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What's up my friend! This is Kale. Time for the next lesson.
Now this is one of my favorite topics by one of my favorite people so I want you to be extra happy, extra strong body and physiology for this one. So stand up straight. Get those shoulders back.
Chest up. Breathe deep. Get that air going in there. Energize your body. Big, big, super big smile, huge smile. Make everyone think you're super crazy. Now move your body. Come on, get it moving now. If you're standing you just kind of wiggle around. Move those arms, move those legs. If you can, start walking. Get the blood going. Get that energy going. Are you ready? Let's go!
This lesson is called "The Power of Reading" and it cornes from an article by
Dr. Stephen Krashen. He's one of my favorite people in the
world.
Dr. Stephen Krashen is probably the number one expert on language learning and language teaching in the world. He is just
an incredible professor, an incredible researcher, an incredible intellectual. He has clone an incredible amount of research on the topic oflearning languages. And today we're going to talk about just one part of his research. Really, RAIO is based a lot on Dr. Stephen Krashen's research, all of the methods we use. But we're going to talk about just one particular method, one particular idea, very strong idea that cornes from Dr. Stephen Krashen and his research and that is the power of reading. Specifically it's the power of pleasure reading. It's the power of easy reading. We'll talk about that more in a minute.
But first let me read a little bit from this article. Now this article, as you might guess, is about the power of reading. And Dr.
Krashen did a lot of research about reading. Specifically about how do people, native speakers, and people learning foreign languages, how do they learn vocabulary? How do they get good grammar? How do they get excellent writing skills? One of the most important methods to use when you've reached conversational fluency is reading. Reading for pleasure. Now when we talk about reading there are kind of two different ways to learn reading, even for small children, learning a native language. Now one method, the old method, is that you learn reading skills. So you have to study and analyze vocabulary, for example.
Spelling in English is very difficult and tough so the y force us to study that a lot in school. W ell, we don't have to but often with old methods and old teachers we do. We study, study, study spelling. We study, study, study vocabulary. And we learn all these skills. We use all these textbooks to learn reading. And, of course, people learning new language, a foreign language, well guess what. You do the same things, right? You learn textbooks.
You're reading all these textbooks and you're trying to learn all these "reading skills."
This is totally bad.
The other way, the other method, and this is the method in fact that works much, much better according to Dr. Krashen's research, according to a lot of other research. It's just reading for fun, imagine that! And what that means is reading a lot of easy and fun books. Now for children that might be comic books. It might be just children's navels. And it's just reading, reading, reading, in other words we learn to read by reading. We learn vocabulary from reading. We learn a lot of our grammar from reading. We learn our writing skills from reading. Not by analyzing and studying grammar. Not be trying to memorize vocabulary. If you read something very easy, you know most of the words. And then you find a new word, you don't need to memorize it. You will start to understand that word just because
you understand the general meaning of the story. You understand the whole paragraph. You understand the sentence.
So that one word you can guess the meaning. And then guess what happens? You see that new word again somewhere else in the book. And then you start, it's in a different situation. A little bit different paragraph, a little bit different sentence, and now you're "Ah" you understand it a little more. Then you see it again in another paragraph, somewhere else in the book. And over time you will naturally learn that word. You'll never try to memorize it.
You will never study it but you will learn it. You will know it forever. That's the best way to learn vocabulary, even better than using ANKI. There's a lot of research about this. The people who learn most vocabulary and grammar at an intermediate level are the ones who just read easy books all the time. They're reading navels all the time. They're reading, reading, reading.
Which group of people learns more vocabulary faster? The readers, the people who are just reading for fun. They're just reading a lot of fun, easy navels and books. Those people have much bigger vocabularies than people who are actually trying to study vocabulary. We use ANKI to memorize new words fast so we can start speaking fast, and focus on auditory learning until we reach conversational fluency, until we can have conversations. But then, a super efficient method to improve faster is reading. And
it's the same for grammar. There are people who are studying grammar, study, study grammar rules, study grammar textbooks and then there are other people who are just reading lots of navels. They're reading, reading, reading all the time. Comic books, navels, articles, staries, the readers have better grammar than the people who are studying grammar from textbooks. It's a huge difference. And the more you read over time, the bigger the difference. The better your grammar gets compared to people who aren't. So this is a huge topic. lt is so important.
So let me read a little bit from Dr. Krashen and then we'll talk a little more. Okay, this is from Dr. Krashen:
"When second language learners read for pleasure, they develop the competence they need to move from the beginning ordinary
conversational level to a level where they can use the second language for more demanding purposes. Such as the serious study of literature, business, marketing and so on. When they read for pleasure they can
continue to improve in their second language without classes, without teachers, without study. And even without people to talk with.
