Shadowing Practice: You Have to Write Every Day. ChatGPT Won’t Save You. - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hey, E, you're talking about writing. James from EngVid. This is part of a four-part series I'm doing on communication, reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and this one is on writing, which is, funny enough, it's the least percentage that you do in communication. Let's face facts, you don't walk around writing everything down, right? I picked up this book because horror.

I used to teach an English class where I had to do a lot of writing, and having to read what people would write was a horror show, right?

Let's go to the board so you won't have someone making comments about you like this, right? So, as I said, E, we're doing writing, and we can see that it's only 10 to 15% of our communication. However, it's a very versatile and important part, and it shows, you might say, the evolution of people, because, well, our ancestors, I mean, way back when they were in caves, they used to draw, so that was sort of, writing. They would do pictures to give messages.

So, something has been with us forever, but we weren't born with it. When we did it, we were able to communicate, to store information, and that's why we have planes, trains, and television, because as you write it down, you can give it to someone. Because before that, and you can still see in the world today, people who don't have a rich and deep language system that is written are living the same way we would have 10,000 years ago, because there's only so much information one person can pass to another, the importance of writing cannot be overlooked. You've got to look at it, because that's why you're watching me today, because somebody wrote something down about cameras, about television, electricity, and we can communicate this way. I don't need to be in your house, we can communicate. So, writing's important, and it's going to be even more important on your language journey to help you get faster to where you want to go. So, let's go to the board. Okay, so most people are passive writers. Yes, I know writing is an activity, right, versus reading. People also think that's passive, it's wrong. But they write because they have to, right? That's why it's 10%.

They write because I've got to write an email to my boss, or I've got to text somebody, and that's as far as it really goes. They're not really into the writing process or what it can do for you, so they find it troublesome.

I know if you're like me, nobody likes writing essays.

Although writing the essay helps to get you to clarify your ideas and learn, people are like, "Oh, I've got to write an essay. I'd rather do a test where I don't have to write 10 or 15 pages or 100." But that writing is so important, and we'll come to it when I come to the board for something else, but for most people, writing is a passive activity.

You have to do it, so you just kind of do it to get it done.

When you start understanding the importance of writing, you're going to know that when you write, you rewire your brain, because as you write, the important thing about writing is not writing, it's the rewriting. It's the looking at something you put on paper, looking at it again, and then rewriting it, because each time you rewrite it, you restructure it, you change it. After a while, the brain has to change, because the way you see it is changed, you change. We have a wonderful thing between our ears, and writing is a great way to change it. Writing is a, let's just say, an advanced activity that humans do that helped us, I wanted to say enabled, similar, helped us to get where we are, right? Because we can transfer information not just by speaking, which is good, but we can hand something to someone who can give it to someone else, and all of us can learn.

Okay, when you write, you go for deeper learning, so not only does it change your brain in writing when you're rewriting, as you understand more, you can get deeper into a subject to understand more of it. For example, if I want to learn about electricity, right, I can read something just simple on it, but then they've got textbooks this big. If I write what I learned from the book out, it gives me a deeper understanding, and I can actually, while doing so, maybe have other ideas on how to use it. Okay? Sometimes we read and we think I kind of understand it, but then you write it down on paper, you're like, "I don't understand this at all. I don't even know what this means. There's a bunch of words or jargon in a specialized language that have no meaning for me, so I'm not really learning anything." So writing helps you get to deeper learning, because as you write it out, you get to see what's actually in your head, what you've actually taken in versus what you think you know.

You can't escape it. We write down to remember.

You know this. You ask somebody their phone number, you write it down, and then your brain is being brilliant, goes, "It's on the paper, you can forget it." Boom. But it aids in memory, because now we can write it down, put it somewhere, and we can free up our brains, but we know to go there to get it, so it helps us. But also, the writing process itself helps you remember, because as you write on it... Think of it this way. When you use one sense, as in just listening, that's one sense. When you're writing, especially if someone's talking, you have to use more of your brain. The more of your brain you use, the deeper it goes, because your brain goes, "This must be important", because I'm not just listening to this person, I'm writing something down at the same time. If I have to read it back to myself, now I'm using my eyes, so I'm not just listening, I'm looking, I'm writing, I'm involving more and more of my brain, so my brain goes, "Must be important, keep it." Cool, right? That's why we write. That's why they encourage you to take notes when you go to class and whatnot, so you actually can take more in. And as I said before, you can also know what you don't know, because when you read what you wrote after and you go, "That doesn't make sense", it's because it didn't make sense when you wrote it. You don't understand it.

Now, finally, here's one. I know we're doing language learning, but you get to know yourself.

One of the things about writing is, and they use this in psychology to help people with mental problems, they get them to write, because once you get on paper what's in your head, sometimes you think you know something or what's going on, and it just goes around and around in your head. But then when you put it on paper, you're like, "Ooh, that's crazy talk." But you need to get it on paper to see how crazy it is, right? There's something I wanted to mention, because we're in the age of artificial intelligence and people love chat GPT and Grok and everything else. You know, these large language models, right? Chat GPT.

