skill. Okay, so there are lots and lots of great points in the book.

So there's, it's a big book, so you should really look at, you know, I recommend you read the whole book and maybe I'll do more pieces from the book. But today we're going to, I'm going to do one.

This is kind of from the second book he wrote, but the same topic. And it's called Play Games. Play, don't drill. Don't study, don't drill. Instead, play small, addictive games.

So this is a secret to getting good at something. And you can do this with English. And I'll talk about how you use this in English in a minute. But first, let's just read this really quickly, okay?

Okay, he says, so this is a tip. How can you learn faster? How can you learn faster? A skill. So he's not talking about memorizing ideas or facts. Okay, this is not studying.

This is something you have to do, right? Like English speaking is a skill. Taking an English test, that's just knowledge. You can memorize vocabulary and take a test and get a good score.

But can you use the vocabulary when you're speaking? Do you understand the vocabulary in a real conversation? That's skill. Okay, so that's the difference.

Knowledge, you just know something in your head. Skill means you can do it. And so what we want is skill. What you want is English speaking skill. You want to actually speak English, not just pass tests.

So, how do we do it? Here's one tip. How do you practice? He says the term drill evokes a sense of drudgery and meaningless. Okay, drill. You'll see this in some textbooks.

They have drills. They talk about this in sports. Drill. What is a drill? Drill. This word has a few meanings. It's also a tool that we can use to build things.

But in this situation, what we're talking about, a drill, is when you're just repeating something. You're just practicing it again and again and again and again, the same exact thing.

Like, so, for example, in soccer, you could just practice kicking a ball. You could practice penalty kicks, for example, and you could just have an empty net and just kick balls into the net again and again and again and again. That would be a drill, right? It's just the same action again and again and kind of boring, right?

Kind of boring after a while just kicking at a net. And in English, we do this, right? People just conjugate verbs, right? You'll see it in textbooks, and you just have to do these drills where you just fill in, conjugate the verb, I don't know, to be, I...

I am, he, she is. And you have to write it out. That's a drill. It's very boring. There's no real meaning. So that's one way of practicing. But it's not very effective.

It's not very efficient. Looking at the wrong camera. It's not very efficient. Meaning you spend a lot of time and get not a good result. You get a small result for a lot of work.

The next problem with drilling, it's mechanical, right? Mechanical, meaning it's like you're a machine. It's mechanical, repetitive, and boring. So he's saying, don't do that.

Don't do drills. Drills are boring and it makes your brain sleepy. Instead, games, play games. Games, on the other hand, are precisely the opposite. Games are not boring.

They're fun. They're fun. They can create passion. Because of that, skills improve faster when they're looked at this way. So when you play games... to learn skill.

When you play games, when you practice, you learn faster. You will improve faster. Play games. Don't drill. So then he gives a few examples. He says, for example, if you look at top performers, top people who are very good, you'll find they do this a lot.

He gives one example. Golfer Rory McIlroy, if you're a golfer, you know who he is. He was chipping balls into the family dryer. Okay. So, in other words, he's saying this guy, Rory McIlroy, used to play a game where they had this dryer.

It's like a washing machine with a big hole, and he would try to hit golf balls into it. He made a little game himself. And so he's still practicing hitting golf balls, right? He's practicing hitting the balls.

He's practicing trying to get them to hit well, to be accurate, to have a good swing. But he made it into a game. He's not just mindlessly hitting the balls. He makes this big kind of hole, like a big washing machine, and he's trying to hit the balls into the washing machine.

And maybe he's counting the score, and he makes a whole game about it. So now it becomes this fun activity that he's doing, and it becomes interesting. He's still practicing the skill, but now it's a game. It's not just a drill.

It's not study. It's not work. Or he talks about Keith Richards, famous guitarist of the Rolling Stones, trying to decode a riff on an old blues record.

Okay, so he's saying Keith Richards used to make a game where he would listen to old records, old songs. blues songs and he would try to just figure it out himself. Instead of just looking in a book, you know, how do I play this song, do this, do this, he would listen to the song and then he would try to repeat it and copy it himself and maybe he would stop it and go back and do it again and he made it into this game of trying to figure it out himself and in this way he trained his hands and he trained his ears to hear music better and to play music better.

