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.