Teach Your Child ENGLISH | The Easy Way

I'm AJ Hoag, author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native American. Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. That's my website, EffortlessEnglishClub.com. You can try my VIP program for $1.

It's a good way to try Effortless English. VIP program is a little more advanced. If your level is lower, try the Power English course, which you will find on the website also.

Today, we're talking about teach your children English. How to teach your children English? I'll be talking about my own children. My children are learning two languages.

They're growing up speaking English and Japanese. Obviously, I'm a native speaker, so it's easy for them to learn English, but... You can take some of the ideas, some things that we are doing with our children to learn two languages, and you can do it also with your own child.

The main thing is with children, you need to use methods. teach them in a way that is very, very relaxed, no stress, okay, so not textbooks, definitely not textbooks, not workbooks, nothing like school, nothing like school, okay, very, very, very relaxed and natural. We'll talk about some different ways you can do this so that your child will learn to speak English very naturally and stress-free, no stress at all, very, very relaxed way or any language of course not only not only English I am going to read very quickly I got a very nice comment and I want to read it because I love reading these success stories

So this is a comment. It was sent to, it was emailed to us on our, sent to our website. So it's from Suhail, S-U-H-A-I-L, Alamri. Suhail Alamri. Okay.

I guess it's a he. He says, long story short, I was an average English learner with pretty basic English knowledge until I saw one of A.J. Hogue's videos on YouTube.

I watched the whole video carefully because the guy, me, was apparently telling truths and I really felt that he was and is trustworthy and as he presented almost every single problem I have experienced throughout my learning process since the beginning.

So, Hale's obviously a very good writer of English. His writing is very good. Next, he says, Therefore, I instantly made my decision to enroll in one of his courses, and that was the Power English course.

The outcome was miraculous. A miracle. Wow. And it led me to enroll in the VIP course, which took my level to a high point, to an even higher point than I was expecting to have in such a short time period.

Nice. I know this story does not do it justice, but to talk about my amazing experience with effortless English, but that was the least I could do. It's definitely still not enough to express my excitement.

Wow, that's great. With my great regards, Sahel Al-Amri from Oman. Thank you, Sahel. That's really great. That's a wonderful success story. So, made big, big, big improvements.

First, it started with Power English, and then did VIP. So, fantastic. So, congratulations to you. Now, today's topic comes from Ibrahim Ali. Because just recently on Gab, I'll read his comment, and then we'll talk about the topic for today, teaching your children English.

Here it is. Okay. So Abraham Ali, one of our, you know, VIP members and longtime, of course, English fan says, Hey, AJ, thanks for the great show. Talking about my last show.

Can you give us some updates about your children's education? Are you still using the one parent, one language method? Are you going to buy a homeschooling curriculum or are you going to create your own? I'm really curious to know.

Lots of love, AJ. Take care. All right. So, let's talk about it. Teaching children. So, some of you may know, maybe you don't know. I have twins, toddlers, meaning they are two.

They're two years old now. And we're teaching them English and Japanese. Teaching them. My wife's Japanese, so it's quite easy. So, one method for doing this, if you have children, especially young children...

This is probably the easiest way to teach them two or more languages, which is one parent speaks one language most of the time. The other parent speaks another language most of the time.

So obviously, since I'm a native speaker, I'm American, I speak English to my children most of the time, like 99%, and my wife speaks Japanese to them most of the time. She mixes more because her English is quite good, too, so she mixes English and Japanese, but it doesn't matter. It still works.

We live in Japan, so they get plenty of Japanese, and they will get more Japanese. So this is the simplest, easiest, easiest, easiest, easiest way to do it.

Because your children will just learn to communicate in both languages. And it's very simple. There's no stress. It's not school. You're not teaching them.

You know, I use this. This means quotes. If you're watching on video, I'm doing with my fingers. This little action means quote. Because you're not really teaching.

It's nothing like school. You're not doing vocabulary lessons. You're definitely not doing grammar lessons. You're just talking to them. You're just like you normally would.

Whatever you normally would do, you're just using that language. Now, you can still do this. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're like, well, I'm not a native speaker.

It doesn't matter. I'm going to give you another example. Actually, my jujitsu instructor. And he is doing this with his daughter with three languages, three languages.

This is amazing. I'll give you a little story about this. So first of all, he is Brazilian. So he obviously his native language is Portuguese. Right. So he speaks Portuguese.

