This is The BEST Method For Learning English

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.

with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly. I am A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native.

Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com EffortlessEnglishClub.com You can also add my pronunciation course. My pronunciation course is great with any of my courses. So VIP plus the pronunciation course or my Power English course and the pronunciation course. They go together very well.

Of course, the pronunciation course teaches you trains you to speak with a North American accent, to have a nice, clear pronunciation so that everyone understands you.

All my courses are at EffortlessEnglishClub.com, EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Today's topic, the best method or methods for learning English. What are the best methods for learning English?

And we're going to hear an expert opinion, not my own opinion. We're going to hear from Dr. Stephen Krashen. I'm going to play a short clip, a short quote from Dr. Krashen.

First, let me say welcome to everybody who's joining live. So welcome, welcome to all our live viewers. on Facebook. We're live on Facebook. So, welcome indeed.

People saying hello from many different countries. Now, I'll get to your comments and questions later in the show. Those of you watching live, relax. I'll get to your questions and comments a little bit later.

Let's go now to our topic. Dr. Stephen Krashen. He's very famous. He's famous in the language learning world. He was a professor at the University of Southern California.

He's retired now, but he used to be a professor there. Normally, I'm not very impressed by that. But I have to say, he was a very good one. And he was an expert on language acquisition.

Language acquisition. That's what he called it. Basically, language learning, same idea. Dr. Krashen liked to say these two words are a little different, but for general purposes, the general meaning is basically the same.

So he was an expert on language learning. How do people, how do humans learn languages? So how do people learn their own languages as babies? And also how do

We learn foreign languages. And what are the best methods for learning languages? What is the most effective, the most powerful method for learning a language, any language? So he studied lots and lots and lots of languages and language learning.

He did lots of research and studied lots of different techniques for language teaching and language learning. He wrote a few good books. One book is called The Power of Reading. Highly recommended.

And he wrote a lot of different research studies as well. On this little clip, he's giving an interview and he's talking about his own language learning and his research and what are the best methods. What are the very best methods for learning? Let's hear Dr. Krashen's opinion about that.

Here we go. Those of you watching on video, that's Dr. Krashen on the left. The good methods now are based on interesting stories where you fall in love with the story. You get so interested in the story that you forget it's in another language.

Two methods do it. TBRS, invented by Blaine Rake, where the teachers and the students create the story together. There's a lot of back and forth. Okay, so he says that the best methods use stories.

They are storytelling methods. The best language teaching methods use stories. And then he says something very interesting, something that I agree with completely. He says the best methods, the best storytelling methods, are the ones where that the story is so interesting or strange or funny that

that you forget, as the student, you, you forget that you are learning a language. Let's talk about that some more. That the best language learning happens when you forget that you are studying the language.

How does this happen? What is he talking about? Because if we think about the traditional methods, the usual methods, the school methods, you never forget that you're learning the language, right?

You're sitting in a classroom and you're taking notes and the teacher's talking about, well, okay, so today we will do the past progressive in English and open your book to page 75 and then you start taking notes and then you learn several rules for the present progressive or the past progressive, sorry.

And then you might do some activities. But it's very, very, very focused on the language, right? The pieces of the language. And you are completely aware, totally aware that you are studying and analyzing this language, English.

You never forget that you're in English class. You never forget that at all. You're completely focused on that the whole time. You're focused on the language itself.

Dr. Krashen says that the best methods, the most effective methods are story. First of all, they use stories, number one. And then number two, that as you are learning with these stories, you start to forget. Forget that you are actually learning the language.

In other words, the language learning happens immediately. Unconsciously, we might say subconsciously. Another way we could say it would be intuitively or naturally. That we're learning vocabulary and we're not even consciously aware that, oh, I just learned a new vocabulary word.

Or we're learning and improving our grammar, but we're not really even thinking about that. We're not thinking, ah, now I'm studying grammar. Now I'm learning grammar. Now I'm learning the past progressive.

You're not even thinking about that. You completely sort of forget that. Why? Because you are so focused on the story. You're so focused on the story.

And what can even happen, this can happen, talk to our VIP members on Twitter, for example, excuse me, and they'll tell you that sometimes they will completely forget that they are listening to English.

They're so focused on the story or the information that they're learning, that they're listening to, or even reading, that they completely forget that it's happening in English. They completely forget that they are doing this in a different language, not their native language.

