درسنامه تفسیری

Standards and Practice – Commentary

Hello, and welcome to the Commentary for this months’ lesson. Let’s talk about deliberate, effective practice; deliberate and effective.

So what is effective practice? What does that mean? Everyone has the idea, oh yes we need to practice to get better at something, anything. If you want to get better at business, well, you need to practice. You need to practice business skills. You need to do them and improve, improve, improve. If you want to do a musical instrument, play the piano better or the guitar you’ve gotta practice right. Sports you’ve gotta practice. Even things like social skills. Parenting skills, you want to be a better parent? Then you need to practice.

Let’s talk about these two words I’m using, deliberate and effective, because they’re both important. Practice is not enough. See this is the problem, I think too many of us, too many people practice but they practice ineffectively. It means they waste a lot of time with their practice. They may practice a lot, lots and lots and lots of time and hours, but a lot of that time is wasted. A lot of that practice time is not helping them improve.

So effective practice means that the time you spend practicing actually helps you get better. So the most effective practice is also the most efficient, so if you practice for one hour you get the maximum benefit, the maximum improvement from that practice. That’s what we want, we don’t want to waste time.

We see this in English a lot right, this is why Effortless English is a better system. It’s a better system of practice. Studying grammar rules, that’s kind of like practice but it’s a big waste of time.

The next word I’m using, deliberate, which we heard in the other lessons also… deliberate means conscious, planned and has the idea of concentration and focus. So, you need to use effective methods of practice to get better, but you also have to do it with a strong concentration. You have to think about your practice, concentrate and do it consciously. Meaning, you choose your methods you’re not randomly practicing, you’re actually thinking about the results you want and then you’re planning your practice to get those results. And then when you are practicing you have full concentration.

Okay, now let’s talk about the very specifics. How do you do it? How do you create deliberate effective practice for any skill, any skill it doesn’t matter? It could be parenting skills, business skills, English fluency, English speaking skills; it could be a sport like Jiu Jitsu, karate, boxing, skiing, surfing, it doesn’t matter. Okay, point number one to create deliberate, effective practice.

It’s independent

Independent practice is what you need. Independent practice means solo practice. It means alone, you’re practicing alone and usually at home, at home or near your home, maybe outdoors somewhere. But it’s not in a school, not in a classroom. You see there’s a big problem with group learning and group practice, classrooms, lessons, they’re inefficient. They’re less effective. Sometimes they’re necessary, especially like say for a team sport, you need to have a group practice for sure because part of the sport is learning how to work with each other.

So, I’m not saying it’s always wrong, for example, I do Jiu Jitsu. Part of the sport of Jiu Jitsu is fighting against another person. It’s necessary, it’s absolutely necessary to go to a class, to go to a gym and then fight against, spar against… spar, we call it sparring. It’s practice fighting. You have to practice fight against other people, so you don’t get better unless you do that. Certainly that can be necessary in some skills, not all skills. With some skills you can practice totally alone all the time, but all skills require independent solo practice at home.

Because see, groups- think about a group practice, any class, any lessons, English or whatever, there’s so much wasted time that’s why they’re inefficient. There’s a lot of time spent just chatting. There’ll be a lot of breaks during a… I’ve noticed this in all kinds of classes; English, sports, anything that there’ll be a lot of wasted time between activities where the students, the learners are just talking to each other, a lot of little chit-chat social time.

Sometimes the teacher or the coach will also do this. Now I understand that it’s a natural social thing, but for practice it’s wasted time.

Another thing that you see a lot in group classes, in group practices is that a lot of wasted time is spent waiting for your turn. This is really, it’s not totally necessary. If you design a group practice well, you can reduce this, but I notice a lot say in sports you’re learning to shoot free-throws. You’re learning to shoot to score and you’ll notice that in a team practice there’ll be a line, they’ll line up the players. And so one guy will shoot and the coach’ll say something, then he goes to the back of the line the next guy shoots. That’s the problem with that? The problem is that most of the layers are just waiting in the line most of the time, what you really would want is all the players shooting all the time at the same time so that they’re constantly practicing, instead of spending 90% of the time waiting in line.

