When you do that, your writing is always very good." I told her, "Next time, don't write the essay in Japanese first. Yuriko's English got worse because she was translating instead of using her normal natural English ability. Her sentences are normally clear, but in this essay they were very confusing. Her grammar is normally excellent, but in this essay, it was not good. Instead, it made it much worse.īy translating, Yuriko stopped thinking in English. She probably thought this would make it better. So she wrote it first in Japanese and then translated it. I asked her, "Did you write this first in Japanese, and then translate it?" I kept thinking, "Why is this essay different than her others? Why is this one so much worse?"įinally, I had an idea. But this time, I had a lot of trouble understanding what she was trying to communicate. Normally her sentences are very clear- very easy to understand. So I was very surprised today when she gave me an essay. I have always been impressed by the skill of her writing. She has the best English skills in my class. Subscribe To The FREE Effortless English Newsletter Just never use "listen and repeat" again! Or find your own Listen and Answer lessons and stories. The questions are usually very easy, but by answering them you teach your brain to use English quickly. You improve your English quickly by answering questions. When you use Listen and Answer, you are ready.Įffortless English lesson sets always include Listen and Answer Mini-Stories. When you use the old method, you are not ready for real conversations. Its like a game- you try to answer more and more quickly. You can't get bored and sleepy because you must Understand and Answer. Listen and Answer is also more interesting. someone asks you a question and you must understand it and answer it quickly. In real conversations, this is exactly what you do. This encourages your brain to think in English. You must understand the question, and then you must quickly think of an answer in English. It seems like a small difference- but in fact it is a VERY important difference. With Listen and Answer, the speaker says, "What is your name?". and then you repeat, "What is your name?" With Listen and Repeat, the speaker says, "What is your name?". You don't repeat after the speaker, you answer his/her question correctly and quickly. This means you Listen to a question, and then you Answer it. Since you don't use your brain, you quickly get bored with "listen and repeat".Īs you know, I think Listening is THE MOST important activity for learning English. In a real conversation, will you ever do this? Of course not.ģ. There are several problems with this method:ġ. You don't even need to understand the English to do it. Listen and repeat is a robot-like activity. Listening to English is great- but Listen and Repeat is the WRONG way to do it. I call this "robot English".Įnglish students also do this at home. Then the students repeat exactly what the teacher said. In school, the teacher says something in English. Listen and repeat is the normal way to teach and learn English. We're calling it the Master Member Video Site.Ĭheck our main Home Page for future updates on the Learning English Video Site at: Learn English VideosĮvery student knows about "listen and repeat". So that's exactly what this site will have. Videos are the number one request that I get from members- they are constantly asking for English learning videos from me. This service has been in very high demand. Every week, I'll add a new video on various topics. The site will be a subscription membership site with a low monthly fee. Once we're satisfied that it's ready, we'll launch the site for everyone. I have already uploaded a number of videos to the site, and will be making more during the rest of this month.ĭuring beta testing, we'll get feedback from our All-Star members in order to fix bugs and improve the site. These are our most active members and they'll have the opportunity to test the site for free, for 1-2 months. The first phase of testing will involve our All-Star members. Our new Learn English Video site is almost finished with development, meaning that beta testing starts soon!
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