And that's when the learning is happening immediately. Completely automatically. Exactly what Dr. Krashen's talking about. So, Effortless English, for example.

I use a few different story-based methods. Number one are mini-stories. He mentioned Dr., not Dr., I'm sorry, just Blaine Ray. Blaine Ray, a teacher in the United States, developed a storytelling method called TPRS, which...

I use that method, and I've changed it a little bit, I've adapted it to my own approach, but definitely it comes from Blaine Ray. And so my mini-stories are teaching you English. In the mini-stories, you are learning vocabulary, even words that you may know already, you say, oh, I know that word, but you can't use it, you're

getting the repetition in the story so it goes deeper, deeper, deeper, so that vocabulary will become active. You'll start using it more when you actually speak.

In those mini-stories, you are also learning grammar. You don't even realize it because I never talk about the grammar in the mini-stories. I never say, this is the simple past. Oh, now this is the future.

Now this is the future. Present. Perfect. I never talk about that. I don't want you to think about that. Exactly what Dr. Krashen said. I want you to forget about all of that.

And I want you to learn those verbs, those verb tenses and conjugations completely naturally in an unconscious or intuitive way. Because this is how native speakers learn, right? This is how When I speak English, I never, ever, ever think about those verb tenses.

Never. Not one time do I think, oh, this is the simple past and how do I conjugate this verb? I never, never, never, never, never. And not only now do I never think about that, I never thought about that even when I was a small, small child still learning all of it.

At no time in my life have I ever thought about verb conjugations or the names of verb tenses. In fact, until I became a teacher of English in graduate school, until then, I didn't even know the names of many verb tenses.

And I guarantee right now you could go onto the street in the United States or Canada or wherever and You could ask people, you know, tell me, what is the future progressive tense?

And many of them would not know. Many of them would have no idea what you're talking about. But of course, they would use that verb tense correctly when they spoke.

So this is the difference. And this is what Dr. Krashen is saying is that the storytelling methods are powerful because you learn grammar in this natural way.

Because you learn vocabulary in this natural way. Because you learn pronunciation in this natural way. Another type of story method or lesson are called point of view stories. And this is basically where we just change the point of view of the story.

The simple example, the one I use the most, is just that we change the time. So I'll tell one story happening right now. So, of course, it's going to use mostly like the present and the present progressive tenses. Then I'll tell the exact same story, but we imagine it was in the past now.

Oh, 10 years ago. And then I tell the same story, but 10 years ago. So, of course, all the verbs are going to change. They're going to be different using simple past and maybe the present perfect and maybe some other ones.

You don't need to think about that as the learner, as the student. You don't need to think about that at all. You just have to understand the story, understand it's happening in the past. And I use lots of little phrases and words to remind you, like 10 years ago, in the past, there was a boy.

He went to the store. He went 10 years ago, right? So you get this and it's in the past. And then I might tell the same story again, the exact same story.

Now we're imagining it happening in the future, right? And again, of course, all the verbs, the grammar will change. Again, you don't have to think about it. You don't need to remember the names of the verb tenses.

You don't need to remember and analyze all of the different kinds of grammar. Not necessary. Just like Dr. Krashen saying, instead, you're going to learn through the story of

through the situation, what's called the context, it's the situation of the story, to help you understand this grammar, this vocabulary, this pronunciation, all of it, naturally, intuitively, kind of unconsciously.

And the other cool thing about these storytelling methods is that it's more enjoyable. It's more enjoyable to listen to a silly, funny story or even a serious story, than to try to memorize ten different grammar rules.

Right? That's boring. Memorizing grammar rules is boring, boring, boring. Listening to a funny, even a silly story is much more enjoyable. So it's emotionally more enjoyable, which means you'll do it more often, which is another reason it's effective.

What's another type of storytelling method? Well, the movie technique. I have a whole long YouTube video about this, very detailed, where I talk about the movie technique.

Basically, it's using pieces of movies or television shows to learn English. Again, why is it powerful? Because you're learning through the movie. So again, you're focused more on the story.

You're focused more on what's happening to the characters. So again, you learn the vocabulary and the grammar and the pronunciation automatically, intuitively. Again, hopefully, you mostly forget that you're learning English. You mostly forget that you're studying and you get focused more on the story that's happening in the TV show or the movie.

Another type of storytelling method is what I call interactive lessons. And this is where I'll use, often I'll use something non-fiction. So... It's not exactly a story, but it's information, right?