The other problem with group practices and group lessons is that everybody in a group is gonna have, is going to have a little bit of a different level, different needs, different weaknesses and different strengths and they should be focused on those. But, in a group it’s impossible to make a group lesson or a group practice that will help every single person’s individual needs. So it has to be very general and so the individuals don’t get focused on as much. So for all these reasons, group practice is not enough. It can be necessary for some things, but it’s not enough.

Most of your improvement happens independently, alone, practicing alone. Practicing alone is much more efficient. All the time is you practicing. If you do it correctly you’re not chatting and talking. You’re not waiting for other people to do something, you’re just practicing, practicing. Every minute spent practicing is efficient and effective, much less wasted time.

There’s also a better focus right, there’s not so many distractions. When you’re practicing alone there’s nothing to do but focus on the practice. This is why some people avoid it, because it does require much more effort and concentration to practice alone. But it’s the most effective, you need to do it. Also, of course, when you’re practicing alone independently, you can focus completely on just your needs, on your individual problems, your individual weaknesses, your individual needs.

So, for English for example, every minute you practice at home, just say listening to Effortless English lessons that’s very efficient. It means every minute you’re listening, listening, listening to the lessons, you’re focused on the lessons. You’re getting vocabulary. You’re getting fluency. You’re improving your listening ability, all of those things, and eventually your speaking ability. All of that, there’s no wasted time. In a class, lots of wasted time.

For Jiu Jitsu, my favorite sport that I do it’s the same thing. I enjoy the classes and I love the sparring, the practice fighting, but I realized it’s not enough. I need to learn these techniques. There are so many techniques to learn and in the class I don’t get enough practice, enough repetition. The only way for me to master those techniques, at least to master them more quickly is to practice by myself at home. And even for something like business right, we have business skills, whether you’re starting your own business or working in a business as an employee. Once again, a lot of wasted time when you’re at a business, but if you really want to learn and become better you gotta do it on your own independently.

So, number one independent solo practice is the best kind of practice; most effective.

Point number two, when you practice you must focus on details, details, detailed practice, especially the fundamental details.

Fundamentals, the fundamentals, they are the most important skills or parts of skills for anything you’re trying to do. So in English, vocabulary that’s a fundamental. You’ve got to know words. If you don’t know the meaning of words you just can’t communicate. The most common grammar is also a fundamental skill, but you have to use the grammar so it’s practice grammar, spoken grammar, not just memorizing a bunch of abstract rules but no, actually being able to use the grammar correctly. That’s a fundamental skill also in English.

In Jiu Jitsu, for example, we have a very detailed fundamental skills. There are some very basic techniques of defending and attacking that everybody uses. The beginners use. The intermediate guys use it and even the super advanced guys still use those same skills. You have to have those skills they are the fundamental details of the sport of the skill.

In a business, likewise, there are detailed skills you must have. You must have basic accounting and bookkeeping knowledge, not super advanced but you have to know the basics.

Those are fundamental business skills of the numbers. I’d say, sales and marketing, persuasion, there are some detailed skills you need to know if you want to be able to sell. There’s some very detailed techniques of sales that really, every salesperson needs to know and to master.

So detailed practice. Now, when you practice details you first need to practice details very slowly. I mentioned this before, slow and precise, practice of details, of detailed techniques.

Why slow and precise? Because these details, these fundamental details must be done correctly. If you do them a little wrong your results will be worse. So if you practice fast, the problem with fast practice is that when you’re practicing fast you’re not focused enough and especially when something’s new, what happens is you practice fast but then you practice with mistakes. You make little mistakes while you’re practicing. You don’t do the technique exactly right and then what happens? You’re doing it fast, but you’re doing it a little wrong and then you repeat it again and again and again, and because you’re doing it fast you repeat it a lot.

So, that mistake gets repeated again and again and again and again that little small mistake that you don’t even realize, you don’t even notice, it gets repeated again and again and again and it becomes a bad habit. And maybe you don’t notice at first, but later on that mistake starts to cause problems. It starts to cause problems and then maybe finally you realize ooh, I’m doing this a little bit wrong.

