The key to speak and
listen english better
Friday, 22. May 2009, 19:45
The best guide I want to give
you who love English!
My name is A. J. Hoge. I have a Masters degree in Teaching English
(TESOL) and over 12 years teaching experience. During the past 12 years, I have
used Effortless English to help many students speak English– easily. I have
successfully taught students to speak English at Universities in The United
States (Lanier Technical
College ), Thailand
(Thammasat University ),
and Japan (Hirodai University
What is the most important English skill? What skill must you have to
communicate well?
Obviously, number 1 is Fluency. What is fluency? Fluency is the ability to
speak (and understand)
English quickly and easily... WITHOUT translation. Fluency means you can talk
easily with native speakers-- they easily understand you, and you easily
understand them. In fact, you speak and understand instantly.
Fluency is your most important English goal.
The research is clear-- there is only ONE way to get fluency. You do not get
fluency by reading text-books. You do not get fluency by going to English
schools. You do not get fluency by studying grammar rules.
* Listening Is The
Key:
To get English fluency, you must have a lot of understandable repetitive
listening. That is the ONLY way. To be a FANTASTIC English speaker, you must
learn English with your ears, not with your eyes. In other words, you must
listen. Your ears are the key to excellent speaking. What kind of listening is
best? Well, it must be understandable and must be repetitive. Both of
those words are important-- Understandable and Repetitive. If you don't
understand, you learn nothing. You will not improve. That's why listening to
English TVdoes not help you. You don't understand most of it. It is too
difficult. It is too fast. Its obvious right? If you do not understand, you
will not improve. So, the best listening material is EASY. That’s right, you
should listen mostly to easy English. Most students listen to English that is
much too difficult. They don’t understand enough, and so they learn slowly.
Listen to easier English, and your speaking will improve faster! Understanding
is Only Half The Formula. Understanding is not enough. You must also have a lot
of repetition. If you hear a new word only once, you will soon forget it. If
you hear it 5 times, you will still probably forget it! You must hear new words
and new grammar many times before you will understand them instantly.
How many times is necessary? Most people must hear a new word 30 times to
remember it forever.
To know a word and instantly understand it, you probably need to hear it 50-100
times!
* The Key To
Excellent Speaking:
That's why I tell my students to listen to all of my lessons many times. I tell
them to listen to the Mini-Stories, the Vocab Lessons, The Point-of-View
Stories, and the Audio articles everyday. I recommend that they listen to each
lesson a total of 30 times (for example, 2 times a day for two weeks).
So, the two most important points are: listen to easier English and listen to
each thing many times. Suggestions For Powerful Listening and Excellent
Speaking:
1. Practice “Narrow Listening”:
“Narrow listening” means listening to many things about the same topic. This
method is more pow-erful than trying to listen to many different kinds of
things. Students who listen to similar things learn faster and speak better
than students who listen to different kinds of things.
For example, you can choose one speaker and find many things by him.
Listen to all of his pod-casts, audio books, and speeches. This is powerful
because all speakers have favorite vocabulary and grammar. They naturally
repeat these many times. By listening to many things by the same person, you
automatically get a lot of vocabulary repetition. You learn faster and deeper!
Another example is to choose one topic to focus on. For example, you could read
an easy book, listen to the same audio book, listen to a podcast about the
book, and watch the movie. I did this with my class in San Francisco
2. Divide Your Listening Time:
Which is better to listen for two hours without a break, or to divide that
time during the day? Well, dividing your listening time is best. By
dividing your time throughout the day, you remember more and learn faster. So
its much better to listen 30 minutes in the morning, then 30 minutes in the car
or train, then 30 minutes coming home from work, then 30 minutes before sleep.
In fact, this is the exact schedule I recommend to my students!
3. Use an iPod or MP3 Player:
iPods are fantastic. You can put a big listening library on one. Then you can
carry your English lessons everywhere. You can learn English while walking,
while shopping, in the car, in a train, while cooking,.......
With an iPod or MP3 player, you don’t have to worry about CDs. Also, you can
find a lot of English listening on the internet. You can find lessons, stories,
podcasts, TV shows, interviews, and audio books. Simply download the audio, put
it on your iPod.. and learn English anywhere!