When we read we really have no choice. We must develop literacy. We rarely find well-read people who have serious problems with grammar, spelling and so on. They write acceptably well because they can't help it.
They have subconsciously acquired good writing style as well as the
conventions of writing. Our probfem in fanguage education, is that we have confused cause and ejfect. We have assumed that we first fearn fanguage skiffs and then apply these skiffs to reading and writing. But
that is not the way the human brain works. Rather, readingfor meaning, reading about things that malter to us is one of the reaf causes of fanguage devefopment."
So, very interesting, what does that rnean? So what it rneans is that you don't first learn skills, like writing skills, spelling skills, learning how to forrn a sentence and then a paragraph. And then later learning to read and write well. That's exactly the opposite of what actually happens. What actually happens is you read and you read and you read. You read sentences. You read paragraphs. You read staries. You read books. You read novels. And after reading so rnuch you subconsciously, you intuitively acquire, get, learn great reading skills, great writing skills, great vocabulary, great grarnrnar. lt cornes frorn reading a lot for pleasure. The reading cornes first, then cornes writing.
This article is about reading but, in fact, listening is the sarne thing. So first you're listening a lot, that's the first step. And you need to do lot of it, rernernber? You've got listen for pleasure, for fun, a lot, a lot, a lot. Now the good news is you have to doit a lot but it's fun, it's easy. You're listening to stuff you like, a specific
music artist, a specific movie, audiobooks, podcasts, my crazy staries etc., so it's okay!
You're not thinking about grammar rules. You're not thinking about vocabulary. You're listening and speaking and enjoying yourself. When you don't understand anything that you listen to, let's say a sentence in a song or a word in one of these staries, you can simply look it up through Google Translate, the Cambridge Dictionary or Reversa.net. You do that first so you understand the meaning of the sentence and the song/movie/story, the
grammar skills then corne later. They corne from the listening and also the reading. The writing skills corne from reading a lot. Your vocabulary cornes from reading a lot and listening, too. Your pronunciation cornes from listening a lot. It's the input that is the most important. And specific kind of input, it's got to be meaningful, real, enjoyable, pleasurable. So that's the power of reading.
l'm not going to talk about all the specific research studies in this book, but if you like to get his book, it's called "The Power of Reading", that's the title, The Power of Reading. It's by Dr.
Stephen Krashen. Stephen is spelled S-t-e-p-h-e-n. And Krashen is spelled K-r-a-s-h-e-n, so Dr. Stephen Krashen and the book title, The Power of Reading. You can get it on Amazon.com. So if you want to see all the huge number of research studies at different universities around the world about this topic of reading
and learning better grammar skills, better vocabulary, better speaking, better pronunciation. If you want to see the proof, the evidence, then get his book.
You can look at all the different studies. There's so many of them. But, you know, if you trust me you can take my word for it. You can trust that I am trying to help you as best I can, that I really care about you. You can trust that this is in fact how it works.
That if you want to write well, if you want to have a great English vocabulary, if you want to have great English grammar you need to read and read and read. And what you need to read are novels.
Novels are key! Easy novels.
So here's my rule:
What does easy mean for you? My rule is you should not need a dictionary to read and understand the book. So if you grab a, let's say you grab a book by
Stephen King, the famous writer in the United States. You get a Stephen King book, in English of course, and you start reading it but, oh, there's so many words you don't know. And you need to use a dictionary all the time to understand. You get your dictionary and you're looking up all these words. W ell, it's too difficult for you. If you need a dictionary to understand it, it's too difficult. I did this mistake when I thought I was good enough in Spanish. I bought "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. They said it was easy to read. But the book had a LOT of vocabulary that I
didn't know, soit took me forever to read the book because I had to stop after every sentence and look up words. If that happens to you as well, stop. That's too hard. You need to be able understand the whole book, the concept, the story, the meaning and the moral of story, without a dictionary or Google Translate.
Okay, so, you know, put it aside and wait. You can read it later when your reading skills are higher. But for now, find an easier book.
If you have kids, l' d recommend children's navels. I say "if you have kids" because then it's probably more likely that you will enjoy the navels, because you could read them to your children later. But, even if you don't have kids, as long as you enjoy them, they can be a fantastic way to learn. Remember, you have to enjoy it. If it sucks, stop. Choose something else that you enjoy. There has to be emotion! Remember? Always emotion. Get a sex novel if you like! Those are filled with emotion........
So, back to kids' books...