So the game was more effective. It gave him more skill. And then this guy says, Good coaches are good at transforming, means changing, the most mundane activities into games.

Mundane means normal, average, and kind of boring. Normal, average, kind of boring. So, he's saying what a good coach does, a good coach or a good teacher, they will find a way to make something that's quite boring. It's necessary.

You need to learn it. You need to practice it, but it's kind of boring. And the coach will make it into a game so it becomes more fun and more interesting for the player, for the student.

This is what I do with the mini stories, okay? And, of course, those were originally created by a guy named Blaine Ray, and it's really great because you learn grammar and vocabulary and practice your listening and your speaking, all of that, but in a fun story, in this very playful, fun way that's not serious, right?

Because the stories are all kind of weird and funny. And you can make it into a game trying to answer the questions faster. And it's not just a drill. You're not just trying to memorize things.

You're not memorizing grammar rules. It's much more a game and more playful. Because of that, you learn faster. And you improve faster. Anything you try to practice, make it into a game, he says.

I'm just reading right now. Make it into a game. So anything you want to learn, anything you want to improve, don't just try to memorize it. Don't just try to study it.

Don't just practice it. Make it a game somehow so it becomes kind of fun and playful. You want it to be fun and playful. Yes, you're still practicing it, but you're doing it in a way that's more fun and playful.

Then he gives another example of a guitar. This is a very small example, but if you're trying to learn guitar chords, a guitar chord is more than one note that go together. If you do it as a drill, it's boring. If you're just like C, C, C, D, D, D, E, E, E, E, it's really boring.

But if you try to make it into a game, it can be more fun. For example, you could see, how many times can I play these three chords? without making a mistake. And you count it.

You make it actually into a game. Okay, I did it. Oh, I did it five times. Can I do it? Now can I do it perfectly six times? Now can I do it perfectly ten times?

And you start counting it and making it a game. Or you could try to do a timer. How fast can you do it? How fast can you play those chords... or maybe even several chords ten times, and you have a timer, and you do it, and then you go, and you go, and you go, and you do it.

How fast can you do it without making a mistake? And you try to go faster and faster. So, these are little small games that you can create, something like that, right? Another thing you can do with, like, say, music, they make these little machines that actually will take a song you're trying to learn, like guitar or bass or something, and it will slow it down.

So, you can listen to the song... but maybe half speed. But it makes it slow, but it doesn't change the notes. That's the important part, right? Sometimes if they change the speed, it becomes low.

It changes the sound. But they make little machines where the sound stays the same, but it goes slower. So then you can try to say, okay, I'm going to try to play this song. I know the song now.

I'm going to listen and play with the song at the same time, but I'm going to try it at 25% speed, like one quarter, very, very slow. And then you can do that. It's like a game. Now you're saying, okay, now I'm going to do 30%.

Now 50%, half speed. And you keep trying to go faster. And maybe you get to 100%. Maybe then you say, okay, now I'm going to try to play it even faster than normal.

I'll try to play it at 200%, double speed, really fast. And you're listening along at the same time. That'll be another example of a game you could play, learning a song with music.

All right. So this is the overall thing. I used to say when I would do these seminars, for example, in Vietnam, I did a lot of seminars and Southeast Asia. And we had this phrase, we'd say, play English.

Don't learn English, play English. Don't study English, play English. And this is the idea to make English playful, right? Because when you study English, when you practice English...

you have in your mind like you're afraid to make mistakes, right? This, oh, don't make mistakes. Everything must be totally perfect. And if you make a mistake, of course, you're always trying not to make mistakes.

But if you do make a mistake, what is your attitude? Do you laugh about it? Is it like, ah, it's okay. Oh, I made a mistake. Ah, try again. Or do you get upset and you feel bad, right?

It's a very different mindset. When you take tests and you make a mistake, you get a big X, your score goes down. That's stressful. It's no fun. When you play a game and you make a mistake, yeah, you're still trying not to make mistakes, of course, but you can just laugh about it and just kind of say, oh, well, and then, oh, let's try again.

