Александр Чумаков – A Fantastic English Course. Change your mind, change your English, change your life (страница 5)

That’s it for now. See you next time and have a wonderful day!

Unit 2. “Grammar is a myth”

Hi there! This is Alex and this is our second lesson of our fantastic, wonderful and useful English course called “Change You Mind, Change Your English, Change Your Life”. Let’s begin.

In this lesson I am going to talk about Grammar: why we learn Grammar in schools, how we do it and what problems we usually face with and what results we have in trying to acquire a foreign language. And as you already know you can listen and read this lesson here or you can go to my YouTube channel and watch it there. By the way, here is the QR code that you can scan with your phone’s camera and watch it. It’s up to you to decide.

But if I were you would do both. I would watch the video and then I would read and I would listen to it.

So, let’s begin.

Hi, I am Alexander Chumakov: writer, teacher and speaker. I am also the author of Super English course – learn to speak English like a native. Welcome to another edition of my little EasyEnglish Show: where I teach you, I train you and I help you speak English easily, confidently and powerfully.

Today I am going to talk about one of the most burning, the most important and the most dramatic issues that every English learner faces with. It is Grammar. Let’s jump into the topic.

Grammar seems to be the most difficult, the most complicated and the most boring part in language acquisition.

Why?

Because of the way you have been taught English in schools. They make you believe that English grammar is a kind of marvelous box with a secret inside.

They often tell you, “If you want to know English Grammar, if you want to reveal the secret of the grammar box, one of the obvious ways to perceive it is to take it into pieces.”

Everybody knows that if you want to know how something is made, you unscrew the parts and you see that the secret is inside the box. (I call this box Pandora’s box).

And you listen to them and you (blindly) open that so-called – the box of grammar rules – Pandora’s box. Hoping that this is only way to boost up your speed of learning and speaking English.

But when you open it, you unscrew the box; suddenly it becomes even worse, because now you have no idea how to put all the parts together, when you want to make your own sentence. And eventually, it slows down your speaking a lot.

You try very hard many times, but you fail over and over and over again. Eventually, you become a Grammar agnostic. You come to the realization that grammar is just a myth; it is something that is untrue, something that is better left unsolved. You close Pandora’s box.

And what you do next? You simply start to listen to people a lot and you start to repeat what they say. In other words, you start learning English with your ears like children do.

With time it becomes easier and easier for you to figure out what you hear, and eventually you start to speak English without thinking about grammar rules like native speakers do.

I wish you good luck and every success. See you soon!

Okay, this is the end of this lesson for “Grammar is a myth” I mean you have watched the video or you have listened to it as a podcast. Now I am sure that you have a better understanding what I actually mean when I say that Grammar is a myth. But if you still have some difficulties understanding some words, don’t worry. I’ll explain them to you in the vocabulary lesson. Of course, you may agree with the ideas given here or you may disagree with them, it is your choice. But let’s not talk about it here. Let’s talk about it in the part of this set of lessons called “My Comments”, where I am going to philosophize about it. Okay. Watch this video as many times as you want to share it with your friends and help to learn they way how to learn Grammar better. That’s it for today.

Have a great day and see you soon.

The vocabulary lesson

Hello! This is Alex. Welcome to the vocabulary lesson for “Grammar is a myth” Let’s start right away.

Our first word for today is . You can see this word in one of my opening sentences and it says: “ issue Today I am going to talk about one of the most burning, the most important and the most dramatic that every English learner faces with.” issues

Okay, issue has a few meanings in English, but here issue means a topic of interest or discussion. So in the presentation I say that I am going to talk about one of the most burning which means crucial or very important topics or problem that every English learner faces with. Well, actually, not only every English leaner faces this problem, but also every language learner does face the same problem. When I say a language learner I am definitely talking about a person who learns a foreign language. So now you understand that issue means a topic of interest or a topic of discussion.

Next we have a phrase . In this article I say, “Language acquisition is a situation when you listen to the language or when you read in the language and you understand it. Another way to put it is that language acquisition is when you begin to get the language, and because you understand what you hear or read you begin to use it successfully. “You can only acquire the language when you understand the message,” as Steven Krashen, one of the best experts on language acquisition, likes to say. language acquisition Grammar seems to be the most difficult, the most complicated and the most boring part in .” language acquisition

Okay, another phrase in this presentation is . a kind of

I say, “They make you believe that English grammar is  marvelous box with a secret inside.” a kind of

 means something like this or that. So they (teachers, educators) want you to believe that English grammar is something like a marvelous, very beautiful, very amazing box with a secret inside. So again, (a) kind of means something like this, but it is not exactly this or that. It may look like this or that, but it is not exactly this or that. They make you believe that English grammar is a kind of marvelous box with a secret inside. It is a box, right! But it is not one hundred percent the same box. I think you get the idea, right!? (A) kind of

Next we have the phrase . For those who did my Unique English Course, which is, by the way, the bestselling book, it is not a new phrase, right? But if you didn’t do this course, don’t worry. I’ll explain it to you right now. The sentences says, “ reveal the secret They often tell you, “If you want to know English Grammar, if you want to  of the grammar box, one of the obvious ways to it is to ”. reveal the secret perceive take it into pieces

Oh, here are some more wonderful words in this marvelous sentence. Okay, I’ll explain them to you, just in a minute, but now let’s focus on the phrase to reveal the secret. To reveal a secret simply means to tell or to show a secret or to make known or public. So they often tell you, “If you want to know English Grammar, if you want to make known or disclose, or to show the secret of the grammar box, one of the obvious ways to perceive it is to take it into pieces.” simply means to realize or to see something that you didn’t see before. And the phrase means to break something down into parts or to separate something into smaller parts. To perceive to take something into pieces

So let’s put it all together and see what we have here.

They often tell you, “If you want to know English Grammar, if you want to  of the grammar box, to disclose the secret, one of the obvious ways, one of the natural ways to it is to separate grammar into smaller parts to ”. It is a long sentence, but we did it. reveal the secret perceive, to realize take it into pieces

Okay, we move on and we see the word . unscrew

The sentence says, “It is very easy to understand what it means, right? But anyway, let me talk just a little bit about it. means to remove a screw from an object. In our case, it is from the box. It has the same meaning like separate something by removing a screw. So the sentence says that if you want to know how something is made, you remove a screw or screws from the box. You separate the box into smaller parts and then you begin to see what the box has inside. You unscrew the parts and you see that the secret is inside the box. But you can only reveal the secret, you can only see the secret, if you unscrew the parts of the box. Everybody knows that if you want to know how something is made, you the parts and you see that the secret is inside the box.” unscrew Unscrew

Another phrase in this presentation is . to boost up

I say, “This is one of my favourite phrases in English. Why? Because to boost up means to increase or to improve or to make something better. By the way, one of my English courses is called “Boost up your English”. Okay, getting back to this sentence. So they (the teachers) do it hoping that this is the only way to increase, to improve your speed of learning, to boost up your speed of learning and speaking English by unscrewing the parts of the Grammar Box by separating the parts of the box. Hoping that this is the only way your speed of learning and speaking English.” to boost up