- Is watching films a good way
to improve your English speaking?
Yo, yo, yo, I'm Julian Northbrook from doingenglish.com
here to help you the intermediate
with less stress, less hassle and fewer
Can watching films and I guess TV as well
be a good way to improve your English speaking?
Now, I've got a short answer to this
The short answer is really honestly,
just sitting back and passively watching the telly,
whether it be films or TV or indeed really any kind
of passive exposure to English
as an intermediate to advanced English learner
isn't gonna be particularly helpful
for your productive English skills,
Now, you might improve your comprehension a little bit
although the higher your level already is,
the less of that you'll do as well
simply because when you reach the intermediate stage
you already know a lot of English,
that you can watch and understand.
I mean, you're watching a video in English now
Well, there are gonna be things
but your brain does a pretty damn good job
It sees my facial expressions,
my wild, over-the-top gestures
so even if you don't know half of the English
well, it doesn't really matter
because your brain fills it all in
and again, you might know all the words
how to combine those words yourself.
Well, you are unlikely to simply just notice all of that
Simply put, what you did as a beginner,
in the language stream coming at you
out of the film, out of the TV, whatever it is
and you're more likely to just pick stuff up
but what you did as a beginner
and what you need to do as an intermediate
to advanced English learner, completely different.
that films and TV can't be a good source of input,
a good source of language to study actively,
that is a good material to use.
On the contrary, films can be a great material
to use and to study to learn the language
that you need, put it in your head
Is it the most effective kind of material
as materials designed for the intermediate
No, definitely not.
And check this video for a detailed discussion
on that where I compare real, authentic materials
with materials that have been designed
and optimised for people just like you,
Certainly in terms of time and effectiveness,
materials designed for people just like you
as long as they're designed well
are gonna be much, much better
than films or TV which are not optimised at all
and are really designed for consumption
Again, watch this video for a detailed discussion on that.
Now, for the slightly longer answer.
like I'm completely contradicting myself here,
watching films and TV can be an excellent way
to improve your English speaking.
it sounds like I just told you
two completely different opposite things.
But what we are talking about here
is not the language or the learning
No, we're talking about something else
that you need for your English speaking.
The K of what I call the LKC triangle.
This idea that you need three things
to speak English really, really well.
You need the language, of course,
if you don't have the phrases and the expressions,
the chunks of language that you need
to express the things that you want to communicate,
but that in and of itself is not enough.
You also need the K of the LKC triangle
and this is really what we're gonna be talking about
Knowledge, background knowledge
of the things you want to talk about.
Content, interesting stuff to talk about.
well, having the words and expressions
that you need aren't gonna help you
because you've still got nothing interesting to say.
Many people are concerned because they sound boring
when they speak English and yes, the language part
there are interesting ways to construct
the sentences and the phrases and the expressions
if you are boring, if you've got nothing to talk about.
And that is a topic for another day
but films and TV can be an excellent source
of interesting conversation topics
and yes, I know this might sound obvious
'cause we're gonna go a little deeper into this.
Doing English as an example here.
Several years ago when I first decided
to quit my job and make Doing English my full-time job
that was several years ago now,
Doing English or rather I should say my company,
Northbrook Limited is now a full-blown company,
and things are a little bit different now
sitting here while in this same
little home office working away
Years and years and years of corporate conditioning,
working for bosses who frankly,
didn't have a clue what they were doing
in various places, you know what it's like being employed
that I had to be super productive all the time
and productivity meant work, work, work, work, work, work,
so I'd always be there at my computer
doing that and generally making myself quite, quite tired.
What I never did though because I believed this
was not something that should be a part
was to just sit down and watch TV.
I mean, that's something that you do
that watching films is actually one
of the most productive things that I can do
in the office working is actually not spent writing
or planning the EES lessons or whatever it is
that I'm doing that is more traditional work
on my sofa which you can't see
I make a habit of watching at least three films a week.
