Now, if someone asks you if you know the past tense, you’d say, “of
course.” But the truth is you haven’t mastered the past tense. You moved
through the material so quickly that you never learned it deeply, like a
native speaker. That’s why you still make mistakes with the past tense.
Even though you may have studied English for many years, you still make
mistakes because it’s not automatic. You haven’t learned it deeply.
Master the Fundamentals
To better understand deep learning, once again let’s look at the world of
sports. Imagine, for example, a professional golfer. How does a professional
golfer master the game and continue to improve?
The most important skill for a golfer to master is their swing. A
professional will practice their swing five hundred times a day or more,
every day. A good golfer never says, “OK, I already know how to swing, so
now I need to do something else.”
Golfers understand that the best way to master the game is to master a
few fundamental skills. They practice these same few skills hundreds of
times a day, for years and years — possibly for their entire lives.
Unfortunately, many English learners fail to understand the importance
of deep learning. In my English classes, I frequently spent a long time
repeating and reviewing the most common and most useful language.
Sometimes a student would complain. They would say, for example, “I
want to learn advanced grammar. I already know the past tense.”
Yet, in a casual conversation, this same student frequently made mistakes
with the past tense. He said “go” when he should have said “went.” He
didn’t understand the difference between knowledge and skill.
Remember, knowledge is something you analyze and think about. Skill is
something you do. Knowing the past tense is useless. You must be able to
use the past tense instantly and automatically in real conversations. You
need English skill, not English knowledge.