Come on, let's go, right? It's a very, very, very different mindset. So this really works. I highly encourage you. A lot of you guys are very, very motivated, which is great.

But too many English learners are very serious and they create too much stress about English, about making mistakes. And this makes you learn more slowly. It makes it less enjoyable.

So you want to be playful and fun. And again, like with effortless English, this is why I try to make all my lessons kind of silly or fun or interesting, right? That's why I don't talk about grammar rules. I don't talk about the English language directly so much, right?

Because, ah, it's boring. It's just drilling and studying. You've already done that a lot in school, I'm sure. What you need to do is play English more.

So you need to listen to silly stories and laugh and learn the vocabulary in a way where you're not actually studying it directly. And learn the vocabulary, I mean the grammar in a way, especially grammar, where you're not studying it directly. A little direct grammar is not going to kill you or anything, but in general you want to be playful. And this especially is important when you start trying to speak and listen and have conversations because you don't want to be so heavy and serious when you talk to somebody in English.

You don't want to be stressing out about your English. Yeah, you'll make mistakes and you'll make pronunciation mistakes. You will make grammar mistakes. You will forget vocabulary.

But you just want to laugh about it and focus on your conversation and just enjoying your talk with the other person. And that's enough, right? And this is also true. Like I said, you know, for me now it's jujitsu.

I'm practicing jujitsu a lot. So I've been doing this by the last year I started doing this and I made I've made I improved so much in the last year compared to my first two years, my first two years as a white belt.

I enjoyed jiu-jitsu a lot, but I was probably too serious, too heavy about it, and I was really kind of too worried about making mistakes and too worried about losing when I was fighting.

It's called sparring. This is an English word to spar. Sparring means to practice fighting. Practice fighting. I'll put it in the comments on YouTube here.

Sparring. So in boxing and in jiu-jitsu, we do sparring. It's kind of like a practice fight. So I was always worried about losing and sparring. And when I would lose, I'd get, ah, I lost.

I tapped. What did I do wrong? And I'd get kind of upset about it a little bit. But instead, what I started doing more recently in the last year is I started trying to make little games more.

So for example, like in jiu-jitsu, we have different positions. So instead of just having a big fight with somebody, I do this with the instructors. I'll just say, hey, I just want to practice this one thing, this one little small thing. Not everything, not a full fight.

Let's just practice. You try to hold me down and I try to stand up, for example. That would be a game. Then it's just a game. I'm trying to stand up, they're trying to hold me down.

And then we do it and we say, go! And I try to get up. And if I get up, then what happens? We just start again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.

Do it again. And it's just the game. It's the stand-up game, right? And this has a lot of advantages. Number one, it's playful. Like, I don't care. So sometimes I lose.

The other guy holds me down the whole time. And we stop, take a break. All right, let's try again. And sometimes I stand up. The other guy doesn't care.

We're playing. It's fun. I find that I'm laughing a lot when I do that. When I'm sparring with the other instructors, a lot of times we're laughing. I never used to laugh when I would fight.

Never used to laugh while fighting. It would be... And still sometimes when I'm fighting with other people, when it's less of a game, it's still so much more serious. And I don't think it helps learning. I think it actually hurts learning.

I think it slows it down a bit. Because with the games, you're not so afraid to try new things. So when you make something into a game, you could just have a conversation game and you have a playful attitude about it. Then you'll just try things and you'll try some new word and maybe you don't use it quite correctly.

Who cares? Well, you learn now. You learn maybe the other person's confused and then you learn how to use that word better. So by being more playful, you will try more things.

You'll be more creative. You'll be more relaxed. Just by being relaxed, your speaking will improve immediately. If you're stressed, you'll find that your speaking is not as good.

And when you're more relaxed and playful, you find that you're more fluent, meaning the words come out more easily. So don't be afraid of making mistakes and trying new things. And just try a new word, even if you're not really sure if it's correct. Try it.

Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. Just try some grammar. Maybe you're not quite sure how to say it. Should I say have gone? Should I say went? In this situation, just pick one and try it.

Just guess and make mistakes. And you'll find that the learning process is more fun. And actually, you will learn faster this way by being more playful.