But then it’s very tough to change because it’s already a habit you’ve repeated so many times, so to break that mistake, to change it and have a new habit requires lots, lots, lots more repetition. So it’s better not to do that. It’s better in the beginning when you’re doing detailed practice to go very slowly and very carefully. Get it exactly right and then repeat it again, slowly and carefully, getting it exactly right. Lots and lots of focused, careful precise repetition of the small details and focus on all the tiny details, getting every little thing exactly right that’s how you do it.

You’re focusing on the small details, the small pieces of the skills. So, for example, in Effortless English that’s what the mini-stories are for, the interactive lessons. That’s why I’m asking you those very basic simple questions again and again and again. That’s why you’re answering in short easy ways. You’re learning the basic phrases. I’m repeating the basic correct phrases, the fundamentals of English, of fluency and of grammar are in those interact lessons, those mini-stories, those point of view stories.

Using Jiu Jitsu again as an example, when I’m practicing my technique, let’s say I’m practicing a choke. There’s one called the triangle choke. If you choke somebody, you wrap your legs around their neck and you squeeze. So it seems simple if you just watch it. If you don’t know Jiu Jitsu you might think, well okay, just wrap your legs around and squeeze but that’s actually not true. There are actually lots of little tiny details and steps, and if you do one wrong it won’t work and I have found this. I’ve tried it a few times in fighting and I get close, but it doesn’t quite work.

I wonder what’s wrong and my coach’ll say, well, you did this little thing wrong. And so now when I’m practicing I go very slow when I practice that and it’s a little complicated, there are so many little details to remember. To do it fast against another person is very tough, so I realized I need lots and lots and lots of very slow, careful practice until all these small details become habits, instant habits. That takes time and detailed practice, slow practice.

It’s the same, like I said. In business there are certain detailed techniques you must learn. A coupler months’ ago in VIP I taught you like the presuppositions, for example, that little technique, that detailed technique of influence, of persuasion. That’s one example of a detailed technique that’s very, very good, but you gotta practice the details. You gotta use the phrases a certain way, so you gotta get the details correct and then you practice it very slowly, a little bit just by yourself. You can practice again and again, then you can try practicing it slowly with other people, but just once or twice you don’t immediately try to do it fast and you don’t immediately try to do it in a real situation.

So detailed practice.

Point number three, for the best kind of practice, the fastest improvement for anything.

Holistic practice

This is kind of the other side of detailed practice. Details are small little pieces. Holistic… holistic means whole, everything all together. See, we also need that kind of practice when we have the small details, but we also have to know, need to know and need the skill of putting everything together in a good way, in the correct way, in the best way. If you just know lots of details you’re still not good enough, because you don’t know how to do one detail and then connect it to another and then connect it to another and then connect it to another.

You also maybe don’t know which situation requires which detail or which technique, because it depends. Again, I can use Jiu Jitsu as an example. Let’s say I’m wrestling against a guy and I’m holding his head and he has one arm under me. That’s a different situation than if he has an arm over me, over my shoulder, and depending where his arm is, I need to use a different technique. If I try to use one technique in the wrong situation it won’t work also, so this is more holistic. This is the big picture that’s what holistic means, the big picture, the whole… how everything goes together.

So it’s how you put the details together. It’s the transitions right, the transitions. That means the movements between techniques. It’s the flow in the movement.

So how do you practice holistically, because you also need some holistic practice? Well, it depends on the skill but one example is case studies and role models, case studies and role models are excellent ways to improve and to study and learn the holistic skill.

A role model is a person, a person who’s very good at something and you just watch them. The first step of modeling, if we use it as a verb, to model, it just means to imitate, to copy, to imitate. So the first thing you do for holistic practice is you watch and observe somebody who’s good. Now, for English, for example, you just listen to native speakers. Preferably you want to listen to a native speaker who doesn’t speak too fast, just a little bit more slowly, little bit easier to understand that’s the best way to start learning the holistic parts of English. Meaning, how the sentences and phrases go together, the pronunciation how everything flows and moves; fluency, that’s holistic practice.

