Hi friends,

After a short trip back home to the UK, I'm delighted to be back with this week's newsletter.

As you'll see, I've started it with a brief summary of the main points contained in the email. Hopefully, that will help you decide which sections are most interesting/useful to you and read accordingly.

In this newsletter:-

Why reducing your expectations can help you learn more
Article of the week:- Learn how to identify and make use of the structure of an authentic text
Study tip of the week:- How a theoretical physicist can help you learn English vocabulary
Bonus vocabulary

1. Reducing your expectations

One idea I’ve come across recently is that by reducing our expectations we can achieve more.

When we have a specific goal, we often have very high expectations - running a 10k race, passing an English exam or losing 10kg. While these goals are all valuable, they can be very difficult to achieve, even intimidating. The thought of how much effort will be required to achieve that goal can put us off even trying. Instead, we may be better off lowering our expectations, just being content to study for 10 minutes or running 2k instead of 10k etc.

As I’ve written before, everything compounds; so just turning up to do something today is the most important thing, even though your ultimate goal may be to do more.

Here’s an example related to this week’s article of the week. It’s a 900 word article, which may be a challenge to you. However, do you really need to read it all? Of course not. You’ll benefit from reading just half of it and if lowering your expectation by 50% means you’re more likely to read something in English, so much the better!

So, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, expecting less of yourself may help you achieve more. If you have any success getting more done by expecting less, I’d love to hear about it. As always, please feel free to leave a comment below or email me at afarmerteach1@gmail.com.

2. Article of the week

Although the last article I shared was on the subject of climate change, I thought I’d share another one on the same theme due to all the current attention being paid to the weather in large parts of the northern hemisphere. It also focuses on two classic topics that come up in Cambridge exams:- climate change and work!

This particular article is a great example of how to structure a written composition. Just look at the section under the sub-title Working indoors and out. The first sentence tells you climate change will lead to two types of workplace-related change. The next paragraph describes the first type (outdoor workers) and suggests a solution (such employees will require more frequent breaks and later work times). It is followed up by a counter-argument to the solution (night-time temperatures are increasing faster than daytime temperatures).

Then the second category of workplace-related change is identified and the likely changes explained.

Here’s that structure again

State there are two types of problem
Identify the first problem and a solution.
Explain a problem with the identified solution.
Identify the second problem and the changes it will bring.

This is a structure you could easily apply to a written task in a Cambridge exam. Imagine you need to write a report on the activities of a film club over the last year. You might format your report this way:-

State there are two important developments you will discuss
Identify the first development and explain why it happened and what its consequence was (positive or negative)
Explain how you will prevent or exploit that first development.
Identify the second development and explain whether it was positive or negative for the club.

Although the context is different, can you see how the report basically follows the same structure as the article?

Being able to read authentic texts (articles, essays, reports etc) and identify the structure they follow will be enormously useful to you. If you can internalise some of these structures, you’ll be able to reproduce them in your own writing and make the process of writing so much easier.

3. Study tip of the week

Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist who was famous for being able to explain incredibly complex concepts clearly.

In fact, the ability to explain something complicated in a simple way, such that a 5-year old would understand it, is called the Feynman technique.

The reason this is important for you as an English-language learner is being able to explain complex topics simply is evidence that you understand the concept you’re explaining yourself. You cannot explain something clearly if you don’t understand it yourself.

Take the word “current” as an example.

You may know a current is the movement of a body of water, like a river, that moves an object in a particular direction. You could explain this concept with a definition like the one given above, or using a picture or video, or even demonstrate it in real-life. However you explain it, if you make sure it’s understandable to a child (or a well-educated adult depending on the word) you can be confident you understand it yourself.

So, the next time you learn a new piece of English vocabulary, try the Feynman technique. See if you can explain its meaning to your partner, friend or a family member and if you can, you’ll know you’ve understood it yourself.

4. Bonus vocabulary

Do you know the meaning of these words, used in this week's email?

intimidating: having a frightening or threatening effect
exploit: may use of something in either a positive or negative way (you'll know from the context if it's positive or negative).
counter-intuitive: something that has the opposite effect from the one you would expect
counter-argument: an argument that opposes a previously stated position.

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