So it really works. I've been focused on this quite a lot myself in my own learning, specifically with Jiu-Jitsu. But this book has examples, like I said, from music, from sports, language, just anything, any kind of skill. This will help you.

All right, let's get into some comments and questions, and then we are done for today. Cheers to lots of Brazilians saying hello. Cheers from also Haiti and Venezuela.

Oh, hi from Vrindavan, from Vrindavana. Nice. Hey, maybe I'll meet you someday if I go for a pilgrimage there. Mexico, Colombia. Okay, so yeah, like Juan Tamayo says, in Colombia it's football.

Soccer, as we say in America, and cycling. Yeah, it's interesting though, right? Certain countries will be really, really good in some certain sport. Even though the population, the number of people doing the sport is the same or less than other countries.

But for some reason, that country, they're doing something a little differently, special, and they have more success. Or like I said, sometimes it's a specific school or sometimes it's a specific coach.

Like in jiu-jitsu, there's a specific coach who at the top level... He just produces a lot of really great guys, and guys come and train with him, and then after one, two years, they become champions. It's like, what is he doing differently? Right?

What are they doing differently at his school? Something. Because everybody's trying to do great things, but sometimes you find that some places, some schools, groups, or ways of learning just get much better results. It's very interesting.

And it's interesting to study then and try to figure out what are they doing differently. And then we can use it. Hopefully we can use it in our own practice.

With English, with sports, with anything you're trying to learn. Brazil, lots of Brazilians saying hello. Yeah, like Glenda Riva says, I don't want to feel nervous when people ask me questions in English.

So that's a good point, right? So this is a good example, right? When you feel nervous, then your brain doesn't work as well, and it's harder to speak. And it's also just not very enjoyable.

So you could make games, for example. This is why, like in my mini-story lessons, Power English or the VIP, that I'm asking you questions constantly, right, in the audios. And the idea is you shout the answers. The idea is you don't even pause the audio.

A lot of things they'll pause or they'll give you a long break, but I give you a fairly short break and you just try to shout an answer. And if you're wrong, you're wrong. If you make a mistake, who cares? Keep going.

But the idea is make it fun and make it into a game and let it be silly so that you get used to answering these questions. You get used to answering questions quickly and without stress. That it's just fun. It's just a game.

And I also tell you in my lessons that you should do this while you're standing up, while you're smiling. Ideally, while you're walking and moving your body. So you've got high energy levels, right? It's a playful, fun way of practicing English.

I was going to say, you know, it's not studying. Studying is you're sitting and trying to remember things. But when you're practicing and you're playing, you're learning a lot unconsciously just by doing it and trying different things and making it into at least even some kind of little game.

Oh, Hector Hernandez says, I started at the end of May. It's amazing the way I've progressed. Thank you so much. I'm in the VIP program. I understand everything.

I'm from Mexico City. See? There you go. Awesome. Hector, that's fantastic. Congratulations to you. Keep going. That's awesome. Since May, June, July, August, about five months, he got this result in five months as a VIP member.

Excellent. Yeah, second mirror of life said, let's play with English like football. Don't study it. Otherwise, it will become boring. Enjoy with English.

Exactly. Enjoy it. Playful. It's hard to do. It's not just English. It's in so many things when we try it. We want to be good. This is hard to do when you have a competition, like a competitive sport, right?

Where you're going against another person. It could just be tennis. But... sometimes we get too heavy, too serious, like trying to win and trying to be better.

And it actually hurts our learning. It makes us learn and makes us improve more slowly. If we can just relax and be more playful. This is one of the advantages kids have.

We've seen this with languages. We see this with so many things. There are other advantages too, but One big advantage kids have learning new things is that they will usually be very playful learning things.

In fact, they don't like drilling. They don't like it. They hate it. They hate drilling. They don't usually like studying. They want to make everything into a game.

My kids do this. Everything is a game. Everything becomes a game with them. But this is how they practice things and learn things, and it's quite amazing.

So we can learn a lot from kids in this way that try to turn things into games and enjoy them and be playful with them, even as an adult, and you'll get better results.

Arun Kumar mentions Indian wrestling. Yeah, India's got one of the kind of very, very old wrestling culture, right? India and Iran, I believe. Lots of countries.

