A tree is a plant. It grows slowly. It grows carefully. It grows steadily. It can be big and can make lots of fruit. A tree is a good analogy of how to study English.
A weed is a plant, too, but it grows quickly. It grows randomly. It grows sporadically. It will always be small, and it dies quickly. A weed is not a good analogy of how to study English Hmm…
Our English could be either one, or a bit like both. When we have a long-term mindset with patience and diligence, we will slowly grow into a big, strong tree.
When we have only short-term results in mind, when we work really hard, not paying attention to where we are growing and how, when we give up in frustration after every difficulty, we are fast growing, fast dying weeds.
To be trees, we have to treat English like a tree. We need to be patient and careful, giving it what it needs when it needs it. There are three things that every tree needs: good soil, water, and sunlight. These three things will help us learn how to study English well.
Trees need good soil
A weed can grow on your roof. It can grow between rocks. It can grow in an old pile of trash. Weeds don’t care where they are planted or what kind of soil they get. They just carelessly grow wherever they feel like. Doesn’t that sound like us a lot of the time?
If you want to grow a tree, you have to be careful about giving it good soil. The soil in language learning is the language input –where we get English from.
There are so many places to get good language input from nowadays (Thanks internet! 😊): courses, online videos, conversations, graded readers, podcasts, the radio, unscripted TV shows, and more.
Some of these have intentional language teaching, which has been developed by experts; and some have natural language exposure, the way natives communicate on a day-to-day basis. These can be good soil, good fertilizer.
Sadly, there are also a lot of places to get bad language input from (Thanks internet! 😠): Most movies, scripted TV shows, songs, poetry, native dictionaries, newspapers, and more.
While you will be exposed to a lot of English through these, and they will help in some ways, the English used in these sources are unnatural and too advanced for English language learners. It’s not how people actually talk in real life! Understanding the meaning of these is simply too hard for the majority of non-natives, so it’s not the best method of how to study English.
These sources are like clay and rocks. They are interesting and good to natives, but not the best for non-natives. At least not until we reach advanced levels! We are better off with simpler and more natural sources.
Oh, and don’t forget about variety! Good soil has a variety of ingredients. Trees can’t grow well in sand. They need a lot of different types of nutrients in the dirt. If we only have one source of English input, we won’t be able to grow well.
You can be like me, seeking some sort of changeup every once in a while. It’s just like changing the soil in a plotted plant or fertilizing a tree! Or, you can balance a few sources at the same time.
Trees need water
Watering your tree is like studying. Trees use water to transport the nutrients from the roots up into the tree to grow. Water helps all of the growing processes. Your brain studies naturally, just like when it rains naturally, but most of us need some extra watering. If you are like me, a regular watering plan is really important.
I know lots of foreigners in both my home country and abroad that can’t speak the language of the country they are in! They have tons and tons of soil, but no effort to learn. They just don’t water their tree!
Be careful, though: over-watering can be very bad, too. The younger the tree, the worse over-watering can be. Studying too hard for too long can tire your brain out and prevent you from learning well. You can be overwhelmed, and the things you are trying to learn simply don’t stick. You try too hard and don’t grow. You drown your brain. I’ve seen so many students do this, and I’m still sad every time!
Weeds do really well for a short time in lots of water. They look great at first: “Wow look at this quick growth!” But they don’t last long. Soon they, too, stop growing and die.
Man, work so hard just to hurt yourself? I would never make that mistake! Oh wait…I’ve made that mistake many times over and over again…
Trees need sunlight
Sunlight gives the energy a tree needs to process nutrients and grow. This is motivation to us language learners. Internal AND external. Every type of tree is different in the sunlight it needs. Direct? Indirect? All day? Four hours a day? Seasonal? Year-round? This depends a lot on us as individuals.
Too much sunlight can dry out a tree. Too much external motivation, like the pressure of passing an exam next week or getting better English for a business trip, can be painful. It can cause burnout, frustration, and even demotivation! Sunlight 24/7 will kill any tree!
Having just the right amount of sunlight makes the difference. We need times of motivation, and times of rest. Times of pressure, and times of relaxation. Just like summer and winter, we need times of being pushed to improve, and time where nothing is pressuring us (including ourselves!). That is healthy for a tree.
You might not realize it, but fun and interest are types of sunlight. If English is too boring for us, we won’t have any motivation to grow. If it is too interesting and too fun, the water dries up and we don’t put in any effort to retain what we are exposed to.
It’s like watching colorful and funny vocabulary videos one right after the other. After watching 7 in a row while lying on my couch at home, I never remember anything I “learn”! It’s too much fun to watch the next video than to internalize the one I just saw! This is where “edutainment” (education + entertainment) can be a problem.
Soil + Water + Sunlight = Growth
If we manage these three things well, we will grow slowly and steadily into big, strong trees. A tree can survive times of cold, dryness, wetness, heat, bugs, and most other challenges. A weed can’t. One sunny week and the weed dries up. One cold winter and the weed freezes. One ugly insect and the weed’s stem can be eaten away (like that time your English speaking boyfriend broke up with you)!
Can we be trees? We can be if we teach ourselves to manage the language we are exposed to and the amount we are exposed to. We can be if we manage our study habits. We can be if we manage how much pressure and motivation we get. We can grow into life-long, fruit-bearing trees that are a pleasure to sit under, look at, and eat from. That’s how to study English right!
Who wouldn’t want that?
Practice the language you just read with these 4 activities!