Lesson video

Hi, my name is Miss Speakman, on lesson 14 of 14, of the Islamic beliefs and teachings unit.

Today's lessons about deliberate practise and this is a really good way of getting things stuck into our brains.

And I'll explain why and how in a moment.

So in this lesson, we'll be deliberately practising key words and quotations from the unit.

And I will also be a chance for specific explanations of the meaning of key words and the meaning of quotations.

Now, deliberate practise is a way of trying to get things into your longterm memory.

Every human being has a short term and longterm memory.

Our short term memory has limited capacity.

So for most people we can hold about one to three new pieces of information at a time.

The more we add, the more likely we are to forget something.

Our longterm memory though is said to be infinite, no matter who we are.

So the more we can do to get things into a longterm memory the better.

What works really well and get things into longterm memory is repetition, is doing practise, in which we call retrieval practise like testing, on what we've learned from perhaps previous lessons.

And also this repetition is a good way of getting things stuck in your brain.

Think about how you might learn song lyrics, for example, you know song of by heart because you've listened to it loads of times.

So what we're going to do is get started on learning some key quotations from the unit.

I think what really helps sometimes, is not just practising , learning those quotations by repeating them over and over again.

But by actually thinking about the meaning of them too, it would also explain, okay, this is what it means, this is what it's trying to say.

This links to different beliefs within Islam.

Cause that's a really good skill to be able to use in exams too.

Being able to take a quotation say this is what it means.

This is linking to this belief, etcetera.

This supports this idea is a really good thing to be able to do in exams. Before we get started, let's make sure that we've got everything.

So pen or pencil, piece of paper or an exercise book, and a different colour pen for corrections, and also making sure that we've got a nice, clear working space, we need no distractions please.

So TV, music off phone to one side if not using it for the lesson and also making sure you've got a nice quiet space to work the best way to get things into our long term memory is not having distractions, including noises, sounds, etcetera.

So it's a really good idea to try and find a nice, clear working space, if you can.

If you need to get yourself set up by getting any of those things or clearing a nice quiet space, then please pause the video now.

And then unpause when you're ready to start having a look at our quotations.

okay, let's get started then.

We're going to start off with five quotations first of all, it will be 10 in total in the lesson, we'll start off with five because you know, you need to start sort of with a small batch and then build it up over time.

There's no good like giving yourself 20 quotations to learn at a time cause it just won't work.

Even with people like me who have done RE for years and years and years, I would still need to take new stuff bit by bit and then build it up.

So as I said, we're going to start with five.

We're going to go through each one individually.

So what I'm going to do is tell the quotation that we once have come up in the lessons I have done previously Islamic beliefs and teachings.

And then I will explain what it means, and then we'll do some practise to get this stuck in our head.

So the first one is "Allah creates what he wills.

"Indeed, Allah is over all things competent." This verse essentially saying that Allah is the creator of all things.

When it says what he wills, this means what he wants.

So Allah creates what he wants.

So it's the idea that Allah is the creator of everything, everything within the universe, the whole universe itself.

This is also saying Allah is over all things competent.

It's interesting that Allah is in charge of everything.

Not only has he created everything, but he has power over everything.

He is omnipotent.

So two sort of main things we can take from that is Allah is omnipotent, Allah is the creator, which links in very nicely to the belief in Tawhid in Islam.

The idea that Allah is first, this idea that he creates everything is in charge of all actions.

It's also a good thing to use a predestination too, within Sunni Islam.

Being able to say Allah created all actions is therefore in charge of all actions.

Second quotations is "say, "He is Allah, who is one." Now this verse is very clearly saying that Muslims believe Allah is one God.

So again, with the idea of Tawhid, the Allah is completely whole, that he cannot be broken down into parts.

That Islam is a monotheistic religion.

Third quotation, "He neither begets nor is born, "nor is there to Him any equivalent." Begets means give birth to something.

So essentially saying here, he doesn't have any sons.

He doesn't give birth to anything Secretly doesn't have children nor he himself was born.

So essentially saying Allah wasn't created by anything.

He's eternal, he's always existed and always will.

And there's no equivalent to him.

There's nothing even comparable to him whatsoever.

Again, this works really, really well for Tawhid, essentially saying Allah is the one God He has no beginning has no end.

He doesn't have any partners.

There's nothing else that is even sort of equivalent to him.

And it's also used quite a lot to criticise the idea of Jesus being the son of God within Christianity.