So it's an article or an essay about some interesting topic. Maybe some self-help topic. Maybe about how to be a better leader. Maybe about how to be persuasive.

Maybe how to make money. Our book club, for example. And then I'll use techniques where I ask lots of questions to get a lot of repetition of vocabulary and key important grammar. And again, you learn the vocabulary and the grammar in a more intuitive, more natural way where you can just forget about studying really hard.

You can forget about trying hard to memorize. I must memorize. I must memorize. You don't need to do that with these storytelling methods. Not necessary.

Not at all necessary. Now, there's another cool thing about stories and storytelling methods. They help memory. They're much easier to remember. That means the vocabulary and the grammar inside of the story are also easier to remember.

Why is that? Well, because a story, you know, a story is kind of like a complete whole. And it's emotional. And it's... If it's a good story, it's also visual.

You can imagine what's happening in your mind, right? You'll see images. You might even can imagine the sounds. Sometimes for a good story, you can imagine the smells even.

So it's using several different senses, right? And then there's usually an emotional part. Now, that might be humor. It might be a little bit funny, right?

It could be sad. It might even make you angry or upset or frustrated. Which, actually, all of those things are good for memory. Any strong emotion, any emotion at all, in fact, even if it's a weak emotion, is good for memory.

You remember things when they are emotional. You remember them better. If you have two experiences, one experiences creates a strong emotion and the other experience no emotion, you are more likely to remember the emotional experience for a much longer time.

Even if it was negative. Even if it was negative. If it was positive, even better. And this is something that stories naturally have. I mean, that is the point of many stories, is to

create some kind of emotion during the stories. In my mini-stories, usually I use humor, so they're kind of funny. They're very exaggerated. Sometimes I use animals as topics, which makes it more strange and more funny.

Not all of my stories are funny, but many of them are very silly, so they'll be more memorable, so you remember them more easily. And again, You'll be focused more on this story being silly and funny, and you'll just kind of start forgetting that you are also learning vocabulary and grammar and pronunciation. I'm doing all that for you, right?

As a teacher, I'm designing the stories to teach you these things automatically. But as the learner, you don't need to think about them. You can just enjoy the story and repeat it again and again and again many times.

And then you will automatically learn all of this without the pain, without the memorization, without the tests, without all of that. That's why they're so, so, so powerful.

Related to this, connected to this, is this idea of vocabulary learning and reading, because this is a question I get from more advanced students, maybe high intermediate level.

frequently asked me, what's the best way to improve my vocabulary? How do I learn more words? And I always say, read books, read books, read books, read books. I say this answer probably ten times every week.

Somebody asks me this question, and I give the same exact answer every single time. Read books. Why? Again, they're stories. Why? because most of these books are stories, and they have all of the advantages of stories.

So, learning to speak, I teach you with stories, verbal stories, right? Audio stories, where you're listening to the stories. But just to increase your vocabulary, to get a lot more vocabulary, reading stories are also excellent.

So you can read books. Again, because they're stories that are more powerful than than getting a book full of vocabulary words. A lot of people do this.

They get some book, the 5,000 top vocabulary words in English, and they try to go through and memorize 5,000 words from this book. That is crazy because, number one, it's hard work. Number two, it's really super boring. There's no real context, right?

These words are not naturally connected to each other. They're just in some big list. Maybe they have an example sentence or something, but it's still a terrible way to learn vocabulary.

There's definitely no emotion at all like a normal story would have. And you definitely do not forget that you're learning English. No, you very much remember you're learning English because you're so bored trying to remember this long list.

On the other hand, when you read a storybook, let's say you read a Hardy Boys book. that's not too difficult for you so you start reading the Hardy Boys book it's a mystery book and very quickly you're focused on the characters you're focused on the action what's happening in the story oh there's a mystery oh there's a ghost oh what's happening and then you start to feel some emotions connected to the story maybe there's a little danger for the characters the Hardy Boys the heroes and you know very soon you forget that you're learning English You're actually learning new words because you're seeing new words.

Maybe you're quickly using an electronic dictionary. You quickly look up a new word and you look, oh yeah, and you keep going. But you don't try to memorize it. You just see it, oh, okay, and then you keep going.

