The A to Z English Podcast Topic Talk | What should I do when I get stuck?
In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Jack gives students three strategies they can use when they get stuck.
Transcript:
00:00:01
Jack
Welcome to the A to Z English podcast. My name is Jack and today I have a solo episode and today I'm doing a topic talk episode and the topic is what to do.
00:00:17
Jack
When you are stuck. OK, So what to do when you are stuck and what I mean by that is.
00:00:27
Jack
Whenever you try to learn something new, like if you're trying to learn the guitar, or if you're trying to learn a new language like learning English.
00:00:37
Jack
There's gonna be times where you get stuck. OK, we call this a plateau and a plateau is like a a flat surface, right. You go up, up, up and then you hit a a kind of ceiling.
00:00:54
Jack
And then you hit a plateau and you're you. You don't improve for a while. You get stuck, OK?
00:01:02
Jack
And I've got 3.
00:01:04
Jack
Strategies that you can employ when you when this happens to you during your English language journey.
00:01:13
Jack
And the very the first one is the first strategy that I would use if I were you and you're you're studying English, you're learning English, and then you just feel like you're stuck. You're not getting better.
00:01:28
Jack
Walk away. Take a break. OK? Just take a vacation.
00:01:33
Jack
Because sometimes you're just your your brain is overstimulated, right? You've just been studying, studying, studying and and going to online classes and and everything has just been your whole world is just English, English, English and you're so.
00:01:52
Jack
You're so focused on it.
00:01:56
Jack
That you're.
00:01:57
Jack
That you're you're overwhelmed. OK, you're you're overwhelmed and over stimulated. And that's actually not necessarily a good state to to be in if you wanna. If you want to improve.
00:02:10
Jack
In something when you want to improve in something, you want to be in a flow state, right? A flow state is where you're having fun. It's challenging, but it's not too easy and not too difficult. And when you're just overloaded with too many things and you're putting too much focus and too much pressure on yourself.
00:02:29
Jack
Then you you're actually not in a flow state, you're not in a good place to improve. So what I would do in that situation is just take a break, maybe two days, maybe 3 days, maybe a week, and just walk away from the whole thing and just be like I'm done, OK?
00:02:48
Jack
I used to be an athlete when I was in high school and college. I was a basketball player.
00:02:54
Jack
And The funny thing is, we would practice every day, but during the vacation, the Christmas vacation, we would have about five or seven days off, which is that's a long vacation for in the middle of a season, right? If you're if you're supposed to be playing, you know, every weekend, you don't really, you don't usually take.
00:03:14
Jack
Five days off in a row.
00:03:16
Jack
Though, but The funny thing is, is that what I noticed is that after 5 days of not playing basketball, when I came back I was able to jump much higher than I was before because my legs were not tired anymore. My legs had had had basically rested.
00:03:37
Jack
And they've got they got stronger, or at least they were more rested. So when I came back, I actually found that when I was jumping, I was able to dunk the basketball much easier than I was when I was playing every day.
00:03:54
Jack
And so that's kind of an interesting. An interesting thing is that when sometimes when you walk away, you get a little bit stronger because you start you, you start resting, your brain is resting, your mind is resting. And then when you come back, you're much sharper. So your English might actually be better. So sometimes taking a break and just walking away from something.
00:04:17
Jack
Is not a bad thing that can be a good thing.
00:04:21
Jack
#2 change up your strategies, so if you're focusing a lot on on conversation, do go to listening.
00:04:31
Jack
OK, just stop doing conversation and do something else. Do something completely different.
00:04:37
Jack
I also play the guitar as a hobby and my friend told me the strategy, he said. Sometimes when you're and in the guitar, people get stuck all the time, you know you get, you get to a certain point, a skill level, and then you just can't seem to break through to the next level.
00:04:57
Jack
My friend recommended to me, he said.
00:04:59
Jack
Sometimes when I get stuck, what I'll do is I will.
00:05:05
Jack
Put my guitar in a different tuning. So what that means changing the strings the sounds of the strings into like a different tuning and just play. You know, using a different tuning. It's like a whole other.
00:05:19
Jack
Basically like a whole different vocabulary of of of, of guitar music and.
00:05:28
Jack
And he says by do by by playing in a different tuning by tuning my guitar differently, I can just. I don't have to worry about chords and things like that because I can just.