Right. His wife is Japanese. Okay, so those two languages are obvious. With his, I think his daughter, I don't know, I think she's what, five or maybe six, something like that.

Five or six. And he's got a young son as well. He's like three, I think. Anyway, so, of course, his wife speaks Japanese to the babies, and he spoke Portuguese to them.

I'm going to talk about his daughter. So, of course, I think they lived in Brazil for like a year and a half when she was a baby. So the daughter learned Portuguese a lot because it was in Brazil. Then they moved to Japan.

And so, of course, the daughter started hearing Japanese a lot. And they got the one language, one language. So that's... Basically the same as what I'm doing with my wife.

But here's what's really cool. My instructor's name is Tiago. Tiago also speaks English. So he started speaking some English to his daughter also sometimes.

And he just started to show her like cartoons. You know, just like little fun kids videos in English. So that's all, right? Just again, just talking and playing around.

No tests or anything crazy like that. Nothing like school. And here's what's amazing. They had a party, a kid's party at the jiu-jitsu academy, the club.

And I was sitting there and they had food. And his daughter came up to me. and in perfect English said, you know, what do you want to eat? And I'd never heard her speak English before.

And the pronunciation was perfect. And she spoke, like, fluently, like, effortlessly, naturally, completely naturally. And I said, uh, you know, hamburger, you know, or hamburger. She said, actually, what do you want to drink?

And I said, um, I didn't know. So I was kind of confused, like, what are my choices? So then she said, oh, we have orange drink, we have water, we have this.

Yeah. And it's just from this very natural, relaxed way of doing it, right? So his wife speaks Japanese mostly. He speaks Portuguese mostly. But then they do some English sometimes, too.

Okay? They're not native speakers, right? His wife's Japanese. He's Portuguese. So they're not native speakers of English. It doesn't matter. Okay? So this is what I'm saying is with you, if you have a child, especially younger children, it's easier because they learn so easily.

You can just speak English to them. Maybe you're obviously listening to this. It means you are learning English. You speak English somewhat, maybe a little, maybe a lot.

So you can just start talking to your child in English. It's okay if you make mistakes. Don't worry about it. Just communicate in English. Maybe you do it all the time.

If you're really serious about it, you could do it all the time. But you could also do what Tiago did with his daughter. You could just do it sometimes. Maybe you pick certain days.

Maybe a certain time during the day. Like maybe from noon, like lunchtime to three is English time and you speak English to your child during that time each day.

Something like that. And again, you do not need to be perfect. Don't worry. Because you can also... Show them videos, let them watch, you know, little cartoons or whatever you choose.

Just, you know, choose things that you think are good for your child, that, you know, have good messages and things. But just in English, so you let them get, that'll be native speaker input, right? You can choose things from America and England or wherever.

movies, things like that. And watch them again and again. Kids like to repeat a lot anyway, so that's good. So you give them some input, right? Some listening from native speakers.

And then you also talk to them in English a little bit. Right? Or a lot. If you're English, if you feel very confident, you're very relaxed with your English ability, it's advanced.

and you want to really have your child speak English well, you could talk to them in English all the time. And then your husband or wife would speak your own language all the time.

And they would grow up being fluent in both languages. And it's stress-free. This is the important thing, stress-free. No workbooks, no lessons, no homework, no tests, none of that.

Just relax your child. It's just fun. They're just talking and watching fun stuff. It's easy. And you can sing little songs, all that kind of stuff. That's what I recommend.

This is the simplest and easiest way to do it. So that's how you teach your child English in a very, very, very relaxed way. And I think, you know, this is the best way to do it. Young children are super language learners.

I see with my own children that, you know, there's something special at this age. Young meaning, I don't know, probably up to age. You know, there's different theories about this. But I would say up to age even, certainly before age seven.

There's They can learn languages so easily. But even, I would say, up to middle school, they are just, their brains are just ready to suck in the language.

You know, like I can hear a new word, for example, let's say, even in English. Even in English, my own language. If I read or hear a new word, I don't know, maybe I need to hear it, you know, Many times before I really remember it and can use it.

My daughter, she will hear a new word one time and then she remembers it and she uses it. One time. She hears it one time. It's amazing. I'm jealous. I'm envious.

It's like a language superpower. So this is the great thing about... young children, is you don't need to stress about it. Language learning is very easy and natural for them.