Muslims do not believe that, that is the case.

They believe that Allah having son or having a child or having something equivalent to him would be wrong against the idea of Tawhid.

Fourth quotation, "His is the dominion "of the heavens and the earth." Dominion is idea of being in charge of something ruling over it.

Essentially, this is making very clear that Allah is in charge of everything, Heavens earth, that's the universe outside of the universe, everything in existence.

And in quotation five "And do good; "indeed, Allah loves the doers of good." essentially this is very clearly saying that you should be following the teachings of Allah, which can be found in the Qur'an because Allah love those who do good.

Those who do good deeds, who do good actions will be rewarded with paradise.

And what we're going to do, as I said is what I would say is deliberate practise is a really good technique which is very, very useful for getting things stuck in your head.

I've been teaching a long time now and I've seen it work plenty, plenty of times.

And it's something I would encourage my students to do all of the time when learning new things like quotations, keywords, etcetera.

And this is the look, cover, write, check, repeat method.

Now it works in quite a methodical way and it has to be done properly.

Otherwise it doesn't work.

I have seen countless students just copy out things five times each, by having it right in front of them, just copying it out and then say to me two weeks later, I don't remember any of my quotations.

And I say that's because you probably didn't do it as well as you could have done.

This has a specific method of doing it, which really works well.

So that is looking at it.

covering it over, then try write out from memory.

Recognising that you might not get it right.

So saying I've looked at it.

I've said it over to myself.

I've covered it over.

I'm writing it out.

I'm trying then.

So it's look, cover, write, check.

So you take your hand away or take whatever's covering that thing over, check it when you're checking it, you make corrections.

Because very likely you've got it wrong.

And that's fine because that is part of the process.

So you look, cover over, write out from memory, uncover, check, make corrections.

And then you repeat, look, cover, write, check, repeat, you keep doing that.

And then after a time you think actually I'm getting this now I recognise this.

I can write out.

I'm making a couple of mistakes here or there.

And it's a really, really good way of learning something off my heart, but it has to be done properly in that manner.

So actually physically covering it over then writing out and recognising there's probably going to be a couple of mistakes.

I'm probably going to get a couple of words in the wrong order, but that's why then check.

And I correct.

And I always say to my students, you shouldn't have a lovely page of like neat writing with no red pen and no sort of scribbled things out.

And then I know you haven't done the correct write check and repeat properly.

It should look a little bit messy.

It should be where you've crossfit out of things in.

And when I see that my students books, when they do it for me for homework, I'll say amazing.

I love how messy it is.

I can see you've been working.

I can see you've actually been writing it out, made mistakes.

That's great because that's how it best works.

So what we're going to do is do look, cover, write, check, repeat with the first five quotations, those five I've just described to you and explained, and then hopefully you'll find that it really starts to work in getting those things stuck in your head.

So shall we go and have a look at it? So as you can see here, I've got look, cover, write, check, repeat to write out these verses five times each.

So I want you to do look, cover, write, check, repeat until you've got each of these five times each you might find after that, you're still not quite there.

And that's absolutely fine.

This process would have to be done perhaps more than once to get these really stuck in your head.

But the most progress we can make today is by starting on it.

Look or write, check, repeat five times, pause video please.

And then when you've done this five times each, I'll then want you to unpause so that we can move on.

So you can see here, I've got the beginning of those five quotations.

What I would like you to do is to complete these verses, to test how well you can remember them.

I don't want you looking at what you wrote before for your look, cover, write, check, repeat.

I want this to be done from memory is okay if you don't get them all correct.

Because this process in itself will help you remember them.

If you're not quite there yet.

So pause the video please.

And then complete these verses to test how well you can remember them unpause when you're ready to check them.

Okay, If you can see the slide, I'm assuming that you already for corrections, please make sure you've got different coloured pen out ready for corrections.

If you're not quite finished unpause video, rewind and complete your verses, then come back to me.

When you are ready to go through corrections, let's have a look and see if he got them all correct.

So I should have "Allah creates what he wills.

"Indeed, Allah is over all things competent." I should have "say, "He's Allah, [who Is] one." "He neither begets nor his born, "nor is there to Him any equivalent." "His is the dominion of the heavens and the earth." "And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good." If for instance you haven't got some of the brackets, then that's not a problem in terms of you didn't remember to where to put brackets, but as need to be, try and be as accurate as possible, please make corrections where you need to.

So you pause the video, make corrections, and then unpause when you're ready to move on to set two of our quotations.