And then you see it again, you forgot again, you tap that word. You see it again, the definition, and then you keep going. And you keep doing this. And eventually you'll find, maybe by the middle of the book, now...

you remember that word you've learned that word with no pain with no super effort just by reading this big story this story book in print about that big you know a couple inches and so mostly you're just enjoying this entertaining story and yet by the end of the book you will have you will have someone's at my door

Delivery, I guess. By the end of the book, you will have learned a lot of new vocabulary words. You won't even realize how many you've learned, but you will have learned a lot by the end of that story. Also, you definitely won't realize that your grammar has improved, but it will.

Why? Because by reading that whole book, again and again, every single sentence, you are seeing an example of correct grammar in a full natural situation. And with all that repetition from that reading, you will just start to naturally learn, intuitively, automatically learn better grammar, better sentence structure.

Painlessly. In fact, you'll probably eventually become a fan of the Hardy Boys. You'll get another book and another book and another book. There are many.

And soon you'll just completely forget that you're doing this to learn English or just reading these stories and enjoying them. And your English is also improving at the same time. You will have achieved what Dr. Krashen is talking about, which is completely forgetting about the language learning and yet learning the language very well.

That's the goal. That's always my goal as your teacher in my courses. My goal is always to try to get you to forget that you're learning English while you're learning English.

So that you're learning in the most powerful way, but at the same time, you're kind of forgetting about it, mostly. Now, can I do this 100% every time? No. Sometimes you'll realize it.

Sometimes you'll realize you're learning, and sometimes you'll focus on the language a bit. But I do my best to get close to that goal. To make it as enjoyable and as powerful as possible. to achieve what Dr. Krashen is talking about, where you are learning super quickly and powerfully, getting great results, and at the same time enjoying it and kind of forgetting that you're doing it.

It's really cool when this happens. It's really fantastic. That is the power of storytelling methods. And that's why Dr. Krashen says that the best methods of language teaching and language learning are storytelling methods.

And I agree with him 100%. And that's why I use stories in my lessons as well. All right. Question time. I'm going to go to Twitter for a minute and answer one or two Twitter questions.

And then Facebook folks, Facebook viewers, I will come back to you. But let's look at Twitter. Don't want to ignore Twitter. Let's go to Twitter. Twitter.

All right, my Twitter. Ah, Sergey. Write it from the beginning. Sergey has a good comment that I want to share with you. So Sergey says, is giving advice to someone on my Twitter.

My Twitter is AJ Hogue, by the way. Those of you watching, let me put it on the screen. It's just at AJ Hogue is my name. Add it on here. There you go.

Okay. So my Twitter's AJ Hogue. That's where you ask me questions. And recently, today, on Twitter, I was telling everyone, I'm telling you now, you must listen to my audio podcast.

Subscribe to my audio podcast. The Effortless English Podcast. Why? Because... Over half of the Effortless English show is only audio. If you are watching my videos, only watching my videos on YouTube or on Facebook, you're missing half the show.

Okay? You're missing half of it because I have a lot of the shows are just audio. I only do audio, no video. That's more than half of my shows are audio only.

So video watchers of the show, be sure to also get the audio podcast. Very important. You're going to get a lot more English audio, a lot more of the Effortless English show on the audio podcast.

And so I put that on Twitter and then I had a few questions. How do I get the audio podcast? How do I get it? And it's very easy as Sergey gives us the answer right here.

He says, install a podcasting app on your phone or or wherever, any device. Then, on the podcasting app, it'll have a search function, right? A search line, a search area.

In the search area, just put Effortless English Podcast. Effortless English. Even just Effortless English is probably enough, but Effortless English Podcast.

And it will come up. You'll see my podcast with my face. and just subscribe then. Then you subscribe, and after that, it's automatic. After that, every new Effortless English show will come into your device, will go to your phone automatically.

You'll get every one, including and especially the audio-only shows. So don't miss the audio-only shows. Now, I already know the next question, because people ask it all the time, which app, which app, which app should I use, AJ?

It doesn't really matter, honestly. Any podcasting app is fine. Okay, so you can decide, but I'll give you a couple choices here. Okay, one is called TuneIn.

I'm going to put it on the screen if you're watching. TuneIn. TuneIn app. It's right there. over on the right side, TuneIn. They have apps for all different devices, Apple, Android, Blackberry, Windows, doesn't matter, TuneIn has an app.

So go to your app store for your device, Google Play, whatever, and TuneIn, it's all together one word, T-U-N-E-I-N, TuneIn. Search the apps, you'll find it, boom, install it, it's free.