So you do not... Don't do anything like school. Just communicate and make it fun, and they will get it. I promise you, they will get it. Just quickly about the second part about his question, which is about homeschooling, because I'll be homeschooling no school for my children.

First of all, let me say this. That word homeschooling, I don't like it. It's the word people use. It's the most common word in English when people teach their children at home, right?

Homeschooling. But it's actually, I don't like the word because of the word school. Because you do not, if you teach your children at home, do not, do not, do not copy homeschooling.

the methods from the schools. That's crazy, right? If you don't want to send them to school, why would you do the same thing at home, right? Don't do it.

It's crazy. So just doing the same thing, lots of textbooks and tests and workbooks and all this stressful, boring stuff, like that's insane. Like don't do it. Don't copy.

The whole point, the point of teaching your children at home is to avoid, avoid all that stuff. You can do it much better at home. Again, stress-free and relaxed.

Sometimes parents, they stress out. They say, I can't homeschool. Oh, it would be too difficult. Oh, my child doesn't want to do it. It's like, well, yeah, of course, if you're trying, if you try to do the same thing like school, it's going to be hard because it's boring and they don't like it.

So then you're trying to force them to do it. Then you're having this kind of fight with your kids, trying to force them to do all this boring school stuff. Don't do that. That's crazy.

I'm going to make it simple. Teaching your children, for young children, until age 13, let's say, until teenage years, reading and math. That's all. You don't need any other topics.

You don't need any other subjects. no textbooks necessary. Reading and math. Basic math. Okay, this is pre-algebra, before algebra. So, anybody can do this, okay?

Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, eventually fractions and decimals. You know, like that's the real basic math that we all use in real life for our bank accounts and things, right?

Uh, Super, super easy. So that, and there are a lot of programs. You can find things online. You can find books. You can teach them yourself. Don't stress about it.

Very relaxed. Take your time. And then reading. Teach them to read. Once they read, what should they read? Well, in the beginning, just read whatever they like.

What do they like? If they like animals, then read about animals. You know, if they like plants, read about plants. If they like adventure stories, read adventure stories.

It doesn't matter, really. Just let them read, read, read, read, read. And then gradually, gradually, you will choose a book sometimes, right? Something maybe a little more difficult, something, you know, things from your religion, from your culture, traditional stories and things like that.

But make them interesting, fun. You can read to them sometimes. Help them read. And, of course, as they get older, you can start to bring in more challenging material.

But the main thing is, especially with younger children, to make it enjoyable. Teach them to love, love, love reading. That's the number one thing you can do. If I want to make it even more simple, your number one thing with homeschooling or home education, I like to say, is teaching your children, teach them to love reading.

Because if they love reading, they can learn anything independently as they get older. Reading is the way to learn so, so, so many things. They become independent learners when they are great readers. So that's the number one thing, is just teach them to love reading.

You do that by reading things they like. Now my children love cats. So we got a book with cats and we're always looking at picture books with cats and stories with cats. So why not?

Right? That's all you do. And then it's enjoyable. It's stress-free. They love it. You love it. You're not having a battle with your child trying to force them to read stuff that's not at all interesting to them.

So this is how you do it. And in this way, Your family gets stronger because you're learning together and it's enjoyable and interesting for you and for them.

So instead of a battle, a fight between the parents and the kids, you're together as a team learning. This is the way to do it for language and for anything else.

Highly recommended. Later we can talk about how would you educate your older children at home. But I recommend start when they're young. This is the other thing.

If your child is in the school system a long time, it's harder then to change, right? Still, you can do it. But your child probably will need a little time to adjust, right? Let's say they're high school age.

So let's say they're 15 years old. And then you decide to do home education, right? Teach them at home. Take them out of school. Well, after all those years in the school, they might have some very bad feelings about school and learning.

And maybe for, I don't know, maybe for six months, they don't want to do anything. You're like, okay, we need to read. Let's do some math. At that age, there are other things they should be learning.

But they might just be lazy. This is normal because they're kind of detoxing, we would say. They're the poison of school. They need time to recover from the stress of school.

So you might need a transition time. You might see some time where they let them be a little bit lazy, not forever, but for a few months, take a break.

Do things that are just very easy and enjoyable, and then gradually, more difficult, more difficult. We'll talk about that. I think it's a bigger topic for older kids, so we'll talk about home education for older kids another time. We'll just focus on today, young children.

