از چه نوع محتوایی برای یادگیری زبان انگلیسی استفاده کنم

028 - What kind of content should I use for English learning?

Hello there, Kevin here!

With another episode of ‘The Feel Good English®’ podcast.

Hope you’re having a beautiful day!

Today, I am going to answer a question, because of this QA Saturdays and I received the question from Brian who is from China! His question is:

‘Hello sir, I am Chinese, that I want to know what kind of content should I use? Should I be listening to them all the time?

Thank you!’

So, this question makes a lot of sense to me and even though I am not learning a language right now, I totally understand not knowing what content to read, to listen to, because we live in a time nowadays where there is way too much content on the internet. And if you are an English learner, you’re gonna see so many different options, and people’s opinions and what you study and programs and courses that cost money and courses that are free. It can be very stressful trying to find the right materials for you!

And why this is also stressful for English learners because you don’t see immediate results when you are studying English. If you are reading something new or reading a book, you won’t instantly see if it’s working if it’s helping you if you are becoming better. Cause it takes time, so without being patient sometimes is this well? Is this being working? Is this right? Am I learning anything here, or is this a waste of time?

Also you don’t have a teacher showing you exactly what you study from. If you go to to a school they’ll give you a book and say “this is what you study.”

I don’t think that is a better way. I think that is a boring forced way to learn. And you don’t need somebody always giving you content to study from. What you need to do this become an independent learner. Learn how to learn!

You need to take control of your learning! In this episode I am going to give you some tips on how you can do that! How you can start simplifying the learning process and using content that can help you get to where you want to get.

Okay? If you have any questions or want transcripts to podcast episodes go to ‘FeelGoodEnglish.com®’. I’ll be waiting for you there. Don’t be shy, and say hello!

Let’s get into the lesson!

So, feeling overwhelmed, feeling stressed out with all of the amount of the content that we have to study from and not knowing which is the best, which is going to help us become better, at English, better at language better, at business better, at whatever, can be frustrating!

The first tip I am going to give you is, set your priorities! Set your priorities on what you want to achieve!

So an example here with an English, if you want to improve your listening skills, if you had trouble understanding native speakers, you can set your priorities to that!

That means you’re going to do a lot of listening. You are gonna listen to content you’re gonna be using your ears a lot to learn!

And you also read some times but your priority would be listening to content.

Now going deeper with this!

Setting priorities about listening so let’s connect this with other priorities. What priorities do you have in your life, what goals do you have in your life? Do you want to learn more about business?

Do you need to learn about management or you a newly elected manager as your company you need to become better at leading people, so listen to things on that!

Setting your priorities on what you want and simplifying using materials based on those priorities, based on those goals!

Ask yourself! Is these helping me reach my goals, is these content that I am looking that I am reading and that I am listening to, is it bringing value to my life?

Or is it just wasting my time?

And of course sometimes you just want to do something for entertainment while you wanna watching TV Show or watch a movie or something like that, and of course that’s fine! Don’t think all these have to be learning about things and always working to achieve your goals . It’s very good to take a break but in general most of the time, 80% of the time, use content that’s going to help you achieve your goals and life and be more be motivated to because of it’s something that going to to help you!

Second tip here is going on a content diet! So setting your priorities and setting goals is finding material that directly correlates with those goals. We require you to go on a content diet meaning to erase, or to delete, get rid off other content that could distract you from that!

Some ideas, some examples, you probably have a lot of email newsletters. Subscriptions to e mails and come to your email which takes a lot of attention from us, because it’s our own e mail, go through them, and delete the ones that you don’t want and you don’t need right now, and don’t align with your goals right now!

If and when you need these information in the future you can always go back and find it, or I believe it will come back into your life, anyway. So don’t worry about losing it forever!

There is so much content we need to restrict what we are looking at on a daily basis.

There is a great tool called unroll.me which is the very easy to use free tool that can help you unsubscribe for multiple e mails and at once unroll.me, check that out, that’s a cool free tool that I use to clean up my e mails maybe once twice a month!

Also make sure you are dedicating specific time to Facebook!

There is nothing more distracting and Facebook you go there to to look at something specific and then 30 minutes later you realize, holy crap, I just wasted 30 minutes and even look up when I going to look up! Facebook is the king of distraction!