Now, I don't hate them. I think they're great.

It's a great tool. But the problem is people have taken the tool, because this is a tool, but I don't take it everywhere I go and use it all the time. And a lot of people... Do you remember I talked about passive writing? They're using chat GPT thinking, "I'm so smart." And you saw what I wrote here. These are the things that these guys are missing out on. And I wanted to make this special note, because I thought this lesson would not be complete if I forgot to tell you that your brain works when you work. And when you give away the work for your brain to a machine, you're the only one who loses out. Don't be that person.

Like I said, if you talk about the 10% rule for your best work, you're going to end up being the 10% of the best we've got. I'm hoping for more.

Share this with other people if you can. And if you don't like the rest of the lesson, make sure you tell people. Skip this, do this, get better.

So many good things out of it. Now, let's just go here and I can say, these are the aspects I like about writing that I talked about. This is active writing. When you're an active writer, this is what you get from it, right? These are great versus just this, "I'm going to put stuff down because I have to." This gives me the ability to learn more about myself and the world around me, yeah? When we talk about, you know, extra information, you can see your mistakes. One thing about writing is you can see your mistakes and your progress.

As you write, you can see from when you were in grade two to grade five to university how you've changed as a person, and you can also see the mistakes in your thinking and understanding as you write because there's a record of it, it's permanent. Unlike speech, when I talk, the words disappear, right? Hello, it's gone. When I write it down, it's there.

So, when you write something down, it tends to make you think a little bit more because, you know, there's a record of what you said versus when you speak and you say, "I don't remember saying that." Of course you don't, so it's stupid. But if you write it down, they're like, "Oh, you are stupid. It's right on the paper." You tend to think a little bit, right?

When you write, you can take your time and think about your thinking. This is called metacognition. Writing it down, you can, I say, abstract, which is step out of the way of what you wrote, and you can look at what you wrote as like you're a different person, and then you can try to understand what you wrote. CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy. It's actually a therapy where it's based on writing. You write out what you're thinking, then you look at it, and you argue with yourself about it on the paper until you can kind of see, "I'm crazy. I need medicine." Or you can kind of say to yourself, "Oh, okay. Now I can understand why I might have been wrong." But it's hard to do that when it's all in this little space in your head, so you have to take it out of yourself, right? So you can take the time to think about your thinking, which is important.

Scientists do that, so it's not just about being crazy. It's like, okay, am I right about how I look at the world? They write out a hypothesis.

They do a thesis. This is all written. They don't just say put it in my head. Put it on the paper, right? So I can organize. Okay, that's down there.

I shouldn't jump ahead. Here, we can follow the 10% rule, okay? What's the 10% rule? It's by a guy named Tim Ferriss. He's a podcaster. He's written a book called The 4-Hour Workweek.

His 10% rule, I think, is brilliant because it causes you to get the best work you can do. His 10% rule is very simple, and it causes you to be precise, right? Very accurate with your thing.

Concise, write the smallest amount you can, which leads to, you know, advanced thinking. So just talking for the sake of talking, you get right to the point.

He said hand, and this is why writing helps you because you speak to someone, they forget.

They would say write something down, hand it to a friend, and when you hand it to your friend, you ask him two questions or her two questions.

Number one, what 10% of what I wrote must stay?

It is the center of everything. It gives all the ideas. And what 10% is just garbage. If you take it out, it makes no difference. When they do that, it helps them to actually actively read what you wrote properly. Remember I told you four-part series we got on reading, and why reading's important. But also, it makes you think a little bit more, knowing that someone's going to be looking at your work, and looking for that 10% to come out, and that 10% gem. So it causes you, and I keep saying, thinking. You might see there's a correlation or a relationship between writing and thinking, yeah? Because this is what writing does, it causes you to think, and causes you to get higher and higher on your thinking, hence we talked about metacognition.

Not just passively writing it and giving it away, but actually thinking about what I want, what do I want to say, what am I trying to communicate, what am I trying to learn?

Okay? Now, you can organize your thoughts. Probably a lot of you have a day timer, if not on your phone, where you say I'm going to do this at 8 o'clock, this at 9 o'clock, this at 10, this at 11, I must be here. And the times you don't do that, you'll notice that, you're like, oh, what am I going to do today?

And the day goes by, right? I didn't do anything.

It's like, did you write down what you wanted?

Nah, or a vacation. You go away on vacation for a week or two, and you're, I'm going to do all this stuff, you write nothing down. People ask, what did you do? You go, ah, not much. But you were in another country, you had all the, yeah, but I never thought about it. And you see that friend who you think is crazy, has all written down, first we're going to go here, then we're going to go here, I want to do this, then I'm going to do this. They come back with stories and pictures. They organize their thoughts. They put it down. It's called an itinerary. Writing helps you do that for not just your day, but for your life. That's where all these gurus sell you courses to change your life. You can do it yourself.