00:05:40
Jack
Tune it into like an open chord, so where you just strum the guitar and it sounds.
00:05:44
Jack
Good. And and then you can just play around with different you know picking styles and and things like that. And so basically he just he'll change the whole the whole situation, the whole you know the whole.
00:06:01
Jack
Basically, uh, structure of the of the standard guitar playing to something.
00:06:08
Jack
Different and then play around there for like a week and then come back to the standard tuning and then he'll find that he's able to kind of improve a little bit because he had that break and now he comes back with a fresh mind, fresh eyes and a different set of skills. So if you're focusing on speaking and you feel like ohh.
00:06:30
Jack
Just my speaking is not getting any better. Don't do more speaking. Do something different. Go work on. You know pronunciation practice or go listen to some podcasts and improve your vocabulary. Read.
00:06:44
Jack
Something do something different than speaking.
00:06:50
Jack
OK. And or do something different than listening. You're like, oh, my, listening is not very good. OK, well, then, why don't you go and focus on something else, like reading or writing? So change it up whenever you get stuck.
00:07:03
Jack
Make a change and.
00:07:06
Jack
The last piece of advice that I have is sometimes when you get stuck, it's because either the material that you're studying is too difficult or it's too easy, OK.
00:07:26
Jack
And so sometimes we have to be careful about what we're, you know, like what we're, what we're using to to learn English, right. If if what you're doing is the same thing every day.
00:07:41
Jack
You're just doing like you know. For example, if you were to learn English and every day you just practice ABC's, you know, ABCDEFGHAK, I'm gonna pee if you just do that every day. Of course your English is never going to get any better because learning the alphabet is. It's too easy. You're not challenging.
00:08:01
Jack
Yourself. OK, but if you go and watch a YouTube Ted talk.
00:08:10
Jack
I don't know physics or something like that.
00:08:15
Jack
That's gonna be way too hard. The vocabulary in there is gonna be.
00:08:19
Jack
Incomprehensible to you and so you're not going to get any. You're not going to gain anything from watching that very difficult Ted talk. And you're not going to gain anything from practicing the ABC's either. OK. So as I mentioned earlier, what you want to do is put yourself in a flow state.
00:08:40
Jack
Where you're giving yourself material that is just slightly challenging.
00:08:47
Jack
OK, a little bit beyond your level, not too challenging, just so that it's, it's fun and challenging and not too easy and it should also be enjoyable. And if you're if you're having a good time.
00:09:00
Jack
You're not bored. You're being challenged. Not too, not too hard, but not too little. Not not too much, not too little. Just the right Goldilocks. We call it the Goldilocks space, the perfect, the perfect amount of difficulty.
00:09:18
Jack
Then in that case you're going to.
00:09:23
Jack
Show improvement. OK, so it's it's about getting into a flow state. OK, so number one, you can walk away from the.
00:09:30
Jack
Thing, just take a vacation. OK? Five days. I'm done. I don't want to even look at English for five days, and that's totally acceptable. #2, change up your strategy. Just work on something.
00:09:42
Jack
It's just a different one of the different skills. If you're doing a lot of reading, do listening. If you're doing listening, do do speaking. If you're doing speaking, do writing, OK, just switch it up. And if that doesn't?
00:09:55
Jack
Help #3 make sure that you're in a flow state. OK? You're being challenged by material that you think is interesting and fun. It's not too challenging, and it's not too easy, and so you could run those three tests and you know, or you could try all three strategies and see which one works.
00:10:15
Jack
Best for you, but there you go. There's some my advice when you get stuck.
00:10:21
Jack
On your English journey and you're not improving and you're not moving up, you can try one of those three things and see if that helps. And let me know, give me some feedback about this. This is did my advice actually help you? Send me an e-mail abcenglishpodcast.com leave a comment on our website.
00:10:42
Jack
A-Z englishpodcast.com. Sorry, our e-mail is A-Z English podcast at Gmail.
00:10:47
Jack
Dot com our website is A-Z englishpodcast.com. You can also join our WhatsApp group or WeChat Group and you can leave a comment in there and I will get.
00:10:59
Jack
Back to you.
00:11:00
Jack
And with that said, I will see you next time. Thanks everybody.
00:11:05
Jack
Bye bye bye.
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