After it's installed, what do you do? You search for Effortless English Podcast with A.J. Hogue. You'll find it. Subscribe. Done. Now you'll get every single audio.

Some people say, oh, I can't find the TuneIn app. Well, there are many other apps you can use. If you have an Apple device, just use iTunes. It's the easiest one.

Okay, mine is one of the top education podcasts on iTunes, so it's easy to find. So iTunes for Apple users, easy. Android users, there's so many different podcasting apps. One that a lot of people use is Podcast Addict, A-D-D-I-C-T, Addict, like addiction.

Podcast Addict is very popular. And you can find The Effortless English Show. The Effortless English Podcast is on that app also. All of these apps are free.

They're easy to install. So just get a podcasting app. Whichever you choose. Get your favorite one. I think Spotify. That's another popular one. It doesn't matter.

Podcasting app. Search for Effortless English Podcast. Subscribe. Three Steps. And then, automatically, you get every single audio, every single show.

And my audio shows are, they're quite different, actually. Some of my audio-only shows are, I talk about culture, I talk about my travels. They're more casual. They're less focused on just English learning, just education and business.

Much more range, right? Meaning... Many more different kinds of topics on the audio podcast. I'll talk about food. I'll talk about American culture. I'll talk about my life, my travels, anything.

People suggest lots of different things. I have a big long list of topics to talk about. Yesterday I talked about bugs and my nephew. So if you want to get a lot of different topics and therefore a lot of different vocabulary in English, audio podcast, guys.

You got to subscribe to that. You must. All right, let's go to Facebook now. Okay. My answer to this one already is, I feel your pain. I feel your pain.

Shabby Duncan says, I live in Scotland. I have lived in Scotland for almost six years. I arrived here... When I arrived here, my English was basic. I thought I could improve it, but I can't speak fluently.

I need to learn more vocabulary. It's so difficult to understand the natives. Mmm, yeah. So, number one, you're dealing with Scottish English, which means you're dealing with the Scottish accent, which is famous for being difficult, okay?

I mean, Americans... I don't know where in Scotland. There are probably different kinds of Scottish accents, I'm guessing. But in general, let's say for Americans, that a strong Scottish accent can be very difficult even for us to understand.

I've seen some movies with actors using a strong Scottish accent. And I have to focus a lot to understand what they're saying. Because if I don't focus, I'll miss some of it.

Okay, that's, I'm a native speaker. Okay? So, the other problem is they have their own slang and their own idioms. Right? So, this is these, a lot of idioms and slang.

People say, I want to learn, you know, English idioms, English slang. But the truth is, it's not just for the whole English language. A lot of slang, a lot of idioms are, depends on the culture. So, British slang is different than American slang.

And even inside of a culture, there's slang that's used only by certain groups. So some slang might be used mostly by teenagers. Other slang might be used more by certain races.

Some slang is used more in one part of the country and not the other. This all makes it more difficult. So you're in Scotland, so you've got that strong Scottish accent possibly you're dealing with.

You're probably dealing with Scottish idioms and slang, also challenging. And then, of course, there's the normal problem of speed and all those things. So what you're going to have to do, what I recommend to you, is to get some Scottish movies or TV. TV's okay, too.

But specifically to use my movie technique, check out my YouTube channel. AJ Hoag is my YouTube channel. It's also my name. Okay, I'm going to... AJ Hoag.

I'm going to stick it up there on the screen again. That's also my YouTube. So go there. I've got a video called Movie Technique. Movie Technique. Watch all of that video.

Okay? And then use that technique. But using the technique, use it on Scottish television shows or Scottish movies or both. Only Scottish, right? So Pick ones that have strong Scottish accents.

And then you're going to go through a movie or a whole TV series. It's going to take you a long time. It's a slow method, but it's powerful and it works and it will help you a lot. So use that movie technique with Scottish material, Scottish audios and videos.

This is the way you're going. You'll certainly improve your vocabulary. You're going to start to learn some of those Scottish idioms and slang. If you have Scottish friends, you can ask them the meaning, you know, in the movies or the TV shows you're using.

You might have some idioms. You have no idea what they mean. You can't find them online. Ask a Scottish person, what does this mean? So in this way, you're going to start learning that Scottish English much better.

Good luck to you. All right, back to questions here. Okay, so this is ever the battle here now. So, Alaba is saying that I was listening to your podcast.

