Practice English Speaking&Listening with: How to Write a Lot? (Or: How to Learn a Lot of English).

- In this video, I'm gonna teach you

what a book about academic writing

can teach you about speaking

better English.

Fast.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

I'm Julian Northbrook from DoingEnglish.com

here with another quick two-minute

English learning tip.

Two minutes on the timer.

Hit.

One of the most influential books

that I have read over the years,

influential for me as a person that is,

is the book "How to Write a Lot"

by Paul Silvia.

Now, this is a book about academic writing.

It's for academics who need to do

a shit load of writing

to get ahead of the game

and publish research and,

well, keep their jobs basically

because if you're in the cutthroat world of academia,

it's basically what you've gotta be doing

to survive, it's doing good research

and getting it published.

Now, this book, however, is useful for anybody

doing any kind of writing,

or really the first couple of chapters

is useful for anybody trying

to get anything done.

Essentially the premise behind the book,

and I'm just gonna give away the key point here,

I don't think the author would mind,

is that if you're an academic,

in the world of academia,

you must publish

or perish.

Therefore, one of the most important things

that you do, day in day out,

is writing.

However, many academics will prioritise

everything else before writing.

And they will just leave the writing

and procrastinate on it

and research will pile up

and it will never get written

and never get published.

This is a huge mistake.

Because the one thing that defines

your success in this career

is the quality of your writing

and the frequency at which

you are putting it out into the world.

Therefore, you have to give that priority.

The author, Paul Silvia, says

that you have to actually

treat the writing as a part of your job,

just as important, if not more important,

than the other things you may do.

Whether it is teaching

or the actual research, or,

you get the idea.

Put it in your calendar, he says,

schedule it and keep to that schedule.

Treat your writing time as sacred,

fixed time, time that cannot be changed.

It is inflexible and nobody,

nobody has the right

to ask you to change it.

People will come along, he says,

and tell you, "But it's just your writing time.

"Can't you help me with this now?

"Can't you do this now?

"Can't we have a meeting at this time?"

But you've got to be strong and say,

"No, my writing time is my writing time."

After all, the author argues,

they wouldn't say the same thing

about, say, teaching time,

or if you had another meeting.

So why is it suddenly that writing time,

the most important task you have as an academic,

is supposed to be flexible

and easily cancelable?

It's not, he says,

and you shouldn't treat it as such.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

But exactly the same principle

can and should be applied

to your English learning.

Look.

If you are in a position

where you use English day in day out,

whether in your work or in your business,

or because you live in an English-speaking country,

i.e. you're the kind of person

who this very channel is for,

then improving your English

should be given top priority.

Because if your English is a barrier

to you doing the things that you want to do

effectively, successfully, at a high level,

then you've got to fix that problem ASAP

because you're just wasting time

and effort and resources otherwise.

Get a calendar.

Schedule your study time in your calendar

and stick to it.

Treat it as sacred.

Don't let anybody else tell you,

"Oh, it's just your English learning time.

"Surely you can do that some other time."

No, you can't.

If it's in your calendar,

you're bloody well gonna do it.

Get your calendar, schedule your time

right here right now.

If you're not too sure how to start

and what to do first, aha,

I've got something good for you.

Head over to DoingEnglish.com/FreeTraining

and in your next schedule period

of English learning time,

sit down and consume the training.

You will learn the five key changes

that you need to make to see rapid progress

for your English speaking.

Alternatively, if you've already watched that,

or you are simply ready

to just take your English to the next level

right here right now, head over

to DoingEnglish.com/Talk

and book a free call with me

to talk about how I may be able to help you

transform your English speaking

and use it to do amazing things

in the real world.

This is me, Julian Northbrook,

signing out from another video.

If you found this useful, give it a thumbs-up.

If you hated it, give it a thumbs-up anyway.

And I'll see you, my friend, in the next video.

Buh bye!

(bright music)