Write it down. I want this by this time, this is how I'll do it. Organize it. And then you can see your progress if you're making mistakes to get what you want, right? You can think, is this a good idea in the long run or not? And the 10% rule, you can say, I really want this in my life, but I don't want this junk. All of this just from writing, okay? Now, I've got a story I want to tell you about a great student I had named Nata Juice. I hope she sees this, and I hope she doesn't blush too much, but I'll get to it. But before I get, no, you know what? Yeah, I'll do tips first. Before I get to that, tips. Start a journal today, especially if you're a language learner. Starting a journal gets you in a process. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, just get into practice of writing. Do 10, 20 minutes, or there's a book by Julia Cameron, and it's called The Artist's Way, where she recommends three pages of writing, or 30 minutes of writing. Either one works, all right? That will help you, number one, as you're writing, see what vocabulary you have and what you might want. Because if you're writing every day, you might realize, I don't know how to say this, and I don't know that, and it's going to force you to go look for that. See, that's good. Number two, rewrite something you wrote.

Okay? Sorry. You'd think that talking about writing, I would have paid attention to my writing, right? Something that you wrote, that's T-E. Let me just do that properly, okay?

So, you want to rewrite something that you wrote.

I'm doing this because some of you aren't native speakers, and you'll go, what is it that he put on the board? Right? So, rewrite something that you wrote, and add new vocabulary daily. I'm going to come to why that's important, and how that works in a second or two, because it might sound weird. Like, I write it, and I'm going to keep rewriting. Yeah, well, writing, the secret to good writing is rewriting, right? And write to think about how you think, and this is what I was talking about CBT, or metacognition. So, write something down on a subject you like or don't like, and then look at it, and then say, does that make sense? And argue with yourself on the paper, and go, hey, that idea doesn't make sense, or I can make it better. Metacognition makes you better because instead of thinking, you know, you have a certain level of thinking, you say that way, you get to change yourself.

You get to go, that idea is old to me. I actually think this, or how did I ever think that? You get to change as a person, but in language learning, okay, you're going to get to learn about ideas that you think from your culture that are not in another culture. You'll get to understand it, and then you'll start seeing why certain words are used or not used in that culture are acceptable, but just by writing. It's really, it's fantastic. It doesn't cost a lot. It's paper and a pen. It's not free, but it's cheap, and it's available to you anytime you want, but I really do want to go back to this one before I end this little lesson, here.

Rewrite something that you wrote and add vocabulary. I had this great student named Nata, Nata Juice, and I was teaching her privately, and one of the things I did was I asked her to write on something that really bothered her, and nice person that she is, she wasn't talking about, you know, I want to be rich or that. She said, "I hate seeing homeless people. I feel really bad for them, and I don't know what to do." So I said, "Okay, write about your possible solution for homeless people." So she did, and then I said, "Okay, we're going to have to rewrite this," and she did, and then after that, the next day, I said we would work on vocabulary, and I go, "Here's 10 new vocabulary words," and I would tell her, "You have to use at least five of these new words in your story." So she had to go write her story and then look for where it was best to put these words and what words to come out. Tim Ferriss, right? What to keep, what to go, and it was amazing because after a while, she got a little journal of it, but I think it was, three months later, she looked at what she first wrote and what she was writing afterwards, and it was like baby writer, university writer, and we didn't do anything except say, "Okay, rewrite it again with new vocabulary. Rewrite it again with new vocabulary. Rewrite it again with new vocabulary," and as she did that, she started to understand the old vocabulary better. She was able to introduce and integrate the new vocabulary, right? We were talking about rewriting your brain, rewiring, because her understanding of the subject changed, and as she wrote, her ideas about the very subject changed, and she felt a little bit more hopeful, and then she could see how it was a big problem, very, very difficult, and she went from someone who didn't really, you know, she didn't like the situation to saying, "Wow, this is a big thing.

I don't know, but maybe I have some ideas," but her writing style changed as she changed. It's kind of really cool to watch, especially when you went back, and that's the beauty of writing.

You have a journal. That's why I said start a journal, right, of your progress. We talked about, "Where's my progress?" You'll see your progress and your mistakes in thinking. Anyway, listen, I hope that has got you inspired to at least get a journal. If you don't do anything, just write your name in there, and slowly write your first story, right? I have students all the time saying, "I don't know vocabulary," and I've said, "Read," and as I said, we have a four-part series. Go look at that. I've said, "Read, get new vocabulary," and you take that vocabulary you're reading, put it in that story.

Create evolution for yourself. Elevate yourself, all right? Anyway, please check out the other parts of the series. I want you to have a brilliant day. It's been a joy to do this for you guys to hopefully take your learning to a new level. It's not specifically just in English, but in English, in your life, and whatever you want to use this for, and go to www.EngVid.com/EngVid to see the other parts of this, and also see other teachers with brilliant lessons.

You have a brilliant day. I said "brilliant" like five times. I think I need vocabulary lessons.