How to Speak More Fluent English With Thought Chunking

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Hello and welcome to go natural English if you didn't already know

I'm your American English teacher Gabby Wallace here to help you with your English fluency and confidence and

especially in this lesson with your listening skills now if you improve your listening skills, you're

automatically going to improve your fluency because if you can hear something then you're more likely to be able to replicate it in your

Speaking so if you want to improve your English fluency and especially your listening skills then keep watching

Let's begin in your English class your teacher may have given you a long list of

individual vocabulary words to memorize

I know my teacher did in elementary school when we had to memorize vocabulary

words and middle school and then in high school in my Spanish language class and in

college in my Spanish language class and my French class and basically

Every language class I've ever had my teacher always gave me a list of

Individual vocabulary words to memorize and then I memorized them for the test

And I did pretty well on the test and then when I went to speak that language

With native speakers of the language whether it was Spanish or French?

I

Couldn't complete a full sentence all I could think of were individual words

So my fluency was really horrible of course this doesn't really apply to English because it's my native language

But with languages that I was learning like French and Spanish I was having a huge problem with

fluency and also with listening

I couldn't understand what native French speakers or Spanish speakers were saying it was extremely difficult to understand them

unless they spoke only in individual words yes, no one -

It doesn't work like that in real life most of the time unfortunately although sometimes. I got lucky and

People would speak in one-word sentences

However in real life. It's just not like that right

I think you know what I'm talking about so what I want to tell you about today is the opposites of

learning individual words

Learning multiple words together

two or three words

for example in the sentence

How is it going?

How is it going forwards?

But this is a phrase that's used so often that you should learn these four words

Together as one unit there's no need to memorize them separately you're going to get a lot

Farther in your English fluency if you memorize them together

How's it going? It even sounds like one word and this is called a chunk when you learn more than one word together

It's called chunking

Another example would be the answer to this question. How's it going good? Thanks?

Those are two words, but it's kind of a chunk because you say them so often together good

Thanks good. Thanks. It almost sounds like one word so I want us to take this a step further

Let's talk about

thought

chunking in longer sentences because

beginners learn individual words like good

Thanks, how

is

It's going

Intermediate learners will learn chunks like how's it going good?

Thanks, but advanced learners are going to learn how to create their own chunks in longer sentences

So these are called thought chunks. We're going to look at an example about how to identify

them and

how to produce them so identify them produce them and

Hear them and recognize what the important words are that you're hearing so this is going to improve your listening skills

By listening for chunks, and not just individual words

This is also going to improve your speaking skills because you're going to speak in a way. That's more intelligible more understandable to other

Native speakers and also more interesting

Using chunking is going to make you sound more

Interesting so keep watching, and I'm gonna show you how to do this with an example

Let's look at an example from one of the longest sentences in literature it has 96 words and it's one

Sentence so we're gonna take a look at how to identify thought chunks, and how to stress the word in the thought chunk

That is the most important one now when you're listening you want to listen

For the stressed words because those are the most important even if you don't

Hear the other smaller words that are less important

It's okay, because you're still gonna be able to understand the main idea and that's gonna help your listening skills a lot

Okay, so I'm gonna read this first without stressing and without making any thought chunks

And let's see how that goes and how easy that is to listen to and also how interesting it is here

We go as he crossed toward the pharmacy at the corner

he

involuntarily turned his head because of a burst of light that had ricocheted from his temple and saw with that quick smile with which we

Greet a rainbow or rose a blindingly white

parallelogram of sky being unloaded from the van a dresser with mirrors across

Which across as across the cinema screen passed a flawlessly clear reflection of Bo's sliding and swaying not our barley?

But with a human vacillation produced by the nature of those who were carrying the sky these bows as gliding facade

So that was pretty difficult to listen to you right, and I'm guessing you may have fallen asleep

Or you may have clicked over to another video, but if you're still here

thank you so much because now I'm gonna show you how to

chunk words together into thought chunks, and how to stress the most important words as

He crossed toward the pharmacy at the corner he

involuntarily

Turned his head

because of a burst of light

That had ricocheted from his temple and saw

with that quick smile with which we greet a rainbow or a rose a

blindingly white spiral Ella Graham of sky

Being unloaded from the van a dresser with mirrors across which as across a cinema screen

Passed a flawlessly clear reflection of bows

sliding and swaying not our Burley

but with a human vacillation

produced by the nature of those who were carrying this sky these bows this gliding facade so

I think you're gonna hear where we paused and which words were more stressed

That makes your speaking so much

clearer so much more interesting and easy to understand and

You should listen for stressed words to improve your listening to really catch the most

Important words to catch the main idea

And if you need clarification from there you can always ask a question

So I hope you enjoyed this quick lesson if you'd like to get some of my best

lessons directly into your email inbox

I invite you to join my free email group you can click right up there to sign up and it just takes about two seconds

So thanks so much for watching, and I hope to see you again in another lesson soon bye for now