Well done.

If you've got those.

So pause now, corrections, unpause when you're ready.

Okay, We're ready for set two of our scripture verses I'm going to give you another five verses.

I'm going to explain them just as I did before.

Just so you know what the meanings of them are.

Then what we're going to do is do look, cover, write, check, repeat with them.

I'm going to test you on them.

See how you go along with them.

Then we'll be able to do some tasks that sort of link in quotations and beliefs.

So how can we explain what they show? So that's one "And Allah judges with truth.

Indeed Allah "He's the hearing, the seeing" now this essentially saying that Allah is always fair.

He is just, he never makes mistakes.

And so everything that has happened in their life, they know it's done fairly Allah is not being unfair towards them.

So they might then therefore accept everything that happens in their life.

It's also something we might link to the idea of free will and predestination within Shi'a Islam, Shi'a Muslims do not believe that Allah has predestined all actions or the way that Sunni Muslims do they believe Allah has given people complete free will.

And that therefore means that he can judge them fairly.

So Shi'a muslim society with Allah judges with truth.

He has willed that all people are completely free.

Second quotation "recite in the name of your Lord" is a specific verse, which talks about the revelation of the Qur'an to the prophet Muhammad reciting means saying something off by heart.

The word Qur'an itself means recitation.

And this is essentially referring to when Jibril asked Muhammad to read or to recite and Muhammad replied no, because he was illiterate.

And he said he couldn't read.

He was squeezed until he started feeling the words of the Qur'an, like being embedded into his heart.

So like the idea, he knew it off by heart and he was able to say, recite the words of the Qur'an.

Third quotation "And indeed, "Appointed over you are keepers, noble and recording.

"They know whatever you do." This is referring to the two angels Raqib and Atid.

Raqib sits on your right, Atid sits on your left recording good and bad deeds.

This idea that Muslims believe that appointed over every person, all these keepers, these noble recorders who've recorded every good and bad deed who know every single action that you will complete, that you are doing right Sit down.

It's this idea of recording.

Good and bad deeds but also intentions.

Intentions are important too.

This is referring specifically to these two angels, Raqib and Atid "Indeed, Allah will accomplish his purpose" is another verse, which is specifically referring to Allah will accomplish what he wants.

Everything that happens because Allah wants it to happen.

We can link this into predestination too.

Especially within Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims who believe that Allah has set a destiny, set a plan for humanity, writing down the free choices of every human being that he's seen when he's outside of space and time.

And that everything that happens is done because Allah wants it to happen.

He wills it to happen.

And lastly, we have "Indeed, those who believe and do righteous deeds "for them are the gardens of pleasure " is specifically saying those who believe in Allah, the idea of one God and his prophet who do good deeds following the Qur'an following the examples of the prophet.

They are the ones who rewarded with Jannah, which is paradise.

The word Jannah sometimes also means garden pleasure this idea of complete bless everything that they want they could get.

So we've got five more quotations at we're now going to use, look, cover, write, check, repeat again, to test how well we can remember these five verses and we're going to learn them hopefully off by heart so that when I test you, you be to say, I remember most of these, but it's also okay as I said to not remember them all, even after taking cover, check, repeat, it does take quite a lot of practise and you will need to do this more than once, rather than just this lesson to make sure that they stuck in your head long term.

For example, if I wasn't to go over these verses for months and months, I probably would forget them because that's just the way our brains work.

We have to keep working out them.

So as to stick them in our heads.

So let's start with look and write, check, repeat with our next set versus so use look, cover, write, check, Repeat to write at least five versus five times each, please just like you've done before.

So pause the video please.

Unpause when you are ready because you have finished your look and write, check, repeat.

So we're going to pause the video on the next slide to complete the task.

This is where I'm now going to test you on whether or not you can remember the verses.

We have just been doing look, cover, write, check, repeat with.

So I've got here the beginning of each of those verses "and Allah.

." "recite in.

." "and indeed Appointed.

." "indeed Allah.

." and "indeed those who.

." so what I'd like from you please, is to pause the video.

See if you can finish off these sentences of these verses.

Hopefully you can remember them all, but if you can't that's fine.

That's part of the process.

So pause now have a go unpause when you're ready for corrections.

If you can see this slide, I'm assuming you are ready for corrections, please make sure you've got a different coloured pen out ready for your corrections.

If you're not quite finished, rewind the video and then have another go.