I mean, wrestling is a very ancient, very old, you could say martial art, I guess, martial sport. Yeah, this is a good point. Raniera DeMarco says, I think that successful people in a specific sport can be an example for the whole country.

And that's one reason we have good traditions in some areas. And indeed, in this book, The Talent Code, he talks about this exactly right. That sometimes it's inspiration. It's just motivation.

That if one guy has a great success. So, for example, I can't remember the guy's name, but Dominican Republic. Who was it? He mentions one player from the Dominican Republic became a really big superstar in America, a baseball player.

And that because of this guy, like then all the kids in Dominican Republic were super excited about baseball. Everybody was like, oh, I want to be a baseball player. And then it like just kind of grew from there.

And suddenly the Dominican Republic had all these great baseball players that were coming into the top leagues in America and doing very well. It's quite interesting.

Okay. Yes, like Sebastian says, when you do things that are obligated, meaning you must do them, these things get boring and you end up quitting. Indeed, when you have too much of a heavy, heavy, heavy attitude, feeling, it's hard to keep going.

When things are playful, when you're just playing games and having fun, it's easy to keep going, to keep doing it more and more and more. And then you learn and you get better. You do get better.

Guillermo says, I don't understand anything. I don't understand... No... No entender nada. It's not Spanish. It's okay. Guillermo, that just means... Of course, you're not understanding what I'm saying, but... Guillermo Rivera...

Just find an easier audio. This one's too difficult. Something easier. You need an easier one. This is for intermediate level, kind of. Fernando says, Hi, AJ from Panama.

Your tips for learning English through games are great and true. Yes, indeed. You'll see this a lot, you know, teaching English when people teach English to children.

My first job, I was teaching children and I had to make everything into a game. They're not going to study verb conjugations. They were three, four, five years old, little kids, kindergarten age. There's no way they're going to study and try to memorize verb conjugations and translations of vocab.

No way they're going to do that. Boring, they will not do it. See, kids just won't do it. They refuse to do that boring stuff. If it's super boring, they won't do it.

So, you must make it into a game with them. And, of course, they also are happy to make everything into a game. They want everything to become a game.

And guess what? They learn very fast. They learn very fast and they learn joyfully. They learn happily. Okay, maybe a couple more, and then we are done.

Okay, Jorge says, in Chile, there was a number one tennis player in the world named Marcelo Rios. I know the name. Right, and you can see this sometimes. Sometimes, like I said, sometimes it can be one coach.

One coach who's really good and he has, you know, players or it could be any sport. And he will just produce so many great players. And then this can inspire many more. So, you know, I mentioned Jiu-Jitsu.

There's a guy named John Danaher, very famous. And he has coached and produced, you know, really great champions, a lot of them. It's kind of interesting that this one guy has done this.

So, yeah, you'll find this is true in different areas of skill. It might be sports, it might be music, it might be other things. But it means they're doing something differently. They're thinking about it differently.

They're practicing. Sometimes, see, it's not just what you do. It's how you do it, right? It's not everybody tends to focus on the same things. Everybody knows the same skills.

Usually, there's no big secret, right? There's not some secret soccer skill that only... Some guys know and nobody else knows it. They all know it. The professional guys, the really good guys, they all know it.

All the coaches know it. So what's different? They're practicing it in a different way so that they actually get better. They're better than everyone else doing the same thing.

They're better. They're more creative. The Brazilians are famous for being not just skillful soccer players, but creative soccer players. For example,

So, yeah, they all can dribble the ball. Every professional soccer player can kick the ball well. They can dribble well. They know how the basic defense, they know all those basic skills.

They all know that. So why are some of them so great compared to the rest? There's something else. There's something else. It's how they do those things and maybe how they do them creatively and the timing and all these little small things that are hard to see and understand.

And many times it's the way they're practicing is different. They're not just drilling mindlessly. They're not practicing the same way everybody else is.

And this is basic in life. If you do everything the same, if you do it like everyone else is doing it, if you just do things the same as everyone else, you'll get the same results as everyone else, right? So if every soccer team is practicing the same way, they all tend, they all usually get about the same results.

