Hey, James from www.engvid.com . Today's lesson, I want to teach you about Super Learning,

you know, from one of my favorite, well, not my favorite superhero, but my brother's and

a good friend of mine's superhero: Superman.

Why is he Superman?

Because he does everything better than the average person.

Today's lesson is how to learn better.

Now, I'm not saying better than the average person, but to improve your ability to learn

or to, yeah, be better than the average person when they learn.

And you might say "Why is that important?

This is an English lesson."

Learning English: the grammar, vocabulary, syntax, reading and writing, they're all great

things.

The problem is when you're not able to learn on a constant basis and continually improve,

if you get bored and stagnant, you stop learning, you stop working, you give it up.

If I can give you some tools with which to improve and give you the ability to learn

faster, as you get it in faster and you learn, you will complete the goal that you started

for yourself, which was to learn English.

So, let's go to the board and do some Super Learning.

Alright?

Super Learning, it's Mr. E with his big "S" on his chest, flying powerfully.

This lesson I'm giving to a guy named Joseph Alain Leconte, he's from Haiti, I was out

on the street one day and he came up and said "Hey, I watch your videos, thank you very

much!", and Alain - sorry, Joseph Alain, thank you very much for stopping to say hello.

I always appreciate it and I love the support that you guys give.

But let me get to the board and get to the lesson, that's why you're here.

So, we're going to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different things or exercises

I can give you to help you become a Super Learner.

Super Learning isn't anything special, it's basically doing not just your best, that's

one thing, it's maximizing your potential, and what I mean by - you have a line that

you start at, and here's what you can possibly do.

Most of us, at our best, move up here.

When we do Super Learning, we actually go up here and learn as much as we can actually

do.

And it's surprising how much you can take in and how much you can use to become better

in a short period of time if you're given certain tools, and I'm going to give you a

few hints today.

One of the first things is there's Mr. E with a megaphone, he's speaking out.

If it's written material, say it out loud.

What?

Well, when you read it, read it, that's using your vision, okay?

There are three ways learn, there are actually more, but three basic ones people are taught

in teachers' colleges that most students use to learn.

One is visual, with your eye, one is auditory with your ear, and the other kinesthetic,

doing something.

That's why, in school, you'll notice teachers write on a board, you look at it, then they

speak, you listen, then you write down information.

By doing those three, you can keep up to 80% of the information, alright?

And also, repetition and a few other things.

But there's the things that help you learn.

A lot of people have things that they're better at, so some people are better at listening

than they are at understanding information when it's written, or when they do it, they're

confused, but if you explain it to them, they're like "Oh, I get it, I can do that."

Same with some people, they need to see it, you demonstrate it, they can understand, but

if you say it to them or make them do it, they don't, okay?

So, there's two of the three, and obviously number three, the kinesthetic, if they do

it, they understand much better than if you write it on the board or explain it.

So, why am I telling you "If it's written, say it"?

Well remember, I said if all three are combined you learn better?

So, if something's written down, one of the better ways to understand it is to say it

out loud because when it's written, you're using your visual.

When you say it out loud, that's right, your auditory comes in.

It's another component, so it means more of your brain has to be used to absorb the information.

It's also got a repetition factor.

Because you read it and then you say it, you're repeating it to make it go deeper, so it's

not just one time, I'm finished, it's one, "How are you today?"

"How are you today?"

By doing that alone, guess what?

That's right, you've listened, you've watched, but you've done the third one by accident,

by opening your mouth, you're using kinesthetic: "How are you today?"

You've done it three times now.

You've looked at it, you've said it, you've heard yourself, three repetitions for one

reading.

Some people will read it once, by doing that alone, you're doing it three times, so you

can see, you can learn three times as quickly.

That's why we call it Super Learning, taking what you have and maximizing your potential.

Also, when you're saying it out loud, it gives your brain the opportunity to critique or

look at that information, because you're saying it, does it make sense to you?

Why doesn't it make sense?

What is confusing to me?

When you're looking it down, you might say "I don't understand", or understand and it

stops.

When you say, "Does this sentence even work?", cool?

Alright.

Next: If it's spoken material, write it down.

Oh, it's the same, you just repeated it.

No.

It is the same in that we are using more senses to learn it, but when something's spoken,

it's quickly forgotten.

So, the added bonus to writing it down is you have notes to remind you so you can look

at it later.

But, one of the important things about writing it down is it's a motor skill that forces

your body to go through, once again, we're going to kinesthetic movement, forcing the

brain to work because you're taking sound and you're interpreting it into a - I would

say, visual medium, so then you've got the kinesthetic writing it, then it's the looking

at it, because I've never met anyone who writes like this.

Okay.

Usually they write and they look.