Okay then, let's get into our questions and comments. We're live on YouTube, so let's get into questions and comments. Gabriela Marmo says, Hi AJ from Brazil. I subscribed to your channel to practice my listening.

My English teacher recommended your channel. Oh, that's nice. You must have a nice English teacher. That's great. Dawins Luis says, Hi AJ from Haiti. I really like the way you teach.

Thank you very much. Okay, Anton Kaepernick says, Hi, AJ. There's one phrase after studying in school by Bernard Shaw. Famous playwright, I believe, English.

I get mad at the thought of how much I would learn if I didn't go to school. Okay, so Bernard Shaw was saying that if he'd stayed home, he would have learned a lot more. Definitely.

Definitely. Homeschooled, right? Kids who are educated at home, they learn much, much more. They learn faster. They learn better. They get higher test scores.

Everything. They do better in general. Ronnie Cortex says, Hey Jay, you've been doing great work for us. Ronnie from Brazil. Thank you, Ronnie. Oh, thank you for the donation.

That's really nice. Thank you. Linta says, Hi. Anise. Hey, Anise. Good to see you. Harry Potter series helped me a lot when I was a kid. Because as you said, when I was a kid, I was excited for repeating the same movie every day.

A good example of that. Exactly. It doesn't even have to be... It can be like fantasy stories, like Harry Potter. If you or your child loves Harry Potter, read all the Harry Potter books, watch the Harry Potter movies...

If they're trying to do English, they could even try in English. It's a little advanced, but you could try it. Or in your own language, whatever. But that's a great point.

Lord of the Rings, when I was a kid, I think it was fourth grade, I read The Hobbit. I love those books, so I read The Lord of the Rings. I used to read all that fantasy and science fiction stuff a lot.

And I became a great reader and really loved it. And then later, you know, now I read non-fiction and if I want to learn something, you know, I'll read, you know, more deep or serious things. But I think sometimes the mistake, schools make this mistake, but parents can make this mistake too, that you think you need to force your child to read, you know, serious, important things.

And often you're trying too early. If they're not ready, if they're not ready for that, then they just see it as boring and it will have the opposite effect. You want them to love those books and be interested. So if you try to force it too early, they can actually learn to hate it.

I've used this example a lot. There's the book Walden. by Henry David Thoreau, an American writer, one of my favorite books. And in high school, they tried to force us to read it.

And at that time in my life, I couldn't really understand the meaning of it. It had no meaning for me at that time. And so they forced me to read it, and I just thought, this is boring, this is boring, what is this, this is boring, I don't like it.

Right? So it was a mistake for them to force me to read that. It did no good. I got nothing from it. Learned nothing. But later in my life, actually just a few years later, maybe five years later,

Just after I finished college, university, I was finally independent, you know, living on my own. I read the book again on my own and loved it and found so many great ideas, so much meaning. I found it quite funny in places. I just found, oh, this is a wonderful book.

And then I would reread that book. I've read that book many times at different points in my life. And it became one of my favorite books. So don't be worried if your child, any age, even high school age, if they don't want to read that serious stuff, literature and things like that, it doesn't matter.

Just let them read what they want to read. If they want to read fantasy and science fiction, great, let them do it. Really the point is just for them to get into books and reading and to enjoy that and love it.

And then at different times in their life, their feelings will change, their life changes, and they will often find other kinds of books. And they will then enjoy those books and learn from those books.

Don't force it. This is a general rule for teaching, I'd say. Just don't force things. You can try and suggest gently, If they're not ready, just go to something else and try again later.

Even for yourself, okay? Don't force yourself too much with learning English, okay? Try something. If it's too difficult, you're not enjoying it, put it to the side.

Try something else. You can come back later and try it again. Fernanda, good to see you. My eight-year-old son listens to one of your mini-stories. He really enjoys it.

I explained to him some of the vocab. Some vocab he already knows. It's amazing. I have to let him take his time. That's great. My mini stories are, a lot of them are very good for kids, too, because they're just funny little stories.

And that's a great thing to do, Fernanda. You explain some of the vocab. You're going to have to repeat a lot. Try to find the easier ones, the slower, easier ones.

that's perfect that's great and like you said you don't force it don't like you must listen to this mini story if they don't like it you just play it and then you can kind of if they're interested then you let them you know you let them learn a little bit and you repeat it you can also do some cartoons and other things in English you speak to them in English a little bit some days or all the time your choice and you make it you know you know very gentle

Dr. Seuss, someone's recommending Dr. Seuss books. Yep, we read some of those with my kids. Oh, lots of Brazilians. Must be a good time for Brazil right now.