At one time, I made a habit of watching a film
When I can do that, I still like to do it
but recently, I've gotta be honest,
despite it being my most productive thing
that I can do and I've had to prioritise other things
and running kids back and forth to basketball practise
and all that stuff in the evenings.
Now, the point is and the reason I'm telling you this
and the reason that watching films is so productive
for me is because I am in the business
of teaching content essentially.
Whether it's one of these YouTube videos,
one of the Extraordinary English Speakers' lessons,
one of my books, one of the other courses
that I make, Two Steps Speaking, for example,
I am in the business of taking
that you need to learn and understand
we learn better when we are interested,
when we're enjoying something,
when we're entertained, when we're having fun
but also, easy and concise to understand
and what is one of the best ways to explain
and deliver difficult abstract concepts?
a lot of the things that I teach
are quite difficult, abstract concepts.
Well, story is one of the best ways to do that.
Interesting stories, anecdotes, metaphors, examples.
Take this month's issue of the EES Gazette, for example.
I don't have one here to show you
'cause it's at the printers and it hasn't come yet
and of losing a lot of the mental baggage
Well, at some point we've gotta throw
and in this month's issue of the EES Gazette
but it's emotionally very, very difficult
I took a scene from the film, The Martian,
and used that as a metaphor to explain the whole thing.
Result, we've got this very difficult,
emotionally hard, abstract concept explained
in a very concrete, very easy-to-understand
In my book, Master English Fast,
I use a scene from the film Captain America, Civil War
to explain how to learn and improve your grammar
as an intermediate to advanced English learner.
Fearless Fluency, I use a scene
from Nancy Meyers' film, The Intern
to explain the concept of inner confidence,
quite abstract and can be quite uncomfortable.
Well, by taking this scene from this film
it's very easy to explain exactly
and what it means to you as an English learner.
I've used the film The Karate Kid
as a metaphor for learning English
and written an entire email series about it.
I've written daily emails about scenes
Sliding Doors, Jurassic World,
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
but the point is a big, huge part
is the communication of content,
interesting concepts, ideas, stories,
and just learning the language,
just the words and the phrases and the expressions,
although they are essential and yes,
the way that we speak has a big impact
and we've got nothing to talk about,
well, it doesn't really matter
how good the language skills that we've got are,
And honestly, having interesting stuff to talk about
to the question how useful is watching films
for improving your English speaking,
my answer is very, very, very useful,
just not necessarily in the way
the phrases and expressions of English,
yes, films can make for good materials
but no, they're really not the most effective materials
that you can get for improving your English speaking.
People like me who design materials
for intermediate to advanced English learners
can produce something much, much better
and much more effective for you.
Check out my Extraordinary English Speakers programme
if you are interested in that.
or head over to estraordinaryenglishspeakers.com.
But in terms of having interesting content in your head,
well, books, fiction, really any kind of story
Get into the habit of watching more films.
Yeah, you might pick up a few little bits
and pieces, it might help you to improve
your listening comprehension a little bit.
Personally, I would recommend against only doing that.
You need to supplement those films
and things with some actual proper language learning
at actually speaking productively
but in terms of getting that interesting content
Whoa, that turned into a bit of a long rant, didn't it?
If you wanna speak English really, really well,
remember, you need these three things.
The language, knowledge and culture.
We'll talk more about the culture bit another time
and well, we'll talk about all these things
What film would you recommend that I watch?
that other people watch and why?
I'm looking forward to seeing your responses.
to improve your language skills,
learn the English that you need, stick it in your head
and then practise it and get really, really good at it,
my Extraordinary English Speakers programme.
or head over to extraordinaryenglishspeakers.com.
This is me, Julian Northbrook,
about your whatever film it is that you recommend.
If you're new to this channel, subscribe,
If you hated it, fuck knows why you watched
but hey, give it a thumbs down anyway
same time, same place tomorrow
in another daily video from me Julian Northbrook.
if you enjoyed this video and found it useful,
you're definitely wanna check out his one
where I talk about real, authentic learning materials
versus materials designed for English learners
where I talk about a little experiment