But then you get one that will do things very differently. Or you'll get one country where the kids are growing up and they're doing things in a very different way than in other countries. and then they get quite different results, right? So it seems obvious, but we've...

To get a better result or to get a different result, we need to try to do things in a different way. We need to practice in a different way to have a different attitude, a different mindset.

Everyone needs to learn... In English, everyone learns the same words. There's the same most common words. Everyone knows we need to learn those. There's the same most common grammar for speaking.

Of course, everyone knows you've got to learn those. But how can you learn them in a way and practice in a way... that you can use them when you're really speaking?

And how can you do it in a way where you want to do it every day? It's enjoyable. That's the key difference. Like with Effortless English, you try to make it fun and enjoyable and playful and natural.

You're learning the same stuff, right? But you're doing it in a different way. Olga, good to see you. She says, please tell me how can I not worry about passing my driving exam?

Aha, how can I stay calm? It's been a long time since I did that. Let's see, how can you not worry about it? Well, again, you can, of course, just practice.

I think that's the main thing. I'm not sure if it's just right. Usually for driving, there's a There's a written part. You just have to remember the traffic rules.

That's just memorizing, really, right? But then if it's your first time, then you probably have to drive on the road or something, right? So you need to practice and make that into a game. How can you make that into a game?

Well, like I remember when I was a teenager, I took a driving education class in high school. And they just had a parking lot empty, right, no other cars. And they just made all these little cones, you know, and they'd make this little practice thing and you would just play a game where you would just try to, okay, I've got to try to park in this little small space and I've got to practice all the turns and all that stuff. So that's how you do it.

You try to make some cones or even just use rocks or something and get out into a parking lot and practice things. driving around and make the games more and more difficult. So like one difficult thing for most new drivers, even not new drivers, is called parallel parking, right? Where you have to pull into a very small parking space sideways.

It's called parallel parking in English. And it's still hard sometimes for me to do it. So you could start off by make yourself a very large space and practice the basic skill. You know, you back up and you go sideways and you park in there.

And then make it a little smaller and do it again and practice for a while. And then maybe the next day you try to make it a little smaller and see how small can you make the parking space and still do it.

And then you might time yourself. Then you might go back and make it bigger again. And now see if you can do it faster. See if you can do it without adjusting.

Or you can just do it in one movement. Instead of stopping, starting, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, right? Until you become really, really good at it. So I think the way not to be nervous is to prepare to be over-prepared.

When you are over-prepared, you tend to be more calm, right? When you have lots and lots and lots of practice and lots of playful practice, hopefully, and you know you're good, right?

There might be still some nervousness, but it tends to be smaller. In the beginning, when I was doing public speaking, I was super nervous. Why? Well, I wasn't good.

But then I would become much more nervous if I didn't know the topic very well. Even now, if I go to give a speech, if I don't know the topic well, like if you said, AJ, tomorrow, give a speech about American economics or something in the South.

to some business group. I would be super nervous. Why? I'm not prepared. I don't know that topic. So I would be very, very, very, very nervous about giving a speech like that compared to if somebody said, go talk about English learning to some students.

I could do that in my sleep now, right? So I do that all the time. So there's no replacement for practice and being good So, just practice. Over-practice.

Just, uh... And make games. Turn it into games and practice in a parking lot, an empty area, you know, some big space where you're not going to hit anybody.

I think that's the main thing. And then you'll get comfortable and you won't be nervous. Like, if I had to take a driving test now, I wouldn't be nervous. I've been driving for so many years.

So... Yes, Astronomia and Escritura says, so writing and astronomy. The best of AJ. As always, be sure you're standing strong. Good posture. Big smile.

Deep breath. Move your body. Let's begin. Yes, I say that a lot in my lessons. Beyond the Class with Sir Zahir says, you are the number one teacher of the world.

Love you. Thank you very much. Leonardo Jose says, have you ever read the autobiography from Andre Agassi? It's very good. No, I think I've actually heard that suggested, though.

Maybe I'll check it out. I have not read it, but maybe I will. Ricardo Angulo says, my brother failed the driving exam three times in Canada. This is actually another good point, though.