You can get the Goosebumps books for example. There's a whole series. They're for kids. They're called Goosebumps. And there's, I don't know how many, there's probably 30 or 50 of them, okay? They're short and they're pretty easy. You can probably read them without a dictionary. What you should do is read all of them.
Read all 30 of them. Read them, just enjoy them. Don't use a
dictionary. If you see a word you don't know, just guess the meaning and keep reading. If you're wrong, it doesn't matter. You'll see that word again and again and again. Eventually you will understand that word. You won't need a dictionary. Just enjoy the story.
Another set of books I like are The Hardy Boys books. These are probably 50 years old. And there's another series of books
called Nancy Drew. So The Hardy Boys books and the Nancy Drew books, another set of kids books, kids navels, they're fairly long but not too long, that are really great if you want to do a lot of pleasure reading that does not require a dictionary. So
again, Nancy Drew books and The Hardy Boys books, and again, there are so many of them, 20, 30 or more in each series. You can read the whole series if you want to. And of course you can just go to any bookstore that has English books.
Look in the children's section or the young adults' section.
Another series of books I like, or actually I LO VE them, they are by Roald Dahl. I read Roald Dahl books in Swedish when I was a child. They're awesome! Dahl is a Scandinavian name, hehe! D-a- h-1. Anyway, he wrote books such a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach. He's got a lot of books so you could look for some of those. And, of course, there are movies that go with those books so you could watch the movies, too, and
listen to them. You can also get audiobooks. This is something I think is really great. If you can find an audiobook and a regular book you can read it and then you can listen toit at thesame time. Remember, using transcripts to your audios is a great way to speed up your learning, and then you repeat without the transcript and BOOM! Expert in English in notime!
So read a lot of fun stuff. And after you finish all The Hardy Boys books and after you finish all the Goosebumps books and all the books by Roald Dahl, then find a book maybe by Stephen King. OR maybe if that's still too difficult, then find something for young adults. And then read a lot of those books. Eventually, probably within one year's time if you're reading all the time, if you're reading every day, within one year you'll be reading adult novels. You'll be reading the same books that I read for pleasure, for fun, that native speakers read. But don't start there. Go back and just start with easy novels and read and read and read. Your grammar will improve automatically and effortlessly. Your vocabulary will explode, it will increase so much so fast. You won't believe it. It's amazing. So please, follow this. Reading is so powerful but it has to be reading for fun, reading for pleasure.
Alright, I hope you enjoyed this topic. l'll see you next time.
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Okay, are you ready? I hope so. Big smile. Deep breath. Move that body. Feeling good. You're a fantastic English learner. Are you ready? Are you ready? Let's do some English here. Mini-story for "The Power of Reading."
*****
There was a monkey. The monkey's name was Filbert.
What was there?
There was a monkey.
And what was his name?
Filbert, his name was Filbert.
What was Filbert?
Filbert was a monkey, of course.
What did Filbert like to do?
Oh, you don't know?
Well, Filbert liked to shoot mosquitoes with a gun.
Hm, interesting, yes.
Filbert liked to shoot mosquitoes (you know, bzzzz), he liked to shoot mosquitoes with his gun.
What did Filbert like to do?
He liked to shoot mosquitoes with his gun.
What did he like to shoot?
Mosquitoes, Filbert liked to shoot mosquitoes.
With what?
With his gun...pow, pow, pow...
Luckily he had total competence with his gun.
Was he very skilled with his gun?
Oh, yes. He was very skilled. He was very good with the gun. He had total competence with his gun.
Who had total competence with his gun?
Filbert the monkey, Filbert the monkey had total competence, total skill with his gun.
He had total competence with what kind of gun? With a small handgun?
No, he didn't have total competence with a handgun.
He had competence with a rifle. A rifle is a big, long gun.
Who had competence with a rifle?
W ell, Filbert the monkey, Filbert the monkey had total competence, total skill, great, high skill with his rifle.
Because, in fact, shooting mosquitoes is very demanding.
Is it easy to shoot mosquitoes?
No, it's not. It's not easy to shoot mosquitoes. It's very demanding. lt's very tough. lt's very difficult to shoot mosquitoes.
Is it easy to shoot mosquitoes or is it difficult to shoot mosquitoes?
lt's difficult. It's very demanding. It's very tough. It's very difficult. lt's demanding to shoot mosquitoes. It makes you tired. lt' s tough. lt' s not easy.
But Filbert the monkey practiced shooting mosquitoes every day. He practiced in the morning, pow, pow, pow. He practiced in the afternoon, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. He practiced in the evening, pow-pow, pow-pow. And he practiced at night, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. It was very demanding. It was very tough. But he did it every day. He practiced with his rifle.