And then unpause, go forward and then unpause that we're ready for our corrections.

So I should have, "And Allah judges with truth.

Indeed, Allah - "He's the hearing and the seeing." "Recite in the name of your Lord" "And indeed, "appointed over your keepers, "Noble and recording.

They know whatever you do." "Indeed, Allah will accomplish His purpose" and "indeed those who believe and do righteous deeds - "for them, all the gardens of pleasure," but on if you've got all of those.

But it's absolutely okay if you didn't.

What I like to do is pause the video now for me, make those corrections and then on pause when you're ready to move on.

So a really good way of being able to show that you know, not only the quotation, but what it means is by doing what we call like explaining how these quotations linked to the following beliefs.

So what I'd like you to do is to copy out each of these verses, but then also finish off these sentence starters.

So for example, you would write Allah creates what he wills.

Indeed, Allah is over all things competent.

This links to Tawhid, because then you'd explain how that verse links to Tawhid or to think back on the explanations I gave.

And if you're on a little bit unsure, you can rewind the video and go back to when I explained to those quotations, as you might then find that helps you.

When you write your explanation, this is the sort of thing you'd want to see in an exam.

When you're giving a quotation, then explaining it.

Whether it's in one of those questions are specifically for scripture or sacred writings, all of those evaluate and discuss questions.

Once you go through these five, then tell me, how does this link to a specific belief which I've asked you for here It's got three on Tawhid, one on what the shows about Allah's nature and one, which is saying what Muslims should do because of that quotation.

So I'm going to have a go please by pausing the video now, and then resume once you are finished and then ready to look at corrections.

Okay So if you can see this slide, I'm assuming then you are ready for corrections.

So please make sure you've got a different colour pen out, ready for your corrections.

And we'll go through the answers.

If you're not quite ready, then you can pause the video, rewind and then carry on.

But then I want us to come back here ready for corrections.

So let's have a look.

So this links to Tawhid, because if Allah is first, then he's creator, as creator he's transcendent and is therefore indefinable.

The second one links to Tawhid Cause if Allah is whole, then he cannot be broken down into parts.

This means he's one.

This links to Tawhid because of Allah is eternal, he's greatest, there's nothing else like him.

The fourth one shows that Allah is the creator of all things and is in charge of everything.

And the last one shows that Muslims should follow the Qur'an in its teachings, as there from Allah.

Well done if you've got all of those correct, if you didn't, that's absolutely fine.

It does take practise to be able to explain exactly how a verse shows their belief.

If you need to make any corrections, can you please pause the video now and write down those corrections? And then we're going to do the same with set two of our verses.

So here is set two of your verses.

I want you to link each of them.

It's even a very specific way to certain beliefs.

So you've got the five verses there on the left.

I went to write those out, then write out the sentence starters, this links to freewill this links to angels, this links to angels, this links to predestination.

This shows that Muslim should.

So again, or to copy out the verses, copy out the sentence starters, but then also finish it off.

If you need to go back by looking at the video for when I explained them, then feel free to do that, but give it your best go.

Cause this is really good skills trying and build up.

So good luck with doing those pause now for me please, if you can see this slide, then I'm assuming that you're ready for corrections again so please make sure you get different coloured pen out ready for corrections.

And as I said, it's absolutely fine.

If you need to make corrections, that's all a part of learning.

So the first one links to free will because Shi'a Muslims believe for Allah to judge fairly humans must be completely free.

The second one links to angels because the angel Jibril tells Muhammad to recite the words of the Qur'an.

The third one links to angels because the angels Raqib and Atid record, the good and bad deeds of every person, the fourth one links to predestination because as he's in charge of all things, including actions, everything happens because he willed it and question of the fifth quotation shows that Muslims should follow the Qur'an and its teachings as they from Allah and if they do they will go to Jannah.

So again, if you need to make any corrections, please make sure that you do that now by pausing the video.

And then when you are ready, we're going to unpause.

And then we're going to test ourselves again on those verses.

Cause that's a really good way of making sure that we have got them.

Okay.

What I'm going to do is I'm now going to test you on these verses.

Usually in some of my lessons, I might do what I called quickfire question, which is where I give you a question, there are two options.

I give you three seconds to spend, say out loud or pointed at the screen, I'm going to do something similar, but it's going to be slightly different because these quotations take us a little bit longer to say, or to point out, etcetera.

And also I know that it will be slightly different because I'm also not asking you to choose between two things.