If you fail the exam, you just do it again. Nothing terrible happens, right? So, that's another way to be less nervous is just realize, ah, you know, again, a playful attitude. You can have a playful attitude even about the exam and just not care too much.

Like, you're trying to pass it, of course, but if you fail, then you have to do it again. Maybe you got to pay more money. Some countries, it can be expensive, but, you know, nothing terrible will happen if you fail that exam. So, you just try again next time.

Arun Kumar says, as a tourist, how to live in a van in America? Any suggestions? Oh, that's an interesting question. So, I guess, I'm not sure... As a tourist, I guess you'd be renting a van, so you can't really change...

the uh inside of it right so the idea i guess is as you maybe you want to take a like a long trip in america keep your expenses low and don't pay for too many hotels right um so you would have to rent a van or maybe even buy one i don't it depends how i don't know the details of your trip but um

The problem is that sleeping in the van needs to be big enough where you can stretch out. You're not hitting your head against the wall. When I lived in my van, I took the back seats out. They were just the front seats where the driver sits and the one passenger.

And then everything in the back of the van was empty. Maybe you could rent a cargo van. It's called a cargo van. That's a van like a work van. You could call it a work van.

That's where, again, where the back part of the van is empty. There are no chairs. So there's just the chairs in the front where the driver and one person is. And then the back part's empty.

And usually workers, you know, they put things in there and carry them around. But you could maybe rent a van like that and then just put like a pad and a sleeping bag back there and all your camping, basically camping stuff in the back and you could sleep in there. You could try that. I think that...

I think some Walmarts in America, you can sleep overnight. I never did it there, but I have read that. I don't know if they still do it, but they used to let people in RVs. Those are those big camping buses, basically.

But I believe Walmart used to let people park in a parking lot overnight and stay there overnight in a car or a van or a big RV. I think the reason they did it is that they know that you might buy a bunch of stuff. People who camp overnight, you might go into the Walmart and buy food and buy other stuff that you need.

So they'll let you do that. And they probably have a limit. You probably can't do it a lot, a lot. But if you're traveling around as a tourist, Walmarts are almost everywhere.

Certainly in towns and cities, they're everywhere. So you could, a lot of times, just park in a Walmart. There are also things called truck stops on the highways where you could also park and sleep overnight.

So, you know, lock your doors. I would recommend. Carry some pepper spray, at least, just, you know, for security. But I think you could do it. You could do it.

And, of course, you could even camp outdoors, too. You go to campsites. You might have to pay for some campsites in America, but you could find some that are free.

If you did research online where you would just camp, camp at some campsites or camp up next to some trails or other places. And sometimes some you have to pay for, but it's cheaper than staying in hotels. So, yeah, good luck. That would be a cool trip.

Zlover says, how can I help my beginner level students reach intermediate level without old grammar methods? T-P-R-S. Teaching. I can't remember what it stands for.

It's the storytelling method. Use the storytelling method. Get the book by Blaine Ray. Blaine Ray. I'll put his name in the comments because he wrote a book for teachers about how to use this method.

Blaine Ray, TPRS, TPRS. He changed what it stands for, that's why I don't remember. TPR Storytelling is what it's called. And it's, I think, the very best method for teachers to use with their students to help them learn English, especially beginner level and lower intermediate levels.

Probably all levels, but especially those levels. And in like a class environment, if you're teaching a class, I think the storytelling method is the best.

T-P-R-S. Get the book. Azat Ahmed says, every time I get disappointed, I listen to your inspirational podcasts. I get better immediately. Thanks for everything you do for us, not just in speaking English, but also in understanding life.

And that's really the purpose of this podcast. My main thing I'm trying is to keep you motivated and help you have a good mindset about English and enjoy it and be playful with it.

Because, you know, you're actually doing all the work. It's easy for me. English is my language. Okay, a couple more here. Is it okay if I practice English with a mirror?

Yeah, Vong, you could talk to yourself in the mirror. I used to do that with public speaking, practice my speeches in front of a mirror. You can do that.

Is a gap year necessary for students who need to find their major? All right, so this is like a university student trying to figure out what they want to learn.

Yeah. Why one year, though? You have to ask yourself, why are you going to university? If you don't even know what you want to study, why go? This is an old way of thinking.