You mentioned some people said that my podcast was too long, too much, especially the audio podcast. I add a lot of stuff there. But I want you to make as much as possible.

So, see, like, you can't please everybody is the point. So... Now I've made it a little shorter and other people say, ah, I want more, give us longer. And then I made longer and some other people complain, oh, give us shorter.

So there's, you can't make everyone happy. I'll probably do about, like I said, I've decided I'm going to, for now I'm going to do about somewhere between 40 minutes to one hour total per day.

In general, that's my goal. Now that's audio plus video. So if I do a 30-minute video, then that means I'll also do about a 30-minute audio or 20-minute audio.

Today I'm only doing the show live on video, but the cool thing is audio listeners, they get everything. Audio listeners get everything because I'm recording this live, of course,

on Facebook, but I also record it, so the audio from every show is added to the podcast, so you can always listen. Listeners get 100% every single show.

Video watchers only get about half. Aha! Here we go! Someone already took action! There's fast action! Podcast subscribe! Thanks a lot, AJ, from Kioswar.

Sorry if I mispronounced your name. It looks Burmese is my guess. Myanmar. Make long and short everybody happy. How do I do that? Make it longer. Now I'm getting comments lots of people wanting longer.

Uh-huh. And then some people like watching live video and some people watching audio. Now, I do do that. I'll be mixing video, especially now. Now, here's the issue.

I talked about this yesterday in my audio podcast, kind of talking about the advantages of audio. And I mentioned yesterday on my audio podcast, only audio.

I mentioned that I'll be traveling soon, probably, well, soon, sometime like into this year or something. but possibly traveling for a while, for several months.

And that when I travel, it's much more difficult for me to do video. And when I travel, it's almost impossible for me to do live video. Live video like this requires a fast internet connection.

If the internet connection's slow, you already saw this happen probably, The video breaks, it breaks, it breaks. The sound is terrible. Too many problems.

I just can't do live video with a bad connection. And when I'm traveling, I usually have bad connections. I'm using Wi-Fi in hotel rooms, sometimes in coffee shops. Usually it's just not very fast.

And so when I start traveling, unfortunately, I can't do the live videos like this. When I travel, I'll do some... recorded video. But even that is hard sometimes because video has big files, big, big files.

So even sometimes if just recording the video, if I try to upload it and add it to YouTube, for example, if my connection is slow, it takes forever and then it just stops and it fails. So even recorded video sometimes does not work well when I'm traveling. But the magic of audio is that

The files are small. Small files. So it's easy for me to do audio anywhere. I don't need a camera. I don't need good lighting. It doesn't matter. I have a little audio recorder I can just carry.

It's about the size of a cell phone. And I can do it when I'm walking around. I can do it anywhere, and then I can just upload it to the podcast very easily. And the files are fairly small, so usually it's no problem, even with a bad connection.

So that's why when I travel, the show will probably become much more audio and much less video. When I'm at home, I'll do a mix of both. Oh, this is interesting. Antonio says...

Why is it easier for me to understand my Brazilian teachers speaking English, but difficult to understand the natives? A couple possibilities. One guess is you're just used to their accent, right? Because if you have probably, I'm guessing, you have been listening to Brazilian teachers mostly, right?

Like in school. So most of your English teachers were Brazilian. So you're used to their accent. You're used to their pronunciation, right? So when you listen to a native speaker, the pronunciation is actually different, and you're not used to it, so it's a little more difficult to understand.

That's possibility number one. Another possibility might be speaking speed. It's possible that your Brazilian teachers are speaking more slowly, and that the native speakers you listen to might be speaking more quickly.

So... I would recommend, however, that you need to fix this, because I'm guessing you want to use English with non-Brazilians. Because as a Brazilian, you can just speak Portuguese to other Brazilians, so you don't need English. So if you're going to use English, you're going to be talking to people who are not Brazilian, probably.

So that means you definitely need to understand those native speakers. So you probably just need a lot more practice. You know, my podcast is a good one to use because I don't speak too fast, too quickly.

And I don't use a lot of slang. I don't use a lot of idioms. So you can use my podcast. You can use my courses if you want to. Find other podcasts. You can use my movie technique that I mentioned before.

And, you know, with time, you'll get used to these native... speakers, their pronunciation, their accents, and it'll seem easier to you. So it just takes a little time.