Cicero says, Hey Jay, what's up dude? I'm Cicero from Brazil. Appreciate your video lessons. Thank you. Oh, Gabriela is following up. My teacher is called Mayro Vergara.

He follows your channel, gives free English lessons on YouTube. Well, cool. Tell him I said hello and thank you. Okay, Mohammed990 says, what's the best way to teach young adults English?

So, young adults, I would say, what, college age probably, right? It's pretty similar, honestly. It's just that you can maybe do things a little more advanced. I think the movie technique is great for young adults.

So let's just say, like, you know, teenagers and 20s, right? High school, college age, and a little bit after. I mean, really, Effortless English Method works perfectly well for young adults. So all the things I'm doing, you can do mini stories, you can do the movie technique...

You can have them read easy things in English, listening to easy things they enjoy. So, basically, effortless English for young adults. And older adults, too, obviously.

Okay, so we'll find a couple more questions. Let's see what time it is. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Denis Chertinkov says, in Russia, students have to read very difficult Russian classic literature at an early age.

After school, students have this negative experience. It's not possible to make them read again. Exactly what I'm talking about. They do this in America too, right?

Where, like, the literature is fantastic. So it's not, the literature is not bad. Obviously, it's amazing. But it's just so, especially some Russian literature is pretty heavy.

right? Heavy meaning serious, sometimes dark, you know. It's true in English and American literature, too. So, it's just like, you know, for, let's say, a teenager, it depends on their life.

Like, maybe a few teenagers might enjoy that or understand it, especially if they've had a hard life. They kind of, oh, I understand it. But a lot of them won't.

Probably most of them will not. They're just not ready. That's all it is. It's not that there's nothing wrong with the child or the teenager. There's nothing wrong with them.

There's nothing wrong with the literature. It's fantastic. It's just they're not ready. That's all. They're not ready. They can't connect with it. You can introduce it.

You can let them try a little bit of it. and then those that like it yeah let them of course encourage them but by forcing it that's the problem by forcing it then what what is it it's just they think it's bad medicine like i don't want to read it i don't know a lot about you know a lot of well okay i'll give you an example what's the um russian literature uh i haven't read much i can't remember his name now um

I can't remember who wrote it. It's a story about a guy dying. Sorry, can't remember it. But anyway, super depressing. It's about a guy dying. That's the whole story.

It's like a short story. And it's just about a dude. That's a guy. I think he's a judge or a lawyer or something. And he's just living his life normally.

And then he gets sick and then he dies. And it's just the whole process of dying. I can't imagine many teenagers would enjoy reading that. Even as an adult, I kind of was like, oh, this is really depressing.

But, you know, it makes you think, okay, as an adult, I could appreciate it because, you know, I know I'm going to die. I'm older and I could think, well, okay, he's, you know, he's, it makes you really think about your own life and, you know, so it's, I would say not enjoyable to read, but there's value in it.

when you're older. But for most, you know, let's say someone who's 16 years old, if you force them to read that, they're just going to think, oh, this is so boring, this is terrible. And then they'll think, then they think in their mind, they get this belief, this idea, oh, literature is boring, literature is terrible. And then when they get older, when they might appreciate it, they just avoid it.

Because they still have this belief that's wrong but it's this negative belief created in school from all this stress connected to literature you know like say Shakespeare like I can kind of remember you know early in high school just think like the language is very tough you know and just not really appreciating it a few years later I did appreciate it so just don't force introduce and encourage

Don't force. That's the point. You can't force people to learn things. If they don't want to learn something, they won't. There's no point trying to force them.

It doesn't work. Let's see... There's lots of people saying hi. Okay, I'm just going to go back. I'm sure I missed a bunch of questions. One second. A couple more, and then I'm going to... Let's see, what is it?

Oh, yeah, I've got to go soon, so just a couple more. We're going to have a Halloween party today with the kids. Okay. Oh, cool. Vita Liu says, Hi, I am from China.

Some friends and I learned effortless English together for two years every morning. That's cool, doing it together like that. Nice. We improved so much, and we are using your method, teaching our children.

Thank you very much. Awesome. See, that's great. And see, not native speakers, but learn together. And then when their English was good enough, they felt confident, started teaching their children.