I understand because I did it. I'm not blaming anybody because I did it. I wasted four and a half years at university and I had no idea why I was there really. Just my parents basically programmed me from when I was young.

You must go to college. You must go to college. They believed it was the ticket to great jobs and careers and things. They were wrong because the world changed.

It's probably true when they were young, but not true now. And so if you have no idea what you want to learn, don't go to college. Why? Go do something else.

Get a job. Get a job. Even if it's a terrible, miserable job, that might be good motivation to figure out what you want to do. Instead of just going to school and just learning a bunch of nonsense in a university and not really even knowing why you're there or why you're learning it.

I got a degree in journalism. Why? I don't even know why. I had to pick something. eventually i i kept changing what i was studying and eventually i just did journalism because i needed to graduate i never worked as a journalist when i got out after school i didn't really even care about journalism uh i didn't even like it uh so um you know looking back i was like why was i even there

That's because I was lazy and I didn't know what else I wanted to do. So I was just, you know, I had a lot of fun in university, but didn't learn much.

And certainly not in the classes, I didn't learn anything. I need to learn English for business, says Mili. Well, I have a business English course here. Aren't you in luck?

Okay. excuse me, go to effortlessenglishclub.com, get my business English course. Have I been to South America, asks Jorge Jimenez. No, I have not. Not yet.

Please suggest some red pill books to read, Arun Kumar. So red pill has two sort of, there's the red pill, the kind of the original meaning was very specific to dating and women and men.

And then it became more general to society. So, Wilmer Albert says, Rolo Tomasi. So, that's in the area of dating and women and men. Yes, he's got some good books on that topic.

If you're talking more about in general, I don't know where to start. Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm. Those are all good. Okay. We're almost done.

Marcio says, Good evening. I am from Sao Paulo. Good to be here. Sao Paulo State. Welcome. Cannot find your podcast, says Doveron. Ah, I need to update my podcast.

I know, I know. I've been so lazy about it. I apologize. Kubar says, I think the idea of play English works with people who lack discipline. No, it's not just that.

It's not really about discipline. It's about mindset. It's about the willingness to make mistakes, learn from mistakes, try new things, be more loose, be more creative, be more relaxed.

You need discipline, some amount of self-discipline for anything. But this idea of just discipline and I'm just going to work and repeat the same thing again and again 10,000 times. It's a very inefficient way to learn or improve. Can you get some results from that?

Yeah, you can. You can get some results just by repeating the same thing 1,000 times, 10,000 times. You'll see this in jujitsu. Even like guys will say, you know, drill a technique.

It means just repeat the same technique 10,000 times. And then you will master it. There's a few problems with that. Number one, it's boring as hell. And number two, if you don't do it perfectly, then you're repeating mistakes.

So this is the problem. If you're not already some kind of expert, if you drill, if you repeat something, but you're repeating it in a way that's not correct,

You're just making the mistake go deeper and deeper and deeper and stronger. Like, so, for example, if you repeat a new word in English, but the pronunciation's wrong.

It's no big deal, but if you repeat that same word 10,000 times, practicing it, and every time you say it wrong, you're going to make that wrong pronunciation so strong in your brain, it will be very hard to correct it later. Very hard to change it later.

Right? So, this is another... danger of just mindlessly drilling and repeating too much. You still need repetition. Of course, repetition is important, but by being more playful, I think it's better.

And the other problem is time. You don't have enough time. You can't, let's say, 10,000 times to master something. Well, what if you have to master, you know, a thousand skills?

There's just not enough time to do that repetition for all of them. So you've got to find other ways and Playing these playful games is a good way to do it.

All right, I think we're about done. All right, guys. Well, let's just repeat what we talked about today with our topic, and that is to be playful. The book I'm going to recommend to you, I'm going to type it in the comments, is called The Talent Code.

The Talent Code. The Talent Code is about learning skills, and The Talent Code is about how do we learn skills better, and why do some groups... places get better results right why what are they doing that's different and how can you use that so that you also get better results so you learn faster and more easily and more enjoyably all right go to effortlessenglishclub.com for my VIP program I'll see you next time bye for now