Okay, here's a really long one from Emmanuel. I need a second to read this one. Okay, so long one from Emmanuel today. Hey, Emmanuel, again, this one's going to cover my face on the video.

All right, my question. I've been told by my cousin to ask you this question. Aha. He's been listening to your podcast. He reads a lot of philosophy books.

For remembering the definitions of new words, he uses an app called Quizlet, which is similar to Anki, space repetition. Right. Yes, indeed. Now, what do you recommend?

Is there another way to remember definitions, such as with physical movement? using your body to remember. Yes, my Power English course uses, it's called TPR, Total Physical Response. There is a whole system of teaching and learning languages that uses physical actions.

It's especially good for vocabulary. You can actually teach or learn a little bit of grammar with it, in fact. But it's especially good for vocabulary

However, it's best with vocabulary that is what we say concrete, real, right? So this is a cap. This is a lens cap. Concrete means I can touch it, right?

It's physical. It's real. So that kind of vocabulary, physical things, real things, are really easy to learn with physical actions. Also, actions, of course, verbs are very easy to learn and remember using physical actions to remember them.

However, a possible challenge or weak point of actions are things that are not concrete. So, for example, philosophy, vocabulary might be hard to learn with physical actions.

You could possibly do it if you became creative to connect some action to the philosophical idea. But a lot of philosophical ideas could be very, very, very...

Challenging. But I don't know. Like I'll give you a Buddhist one. Equanimity. Equanimity. Equanimity. What does equanimity mean? It comes from the word equal.

So equanimity means that you react equally to all things. So it's the idea of being calm, right? That you don't get upset by anything. Something bad happens, you remain calm and peaceful.

Something good happens, you remain calm and peaceful. You have equanimity. So how could you remember the meaning of this word? Maybe you could connect it with an action, like you could do this with your hands, which is like a hand symbol of meditation.

So you could kind of put yourself in that position of meditation and say equanimity, equanimity, equanimity, reminding yourself of the meaning. So you could try to do something like that, and that physical action, that physical gesture might help with remembering.

On the other hand... you could just not worry about it at all just keep reading lots of books so instead of spending lots and lots and lots of time with some space repetition thing or even lots of time with physical actions just read more books and when the words come highlight them maybe in an e-reader tap them maybe to see the definition on the e-dictionary kind of maybe take one second kind of uh you know okay yeah I mean equanimity means equal calm right got it and then just keep reading

Just keep reading. And then a few pages later, you see the word equanimity again. And you, ah, I can't remember. What is that again? And you tap it again, highlight it again.

Ah, equanimity. All right. And then you keep going. And third time, fourth time, fifth time, maybe by the tenth time, you'll start to remember it without any space repetition.

Because the space repetition is happening, actually. It's happening from the book. The book is naturally giving you the space repetition automatically.

according to the importance of the word in the book. If the word is very important to the book, to the ideas of the book, then it's going to be used a lot more in the book, usually, naturally. Therefore, you get a lot more repetition. Therefore, you learn it faster.

So, and this is, again, this is what Dr. Krashen talks about a lot, is that the power of reading. You can get his book, The Power of Reading, and Dr. Krashen recommends basically what I'm recommending here, which is don't even waste your time trying to review too much.

Just quickly look at the word. You can even just guess. Sometimes you just guess. Like as a native speaker in English, I just guess the meanings most of the time.

Occasionally, I will highlight that word or click on that word, see the meaning, and then keep going. And of course, I forget it usually. But then after I do this several times, reading through a book,

I'll see those same words again and again and again. And by the end of the book, I've learned most of them without any need for this kind of, you know, apps or anything like that. Okay.

Well, Dalal is basically... asking about homeschooling here. Why don't they close schooling and let us learn at home, like they do in Japan, learning online?

Hmm. There are people who do that in Japan. I'd say America, I think, is number one in homeschooling, which is better for everybody. Yeah, I agree. 100% I agree.

Now, he's talking about, I think, learning online with the actual teachers teaching through the Internet, like basically what I do. That's one kind of homeschooling. We call it homeschooling in America, homeschooling or home learning. It's really home learning because it's not school at all.

It's actually non-school. It's anti-school. It's really home learning or home education is a better word, but people call it homeschooling is the phrase that became popular.

I think a Home education is a much better word. But anyway, I 100% support the idea of home education. I will be doing more shows in the future about home education, homeschooling, home learning, because I believe it is the best, absolute, 100% best way for anyone to learn, child or adult.