Awesome. Perfect. That's the way to do it. Adil Habash says, have you visited Morocco? I have not. My friends did and said it was awesome. Great. So someday, maybe.

Okay. Okay. Always Sports says, some parents told me they spoke different languages to their children, which caused them not to be able to speak. Specialists recommend to use one language only.

Depends on how you do it. If you're just constantly switching languages, they might start mixing it together too much, maybe. But I think that as long as you, you know, like one parent focuses mostly on one language and another parent focuses mostly on another, you'll be fine.

Yeah, I think it's not a problem. Here's the thing. If they're learning two languages, they might need more time until they speak. They might need more time listening, right?

Because it's kind of double the amount of input they're trying to figure out. In the beginning, they don't understand. It's two languages, so they're probably going to mix them. My children still mix Japanese and English sometimes.

Luckily, I know the Japanese they use. Even I sometimes. I use a few Japanese words. that are just easier to say. Like there's a word for hold me, you know, like pick me up and hold me.

So in English, you have to say hold me. It's two words. In Japanese, they have one word, dako. So we just say dako. So I think it's not, I think for most kids is not a problem.

Parents get a little stressed out, too stressed, worrying about things. I know. But if you're patient, it just, it'll be fine. Just keep going. I disagree with most of that.

Okay. Please don't spam the comments with just endless, the same thing. Okay, let's see... Can I recommend some books, Alaswani, can I recommend some books for reading?

It just, you know, it's hard for me, when people ask me that question a lot, it's hard for me to recommend because you should choose, my kids are talking, you should use or find books that you like.

So I don't know what you like. The key is two things that are fairly easy, fairly easy for you, not too difficult, and that are interesting. If you like fantasy, read fantasy, like The Hobbit, Perry Potter.

But maybe you don't like that. Maybe you prefer nonfiction. You want to read about animals. Read about animals. So just try different things. That's my best advice.

There's no rules. The only rule is you should enjoy it or be interested in it. Do I know any Arabic words? No. I don't think so. Enjoy your Halloween party.

Thank you. Okay, let's see. Laura says, have I already visited Brazil? I have not. No, I would like to do it, especially, you know, I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so that would be fun to, like a Jiu-Jitsu tour...

of Brazil. I don't know if I can handle it. I'd probably get beat up too much, but it would be cool to do it, you know. It's like a, you know, like a Brazilian, like a, it's like a jujitsu pilgrimage to go to Brazil, I think.

It'd be kind of cool. Konichiwa, thank you, in Japanese, someone says. Konichiwa means hello. Okay, I'll take a couple more and then time to go. Okay, guys, I'm just going to time out.

If you're spamming, I'll just put you in time out. Okay, let's see. Oh, this is an interesting question. Podcuts. Could you talk about the relationship between

Pronunciation improvement and better listening skills. Yeah, that's very interesting. What's the connection between listening and pronunciation? I think it's noticing, right?

To improve your pronunciation, you have to hear the pronunciation correctly. This can be a difficult thing sometimes. I always use Thai as an example. When I lived in Thailand, I

I learned a little Thai, and for English speakers, most English speakers, Thai is very difficult to pronounce. It's a tonal language like Mandarin. So, that's very hard for beginners to hear.

If your language is not a tonal language, it's hard, right? Because it all sounds the same. Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ha. It just sounds like ma to us. We don't, like, what's the difference?

But each one of those could have a different meaning. So, to say it correctly, you know, you kind of need to hear it correctly. Because then, as you start to hear it more clearly, you really hear the pronunciation. You know, people have the problem pronouncing th.

In English, sometimes. The, or thank you. You know, that th, th, th. Or the, the, the. Some people, that's very hard. Sometimes they just can't hear it.

They're not really hearing. They don't realize that they're not saying it correctly. Because they're not really hearing the difference, right? So, I think they are very closely connected.

That as your listening becomes more precise, more careful... It can help your pronunciation. And also, when you work on pronunciation, when you're trying to practice pronunciation, then it makes your listening better because you're really trying to notice all the sounds very carefully. So you focus more.

You concentrate a lot more. And this can help your listening in general. So I think there you are connected. Okay. Hamza says, I want to practice my English with some friends.

Do you have any classes or virtual rooms? Yeah, go to my Gab account. I think it's on the screen. It is gab.com. Follow me, AJ Hoag. If you go to my profile on Gab, we have a group, a Gab group, so you can meet people there.

