THE KEY TO EXCELLENT SPEAKING

by A.J Hogue

What is the most important english skill?

What skill must you have to communicate well?
Obviously,number one 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 textbooks. 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(done many times in the same way, and boring) 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 TV does not help you. You don't understand most of it. It is too difficult. It is too
fast. It's obvious (easy to notice or understand) 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 five 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 to 100 times!
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
two 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 powerful 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 podcasts, 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. We read “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”.
Then we listened to the audio book.Then we watched and listened to the movie.
Then we listened to interviews with actors in the movie. My students learned a lot
of vocabulary in a short time, and their speaking improved very quickly.
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 it's 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 two to three minutes
follow this method a first
watch the scene with subtitles in your
language
this will help you understand the
general meaning
be 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
see listen to the scene many times
with english subtitles do not
pause d listen to the scene a few times
without subtitles
e repeat a through d
every day for one week
on the second week go to the next scene
or segment
and repeat again it will take you a long
time to finish a movie that's okay
because you will improve your listening
and speaking very fast
this method is powerful use it
number five 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 while listening also helps you
understand
more difficult material read and listen
to learn faster after you do this a few
times
put away the text and just listen
you will understand a lot more and you
will improve faster
always try to find both audio and
text materials to start
you can read my blog and listen to my
podcast
at text
www.effortlessenglishclub.blogspot.com
and audio www
effortless effortlessenglish.libsyn.com
another great idea is to get both a book
and its
audiobook for example the above example
of
charlie and the chocolate factory
six months to excellent english speaking
follow the above suggestions and the
seven rules in my email course
and you will speak excellent english 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 six months six months and
you will speak easily
to native speakers six months and you
will speak quickly
and naturally six 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
aj hogue director effortless english