Shooting mosquitoes every single day, every morning, every afternoon, every evening, every night. Filbert practiced shooting mosquitoes. It was demanding. It was tough.
Was Filbert a stupid monkey?
No, no, no, no, no, no. Filbert was a very intelligent monkey actually. ln fact he was very well read.
He would read books and shoot mosquitoes at the same time. So he's reading a book and shooting, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
What kind of monkey was Filbert?
He was a well read monkey.
So did he read a lot of books?
Yes, he read a lot of books. He was a well read monkey.
So he was a well read chicken, right?
Not a chicken, he wasn't a chicken. He was a monkey. He was a well read monkey. He was a monkey that read a lot of books.
Who was a well read monkey?
Filbert, Filbert was a well read monkey. He was a well read monkey and he had total competence with a rifle. ln fact he could shoot and read at the same time.
What did he shoot?
He shot mosquitoes. He shot mosquitoes every day.
What did he read?
W ell, he read philosophy books.
Filbert read books about philosophy. He read books about religion and philosophy. He read Plato and Aristotle. He read books about Buddhism. He read books by the Dalai Lama of Tibet. In fact, the Dalai Lama was his favorite writer.
What did he read?
He read philosophy books, especially books by the Dalai Lama.
While he read books by the Dalai Lama, what did he do?
He shot mosquitoes, right?
While reading books by the Dalai Lama he also shot mosquitoes, p p p re re re p p p re reading reading, pow, pow, pow, reading reading reading. So at
the same time he read books by the Dalai Lama and he shot mosquitoes. He was a well read monkey with competence in the rifle.
Now because he read so many books by the Dalai Lama he subconsciously learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy.
Did he consciously learn the Dalai Lama's philosophy?
No, not consciously. He didn't try to learn it. He didn't try to memorize it. Not a lot of effort. He subconsciously learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy.
Did he learn it effortlessly?
Yes, he did. He learned it effortlessly.
Did he learn it intuitively, naturally?
Yes, he learned it subconsciously. He learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy subconsciously, naturally and intuitively.
What did he learn subconsciously?
The Dalai Lama's philosophy, he learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy subconsciously.
Who learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy subconsciously?
Filbert the monkey, Filbert the mosquito shooting monkey subconsciously learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy.
Now of course the Dalai Lama's philosophy is very peaceful. The Dalai Lama does not like killing. He' s a peaceful man.
W as Filbert a peaceful monkey?
No, every day he was shooting mosquitoes, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
So there was a problem. He was shooting mosquitoes and killing them every day but he subconsciously learned the Dalai Lama's philosophy. Oh no, oh no. And so one day Filbert decided to never kill again. He said "I will never kill another mosquito." Filbert became a peaceful monkey. He threw his gun into the nver.
What did he do?
He threw his gun into the river.
What kind of monkey did Filbert become?
He became a very peaceful monkey.
Did he become a peaceful monkey or a violent monkey?
He became a peaceful monkey.
Why did he become a peaceful monkey?
W ell, because he subconsciously learned from the Dalai Lama. He subconsciously learned the philosophy of the Dalai Lama, which was peace and kindness.
So Filbert never killed again. He became a peaceful, loving, wonderful monkey.
The End.
*****
Alright, good. Well, I hope you're feeling peaceful and loving right now and I hope you're feeling happy and I hope you're smiling. And if you're not, doit now! Deep breath, big smile,
shoulders back, chest up. Feel great. You are learning English. It's a great day. You' re feeling wonderful. See you next time.
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Okay, welcome to the POV story, the point-of-view story for "The Power of Reading."
Okay, and I'm going to tell the same story about Filbert the monkey. We' re going to have two points of view. One is going to start with "Since 2002..." and the other one will be in the future.
So let's start with the first one.
You ready? You feel good? You smiling? Standing tall, shoulders back! Deep breath, let's doit.
*****
Since 2002, since the year 2002, Filbert has enjoyed shooting mosquitoes with his gun. He has liked to shoot mosquitoes with his gun, since 2002.
No, no he didn't. Not in 2001. ln 2001 and before he never shot mosquitoes, but since 2002 he has liked to shoot mosquitoes with his gun. He has loved it, in fact. Since 2002 Filbert the monkey has loved to shoot mosquitoes with his gun. From 2002 right up until almost now, during that whole time. So since 2002 he has enjoyed shooting mosquitoes.
And since 2002 he has practiced every day. ln fact, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night, he has practiced shooting mosquitoes every day since 2002. Since 2003 he has had total competence with his rifle, with his big long gun.