I'm asking you in this case to finish off the quotation, what I'm going to do is give you the beginning of a quotation then without saying anything.

So that we are not getting in the way of you thinking I'm going to give you a countdown from 10 using my hands.

Hopefully I can coordinate that.

And then afterwards, I'm going to then expect, I'm going to give you the answer, but I'm expecting you to be saying the quotation out loud or writing it down if you can work super quickly.

But I think it's a really good way to, if we're able to verbalise them too actually, then that's a really good, another way of helping you to learn something else by heart.

So are you ready? I've got "Allah creates what.

." time's up.

"Allah creates what he wills.

Indeed, "Allah is over things competent." Well done if you've got that.

If you finding this perhaps a little bit too long, sorry too quick, then feel free to pause me instead of waiting for my countdown.

But if you're quite enjoying the countdown looks this is a nice challenge, then feel free to carry on with my little countdown.

Okay, next one.

"Say, He is.

." hopefully that was an easier one.

"Say, "He is Allah, Who Is one " well done, if you got that, "He neither begets.

." Time's up "He neither the begets nor is born, "nor there to Him any equivalent" next one.

"His is the.

." time's up.

"His is the dominion of the heavens and the earth" ready for the next one "And do good.

." times up.

"And do good; Indeed, Allah loves the doers of good." How are you doing so far? I think you're doing really well.

I can't hear you, but I know that you're doing well.

"And Allah judges.

." time's up.

"And Allah judges with truth.

"Indeed, Allah is the hearing, the seeing." Ready for the next one.

I know you are "recite in.

." time's up.

Hopefully it was an easier one.

"Recite in the name of your Lord." Next one.

"And indeed appointed over.

." Time's up.

"And indeed appointed over you are keepers, "noble and recording.

"They know whatever you do." That's a bit of a longer one.

So hopefully if you've got some of that, that's definitely a start, Isn't it But if you've got all of it, well done.

"Indeed, Allah will.

." Time's up.

"Indeed, Allah will accomplish his purpose." Quite a lot of them have the word indeed in them.

Don't mess You might get a little bit confused in that, but well done if you're keeping up so far, "indeed, those who believe.

." it's our last one.

Time's up.

"Indeed, those who believe and do righteous deed, "for them are the gardens of pleasure." How did you do? I think regardless of how many you got, that is a really good way of practising so well done.

If you were doing that, and keeping up with me at the very least, if you can remember parts of it too, that is so much better than think of the beginning of the lesson when you didn't know any of those before off by heart.

So either way you can say, well done me.

I'm doing a lot better than I was at the beginning.

And that is a step and also Wells on of course, because there's probably a lot of repetition in there and you're probably thinking, I don't want to see these again, but believe me it really does work, in helping you remember things longterm.

I wouldn't do it to you if I didn't think it was successful and really good and a really amazing way of getting things stuck in your head.

It's what I would do personally, when I'm learning brand new things.

And I want to pass on that knowledge to you because I know how helpful it is.

So what I'll say a huge thank you because I know of this course it's not like learning new material.

You probably not sitting there being like, Oh wow, what's Miss Speakman going to teach me today.

This is a case of me doing something with you, which sometimes can be a little bit monotonous, but you'd need to realise how important is sometimes the things that work best for us, aren't always the most super interesting.

I enjoy doing it cause I always like the feeling I get afterwards when I'm like, Oh, I know more than I did before.

So you can give yourself a huge Pat on the back cause at the very least, you know that you know, more than you did when you started off.

And that's what learning is.

Learning is making progress.

Even if you think I'm not going to remember all 10 of those off by heart straight away.

Nope.

I would be super surprised if you did you know, in a week's time you want to test yourself again on there or do this lesson again and think actually, yeah, this is easier the second time around.

So again, huge, huge, thank you for working so hard.

Cause it is a lot of hard work doing this and it probably made your brain hurt a little bit, but if it makes your brain hurt, then I know it's working.

I hope to see you again soon.

I hope you've enjoyed Islamic beliefs and teachings unit.

If you are interested you think, Oh, I really want to see Miss Speakman again.

I will also be delivering the lessons for the crime and punishment unit and also the human rights lessons.

So if you think, Oh, I don't want to see Miss Speakman again, or maybe think I want to avoid Miss Speakman.

Then there's the two units I would also be doing.

I've really been enjoying doing Islamic beliefs and teachings unit, and I hope that you've enjoyed and found it really useful.

So thank you.

So you later.