4. Listen To Movies:
Movies are great for learning English BUT you must use them correctly. Don’t
watch all of an English movie. You will not understand it, and therefore you
will not learn anything. Only watch one scene or segment per week (maybe 2-3
minutes). Follow this method:
a) First, watch the scene with subtitles in your language. This will help you
understand the general meaning.
b) Second, watch the scene with English subtitles. Pause. Use a dictionary to
find new words you don’t understand. Write the new sentences in a notebook.
c) Listen to the scene a few times, with English subtitles. Do not pause.
d) Listen to the scene a few times, without subtitles.
e) Repeat a) - d) everyday for one week. On the second week, go to the next
scene/segment and repeat again. It will take you a long time to finish a movie.
That’s OK, because you will improve your listening and speaking VERY FAST. This
method is powerful-- use it!
5. Read and Listen at the Same Time Listening and Reading together are very
powerful. While you listen to something, also read it. This will improve
your pronunciation. Reading
6. 6 Months To Excellent English Speaking
Follow the above suggestions (and the 7 Rules in my email course) and you will
speak excellent
English.
Review The 7 Rules. Listen to all of the emails 1 time (each) today:
1. Learn Phrases
2. Don't Study Grammar
3. Focus On Listening
4. Learn Deeply (Repeat A Lot )
5. Use Point of View Stories
6. Use Only Real English Materials
7. Use Listen & Answer Stories
I have been teaching over 10 years. Every student who follows these methods
succeeds. Always!
The Effortless English method is the key to speaking excellent English. It is
the key to fluency.
You only need 6 months-- 6 months and you will speak easily to native speakers.
6 months and
you will speak quickly and naturally. 6 months and you feel relaxed when you
speak English.
You have tried the old ways. You tried textbooks. You tried schools. You tried
grammar study.
It is time to try something new!
Good luck. I wish you success with your English learning!
A.J. Hoge
Director
Effortless English LLC
Effortless English
Effortless English uses the best research in the world, from top experts such
as: Dr. Stephen Krashen, Dr. James Asher, Dr. J.Marvin Brown, Dr. Ashley
Hastings, Dr. Brenda Murphy, David Long and Blaine Ray. The research is clear--
students who use Effortless English are better speakers than students who use
textbooks, grammar, and self-study only. In every country, in every possible
situation, students who learn with Effortless English methods always win
against students who use old methods.
The course give you:
* The incredible way you Learn Vocabulary and Grammar Without Study: Listen
& Answer Mini-Stories. Learn English automatically, with absolutely no
“study” or memorizing.
* The Deep Learning method that helps you use English automatically. Remember
English words and grammar forever– and use them automatically. Feel great about
your speaking ability.
* The way you learn English in a relaxing way by listening to real English
articles about interesting topics. Imagine thinking, smiling, and laughing
while learning.
* The way you avoid grammar study and instead learn grammar like children–
naturally. This is it, the main method of all my lessons. Why?
+ In fact, its because they don’t study grammar and they don’t learn from
textbooks. They use very specific methods and “rules” for learning. I call
these the 7 Rules of Effortless English, and you probably already know them
from my email course. I used these rules to create a powerful collection of
English lessons.
+ What if you could learn excellent pronunciation, a large vocabulary, and
automatic grammar– easily– would you be excited?
+ If I told you that English grammar is actually easy to learn when you use the
correct system, would you feel happier about learning English?
+ Well, its true. English grammar is easy, but only if you learn it correctly.
And the correct way is not studying grammar rules.
+ You must use the Effortless English method.
+ You must learn grammar intuitively. You must learn grammar subconsciously.
You must learn grammar naturally.
* How my best students learn, how they study,– and how you can learn English
faster too. To be successful, copy the most successful people. Learn how you
can study like the best.
* How you raise your iBT TOEFL speaking and listening scores 20%, 30%, or even
40%. The new TOEFL test requires a lot of listening and speaking- be fantastic
at both!
* Lessons that help you learn English 3-5X faster- learn much faster, simply by
changing your learning method.
* How you meet other English speakers and talk with them. Meet other friendly
English learners just like you.
Because:
+ You don’t have to memorize anything
+ You don’t have to use boring grammar books
+ You don’t have to study awful vocabulary lists
+ It is time to imagine speaking excellent English.
You can do it. You can speak excellent English if you use a better way to
learn… a way to learn speaking, and listening, much faster and much better.