So, when you're in a lecture hall, most students do this naturally.

They write it down.

I met a person who was really interesting, well maybe I'm making that up and it was something

I read, but they said that they were at a meeting with someone and the person actually

- they wanted to meet this person and talk to them.

Just imagine a big manager and a small employee.

The big manager wanted to meet the small employee and the big manager took out a book and a

pen and started writing down what the small employee said.

It's like "Why?"

"Well, I can learn from you."

So, when I'm sitting there talking to you, I can learn from you if I'm writing it down.

If I don't, it gets forgotten, so it makes it more important to my brain because if I'm

writing it - taking the time, my brain goes "This must be important, I should remember

it."

It also gives me the opportunity, or you the opportunity, to go over what you've written

down and see if it makes sense and clarify it.

So you get to question it, think about it, give it some sense in your head, and it helps

you remember it.

So, these are brother and sister.

If it's written material, say it out loud.

Try to see if you can actually understand it when you just say it to yourself.

If it's spoken material, write it down.

Write it down afterwards and look and go "Does this actually make sense?"

Now, going with the writing, we've spoken about writing twice, there's a third one.

This is rather interesting.

Most of you, when you think of writing - or actually, let's actually be honest - most

of you in the 21st century, you don't write, you type.

You go to a classroom, you sit down, you type - click click click, right?

Click, click, click, or you do on your cell phone - click, click, click, and you take

these notes.

It reminds me of people who take pictures of everything and you ask them "Do you remember

that concert we went to last year?"

"Yes."

"Do you look at the pictures?"

"No."

"But you took many pictures."

"Yes."

"But you don't look at them."

"Yeah."

It's like, it was a waste.

You should have watched and enjoyed instead of taking pictures that you never look at.

So, you've missed it twice.

You've missed the actual thing and now you're missing what's actually in your computer.

The same with typing.

When you type, it actually doesn't activate your brain as much.

"Well, I took the notes, you said write it down."

I said "Yeah, write, write, I didn't say 'type'."

When you type it, your brain doesn't really know that this an "S" button and this is a

"T" button and this is a "U" button.

It has no clue.

It just knows "press button, press button, press button".

When you're writing, each character is individual, so it forces the brain to pay attention to

what you're doing, and that paying attention to what you're doing makes the language or

whatever subject you're studying go deeper into your brain.

Now, you notice I said here, I said "Write in cursive, do not print."

And some of you are like "What's that?"

I know!

Time has changed.

There was a time when I went to school, you had to learn cursive.

In fact, it was so bad, they gave you a pencil because you weren't good enough, and when

you mastered cursive, they gave you a pen and everybody waited for that day to be given

a pen like "You may now write in permanent ink, no more pencil for you because you're

a big boy now!"

So, for those of you who don't know what cursive is, because some of you won't, this is cursive.

Now, some of you right now are going "What did he just do?

Is that - is that Arabic?

Is that Sanskrit, what is that?

This is not English!"

This is cursive.

You're welcome.

Or, I can write it like this, I'm going to be off the board, but you'll see, you will

see what I mean.

The thing about cursive is it combines two parts or two part - the two parts of your

brain, your left and right hemisphere.

So, one is more artistic, one is more scientific, I mean, this is just general, don't take it

too seriously, even scientists have a problem with it, but they're saying the two parts

of your brain deal with different parts.

One form in function, one more logical thinking.

In cursive, it's combined, because when we write, that's more logical information, but

the cursive is artistic, you can see, swirl, swirl, dots, all art.

So, the two parts of the brain work together to make the information go deeper into the

brain, so you remember it better.

So, when I say "print", this is okay, not good enough.

You want to do this.

This will even require, for many of you, a lot of time to master.

I just recently started doing it again, and it took me a few days after years of being

able to do it to get this consistent.

You have to focus.

So, this is interesting in case you think "He just made that up, it came from nowhere!"

Well actually, I made it up with a whole bunch of important people down in the United States.

In The New York Times article, it was April 30th, 2013, the College Board findings, now

the college board in the States deals with the universities, and what they found is that

they have a general test that they give to all the students to see if they should go

to university.

They call it the SATs, but you don't need to know that.

But it's just a general test through America that everyone does to go into university and,

depending on your score, you can go to a better and better school, and they found that the

people who actually wrote in cursive outperformed not by millions, but outperformed or did better

than the people who printed, and I'm not even talking about typing, they just noticed that

these guys did better than these guys.

It's the same information, it's just they did it differently and gave their brain an

opportunity to work a little harder, to learn a little more.

So, I'm suggesting for you that when you do notes, try to write in cursive.

Here's a little secret: once you get good at cursive, it's actually faster, because

you flow, so you can write more.