So, make sure you go to Facebook knowing that is very possible you will get distracted. So save it for a time, that is ok to waste a few minutes!

Third tip is feel free to change what you are using every tutor for weeks. You gonna get bored with content sometimes. And you gonna want to try new things. And don’t think you have to stick with the same web sites, same content, forever!

Do something for two to four weeks, and then feel free to change try something else, this keeps it fresh, keeps it exciting, but it also gives you enough time to learn from this.

With English learning, with learning an English you can actually benefit from using the same content for a while. This makes the content more comprehensible which is the term that means you can understand it better, and being able to understand the content better, let’s say around 80%, helps you learn a language faster. If it is too difficult, it is harder to learn and if it’s too easy, you won’t learn much.

So, benefits to listening to the same content for a few weeks, a month, and then also benefits to changing it when you get bored and you wanna try something new . If you really like something of course listen to it longer couple months, no problem or in case of my podcast, ‘Feel Good English ®’ podcast it’s so great! You can listen to this for year! No problem ! Just kidding !

Fourth tip and last tip is, buy something online! Buy a product, buy a English learning product the program or book, or an audio series, or even go buy a book in your town, or fiction book or something like that, and why, I’m not trying to sell you something here but the reason behind this is, when you spend money on something, it puts more energy into that product, there is more motivation, there is more connection, you think about it more, and I think the products can even work better.

For example sometimes as courses that are 2 or 3 thousands dollars online, and if you know a little bit about torrents, you can find that course for free! Some people pay 2 thousand dollars , you paid zero dollars!

Not that I ever done this, but it’s possible!

When you get the free content, it just kind of a becomes one other thing on your computer just becomes another piece of information on your computer, even though you save 2 thousand dollars you don’t really give it the same energy ! However if you buy a product for 2 thousands dollars, believe me, you are going to put all of your energy into that. And even if it’s 20 dollars or 30 dollars, you’ll also put more energy into that, because you bought it and this help you eliminate a lot of the other content and put that energy into the premium content that you have!

Of course if you don’t have money, if you don’t have a credit card, you don’t need to buy something there is billions of things online that are free, but it might required a little bit more dedication and creativity to find what you want.

So the fourth tip of buying a product can help you as well.

Some people might say this content is too hard, this content is too easy and they don’t know if it’s the right level! First of all, don’t worry too much about that!

If you are enjoying it, if you understanding what they are talking about that’s the main point, that’s the priority. If your are learning something new, could be even English words, or maybe just learning new things through English that’s fine don’t worry too much about what level it is!

If you want a more specific answer finding comprehensible input like I mentioned a few minutes ago is about finding content where you understand around 80% or what you are listening to or reading. This is the very good place to find something where you understand it enough, like 80% yet there is 20% of new content for you need to learn!

So that’s it! Just reviewing real quick, number 1st tip: set priorities, what priorities do you have in your life? Business priorities, business goals, school priorities, family priorities, figure it about this and find content to related to that!

Second go on a content diet. Erase that all that staff from your life you don’t need clean out your emails, dedicate facebook time to only when you need it and focus on your priorities just from the first tip, don’t worry about all that the other staff , feeling about wasting time, re evaluate, what is what I am reading here based on my priorities.

Third tip change the content every 2-3 for weeks, after if you get bored with something try something else! And then you can back to that. But don’t keep doing something if you’re getting bored if you do it for month and if you are getting tired change it. If you’re doing it too much if you still love it you don’t need to change that’s not a big deal!

Just making sure you don’t get bored with something feel free to change what you are doing! And also see you get another perspective and another type of English and another type of content from something new.

Fourth tip, buy a product, put money into something, this will help you commit to that and put more energy into that product and what it makes more important to you in your life. So spending even a little bit a money 10 dollar, 20 dollars will help you focus on that content you don’t have to worry about the other stuff that might distract you!

Okay? Thanks Brian for your question! It always takes a little bit of course you send a question however not only did you get your question answered but now, a lot of people around the world also got question answered if they have ever thought this. If you have a question go to feelgoodenglish.com or e mail me kevin@feelgoodenglish.com.

I am here to help you, and until next time stay positive, stay happy, be grateful everyday and we will talk to you soon!

Bye bye!