In Effortless English that’s why you use the main lessons and the commentary. The main lessons in the commentary are your holistic practice. In Jiu Jitsu that I mentioned, it’s the sparring, it’s the practice fighting that’s the holistic practice. You’re trying to put it all together. In business we use case studies where you’ll study a successful business or even study a business that had a problem and then you look at all the different ways that they reacted.

What did they do? How did they solve the problem? How did they become successful?

You look at all the pieces together. That’s why role models can be great.

So the first step is, you copy; first, you just watch and observe carefully someone who’s good or you listen to them.

The next step is you try to copy them.

You imitate them as best you can.

Now, if you’re a beginner and they’re advanced you will not be able to copy them completely, it’ll be too difficult but it’s still helpful to just watch them and try to imitate them. This will help you get those holistic skills that you need. Number four, part number four

Number four, number four, number four, part number four for great practice, effective practice… it’s contextual to now, to the current situation, to your current situation. What does that mean? Contextual to now.

Contextual means that it’s useful for your real life. It’s useful for the real world right, it’s not just academic. It’s not just ideas, it’s useful to you now. We have this idea called scaffolding. Scaffolding, it means stepping, stepping up. So it means gradually going up little by little, so when you practice you don’t want to practice super advanced techniques that are too difficult. That’s crazy, you won’t learn very well that way. You won’t improve.

Instead, you want to always be in practice, pushing yourself just a little bit, just the next step. You always just focus on the next step only, not two steps ahead, not five steps ahead, not ten years ahead, just the next step. What’s the next improvement you need? What’s the next skill you need? Focus on that.

And as I said, part of being contextual means, real world useful. This is the problem again with schools. They teach a lot of ideas, theories that have no use in the real world. You can’t use them in the real world. You don’t want to practice that stuff, you don’t want to study that stuff. You want real world practice, something you can learn and improve and then immediately go use it in the real world. So again with English, that’s why in Effortless English we use real English. I’m talking to you in a natural way right, I’m using natural real phrases and fluency. That’s why in your bonus lessons you get the real conversations, real world English so you can get phrases and pronunciation, listening and all of that that is useful in the real world.

Again, in Jiu Jitsu, I learned skills that I can then use in a real fight. So, if I’m in a Jiu Jitsu fight or even in a street fight, right. So I’m not interested in some ideas that are not useful to me. I also focus on techniques that are good for beginners. I’ve only been doing this two months’, so I’m not practicing something that a black belt does that’s super advanced, that’s too far beyond my skills. That’s not useful for me either. So it’s useful to you, contextual to you now.

Finally, number five, the secret to super deliberate and effective practice.

It’s quite simple… more hours, more hours. The more you practice using these other four methods, techniques and criteria, the more you use those criteria and practice in that way the faster you will improve. If you practice for one hour effectively, it’s not as good as practicing four hours effectively. So you have to increase your hours and hours are the important thing. See people, they always focus on time, but too many people focus on days, or months or years. People will ask me on Twitter all the time, how many months’ will it take for me to speak English fluently, or how many years?

But they don’t understand it’s not the months or the years, it’s the hours. It depends on the hours. Well, ow many hours per day are you listening to Effortless English? That’s what’s important it’s the hours… hours, hours, hours.

Someone who listens 12 hours a day, maybe they only need three months’. But someone who listens only one hour a day, they’re going to need much longer, more months or years. So it’s the hours of the day, you have to focus on getting more hours per day, that’s the key to improving faster; using effective methods of practice and then doing it more often.

Now, of course, if you use enjoy it, if you enjoyed the practice, if you enjoy what you’re doing it’s much easier to practice more hours. If you hate it, ah, then it’s really hard like, I really don’t want to practice this sucks, it’s no fun, then usually you’re going to practice less. But, if you love it, if you just love the process, if you love doing it, it will be easier to get more hours per day. You’ll want to do it and therefore, again, you will improve faster.

So those are the secrets to deliberate and effective practice those are the secrets to really, becoming a master of a skill. Those are the secrets to improving much, much, much faster. Follow these methods. Use each of these things that I mentioned in your home practice, your independent practice, use them with English and other skills; tell me your results.

On Twitter I am Twitter.com/ajhoge, just my name, ajhoge.

See you next time. Bye for now.