Since when?
Since 2003 he has had total competence. He has had total competence with his rifle.
Since 2003 he has had what?
Since 2003 he has had total competence with his rifle.
Now of course, shooting mosquitoes is a very demanding, tough thing to do. It's very difficult. So he has practiced constantly shooting mosquitoes with his rifle. Now Filbert the monkey has also been a very well read monkey for many years. For many years he has read philosophy books, every day reading about philosophy and shooting his gun at the same time, pow, pow, pow, read, pow, pow, pow, read. He has been a very well read monkey.
Probably since 2001, since 2001 he has been a very well read monkey. Something happened recently.
He started to read books by the Dalai Lama. He read books by the Dalai Lama constantly. And then something else happened. He subconsciously learned the philosophy of the Dalai Lama.
And he changed. Filbert the monkey changed.
Why did he change?
Because he read a lot of books by the Dalai Lama of Tibet.
How did he change?
W ell, he became very peaceful.
Because he read a lot of books by the Dalai Lama of Tibet he became very peaceful. And he decided to never kill again. He threw his gun into the river and he said "I will never kill again." Filbert the monkey became a very peaceful, loving monkey.
The End
*****
Okay, now, you probably noticed again there was a change. It happens in most of these staries that begin with "Since 2002..." or "Since something..." And the change happened when I said "He started to read books by the Dalai Lama." Right? That happened, it was a sudden thing. It was one point intime. He started. You can't continually start something, right? It just, you start it, it happens and then it's clone. You're finished starting. Now you're doing it. Soin one point of time he started reading books by the Dalai Lama. He changed. He became a peaceful monkey. He decided to never kill again. He threw his gun in the river. He became a peaceful monkey.
Alright, you don't need to think aboutit any more than that. Just notice the change. Notice when it happens. That's all. Keep listening.
Okay, next let's do our future point of view. So the future point of view we kind of imagine that I'm talking about something that will happen in the future. Maybe I'm imagining this story and I say "Oh this is a future story, this is what will happen in the future." Maybe I'm predicting the future. It doesn't matter but mainly the point of view is the future, in the future.
*****
In the future there will be a monkey. He'll like to shoot mosquitoes.
What will his name be?
His name will be Filbert.
His name will be Filbert. Filbert the monkey will love to shoot mosquitoes with his gun, with his rifle. In fact, he'll have total competence with that rifle. He'll be excellent with that rifle. He'll have total, complete competence with the rifle. Now, of course, shooting mosquitoes is very demanding. It's very tough. It's very difficult. So, he'll practice every day. He' s going to practice in the morning. He' s going to practice in the afternoon. He' s going to practice in the evening. He' s going to practice at night. He's
going to practice constantly because it's so demanding to shoot mosquitoes.
Now, of course, he's not only going to shoot mosquitoes. He's going to be a well read monkey also. He'll be a very well read monkey. He'll read a lot of philosophy books. Especially books by the Dalai Lama of Tibet, he's going to read a lot of books by the Dalai Lama. And because of this, he's going to subconsciously learn the philosophy of the Dalai Lama of Tibet. He'll learn about the peaceful philosophy of the Dalai Lama. He'll learn about compassion and not killing. And so one day he'll decide to never kill again. He' s going to throw his gun in the river and he' s going to say "I will never kill again. I am now a peaceful monkey." And, of course, he will be. He will become a very peaceful, loving, kind-hearted monkey.
The End
*****
That's the end of our future point of view story. Once again, so easy, right? Just listen. Just listen for my pronunciation. Listen how I make little changes. When I change the point of view I make small changes to the vocabulary. I say 1111, 111, 11111, I say
gonna, gonna, gonna, I say going to, going to, going to - and that's all.
You don't need to think about a bunch of grammar rules. Throw away your damn grammar book. Get rid of that textbook. Just listen to these staries again and again.
Remember, deep learning, you're going to listen to this same story every day for seven days, maybe over the course of two weeks.
Maybe more, I don't know. But you're going to learn it deeply. You're going to get this repetition again, again, again. And then the next lesson, again, again, again. And the next lesson, again, again, again. And soon you will learn this grammar subconsciously. That's what we're doing. That's the purpose of these staries, to learn this grammar subconsciously. So all you need to dois listen and enjoy the staries.
Okay, I will see you next time. That's the end of the POV lesson for "The Power of Reading."
And by the way, one last homework assignment, go find some easy novels;
Goosebumps, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, buy something from Roald Dahl, I don't care. Go buy some! Get on Amazon.com and
find some and start reading. Read every day for fun. Read something easy. Read something fun.
Okay, see you next time.