It's just a social media site. And then you can maybe find someone to chat with you on Skype or something. A lot of people do that. Okay, I'll do one more.

Okay, this is interesting. Nineteen seven. This is a good one. This is actually connected to something I'm doing now. Nani says, I have a problem. I can understand English, but I can't speak so well in English.

What can I do to improve my speaking skills? By the way, my family and friends don't speak English, so I don't have people to practice with. Right. Gotcha.

You know, it's interesting because I'm just now starting... Well, this week, this coming week, I will start teaching two people here in Japan... Actually, my two assistant jiu-jitsu instructors at my jiu-jitsu club.

And they kind of have the same situation. They want to improve their English, and they're going to go to America. So, I didn't really know what... I don't hear them speaking English, usually.

I just... So I had no idea what was their level. So I kind of gave them something to listen to and to read. And I was really surprised. Wow, their listening is pretty good.

Their reading and understanding is pretty good. So they said they kind of have this same situation. So their listening is pretty good. Their reading is quite good.

But they're at this point where maybe you could say they're kind of in a silent period still where just coming with the words is hard, right? How do you make the jump? First of all, improve your listening. Listening, listening, listening, listening, listening.

And reading, reading, reading. Input, input, input, input. You never stop doing that. Continue to do that. Never stop doing that. That's always there.

That's the foundation. That's the base. The base, right? But eventually you feel, okay, I think I'm ready. My listening is getting pretty good now, pretty high level.

And I'm ready to jump into speaking. When you feel ready, then how can you make that easier and faster? I think, you know, so what am I going to do with them? I'm going to, I think, first I'll just chat with them.

So if you can find a chat partner online, okay, so... You say no one near you speaks English, but you have the internet, so you can use Skype. You can find someone to chat with online. So that's number one.

You can do that. So that's great. Don't worry about when you're talking. Don't worry about grammar. Don't worry about anything. Just try to communicate.

Use one word if you need to. That's how I communicate. A lot of times here in Japan, I'll just one word, two words. That's my I have baby-level Japanese, kind of.

But it works, you know. It's good enough, and it will get better. The other thing you can do with shadowing, the shadowing technique, I'm not going to go into an explanation right now, a long explanation of shadowing, but basically, you listen to an audio in English, and then you speak with the audio at the same time. Obviously, you're a little behind it, but you don't pause.

You hear it, and you speak. You hear it, and speak. You hear it, and speak. You're copying the speaker as you listen. In the beginning, this feels very difficult, so use something that's very slow.

Eventually, you get used to it, and you can go faster and faster. This just helps with fluency, meaning the speed, right? Just getting the words out faster. That's what shadowing helps, I think, is sometimes, you know...

Just getting the words out feels very difficult. Just moving your mouth to make the words in English feels difficult. So shadowing gets you doing this so much. And you can do it alone.

That's what's great about it. And you're getting listening at the same time. So it's kind of a cool activity. You're getting listening practice. You're getting speaking practice.

And you can do it alone. So that's what I recommend. Find some slow videos or audios. And do the shadowing technique, and this will help you to start making the jump from high-level listening and then jumping into speaking.

And Hedy, I did see your comment, and thank you. Just don't spam. The rule is don't keep putting the same comment again and again and again and again and again.

Eventually, I block people who do that because it fills it up. It's not fair to everybody else, okay? Put your comment one time, maybe a second time later if I don't see it. And if I don't see it after that, you've got to wait until the next show.

I can't read them all. All right, that's all then. So, just a summary. When you teach your children English, do it in a relaxed, natural way. The best way is for one parent to speak a lot of English to them.

And the other parent can speak, you know, whatever your native language is. Or, the other way to do it is you just choose a certain time of day. Right? Or a certain day.

And you just always try to speak English to them, show them some cartoons, read little easy books in English. Very, very relaxed. Very, very natural. No stress.

No pressure. Don't force anything. This will work. Okay? Kids learn language very, very, very quickly and easily. So, there's no need to force it. Relax.

Relax. Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. You can try just for a dollar. That's a great way to start. VIP is a bit advanced, so if it's too difficult, try it for a dollar.

If it feels too difficult, then you can get the Power English course instead. Or if it feels very, very, very difficult, you can get the original course, which is even easier.

My website is EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Go there and get started. Lots of love to you, and I'll see you next time. Bye for now.