I 100% agree with you. Now, there are so many ways to do homeschooling. This is probably the most traditional way because this really is homeschooling, what you're talking about, which is you still have a teacher, you still have the normal classroom.

Everything's the same, but basically the teacher teaches to a camera, like I'm talking to you now, and the students are at home watching or listening on their computers or phones.

That's called distance learning. A lot of universities, a lot of colleges do this in America. In fact, there are schools, University of Phoenix, I think is the biggest one, that are almost 100% online distance learning schools, universities or colleges. So it's become very popular with universities and colleges in America, this distance learning.

Now, this is still very traditional. You're still paying your money to the school or the university, right? Large amounts of money, usually. And you're still getting grades, and there's still tests, and it's all kind of structured pretty similar to normal schooling.

But the good part is you can do it from home and relax more. So that's nice. Now, there are, I think, even better ways where you are much more independent. So instead of joining a college or a university, you...

pick and choose. You decide. You find the teachers you want. You don't have this. The school doesn't tell you, oh, you have to register for the class.

You have to take this class. You don't do that. You just say, oh, I want to find somebody I like. I mean, you're doing that with me right now, right? Nobody forced you to listen to me.

No one forced you to get my courses. No one forced you to subscribe to my podcast. You found me and you tried and then you like it and you like my way of teaching. You like

So you subscribe. You're the boss. You are the boss. It's independent learning happening online. That, I think, is much better because you are the boss.

And you learn better when you are the boss. And children also learn better. Now, as they need their parents to guide them and coach them, especially at young ages, of course, obviously.

But as they get older, with homeschooling and independent learning, they will become more and more and more independent. and active and they will become the boss of their own learning too it's very impressive, very powerful great stuff, man, I love it so excellent comment I'll take one more and then time to go alright, just looking through the questions it takes me a second to read them

Ah, this is a good comment. I like this comment. So Bari says, Hi, Jay. Just wanted to say hello from Hungary. I always listen to your podcasts and chats when I ride my bike in the forest.

And this is the most perfect way of spending time for soul and for the body. Thanks and regards. Thank you. And I 100% agree. I highly, highly, highly.

This is such a great thing. I highly recommend doing this. It's so simple. It's such a simple way to energize yourself while you're learning. In my Power English course, the whole beginning of that course is really, I'm teaching you how to get that emotional power, get that energy, so you're not just sitting and listening to the course, getting sleepy and tired.

No. People ask me, how do I do this? I teach you some specific ways, some very powerful ways in the Power English course, but one of the easiest ways to do this is to keep your brain awake, and therefore learn better, better concentration, better energy, everything better, is just to move your body while you're listening to English.

I mean, this is the opposite of school, right? In school, you sit in your chair at school, and then after a few minutes, you start leaning back and, right? Or leaning forward, putting your head on the desk. Or you're leaning back, you're sinking lower and lower, your energy drops.

Or if you're sitting at home, if you just sit in a room alone at home listening to English, same thing's going to happen. I guarantee it, right? And as your body gets lower, as your body stops moving, the energy in your body will naturally drop. It just happens.

It's natural. This is just a physical, mental reaction. Okay? The less you move your body, typically, the less... energy it has, especially when you use these postures as body language where you're kind of sitting back or your shoulders are down, your head starts getting down, you're listening.

But then guess what happens? As the physical energy drops, then the mental energy drops. You start losing your concentration. Your mind gets a little sleepy, a little cloudy.

Your mind gets a little tired. And then your listening is not so sharp. You're not focused so well. And therefore, you learn less. You learn more slowly.

It starts to feel boring. Okay, so people ask me all the time, how do I increase my energy? How do I improve my motivation while I'm listening to English? And the number one thing you can do is just get up and move your body while you listen.

I mean, this is the great thing about efforts in English. It's the great thing about online learning, independent learning. You can do it with your phone and some headphones. So you put your headphones on, maybe smaller than these, but get some headphones.

Get your phone, put it in your pocket, and jump on your bike and go ride in the forest. Go ride under the trees. You're listening to English. You're riding your bike.

You're in a great, beautiful, natural area. That's fantastic. You're feeding your brain with English. You're feeding your eyes with this natural environment.

You're feeding your whole body and soul with this natural environment. And you're moving your body. So your blood's moving. Your heart's pumping. That keeps you awake.

Your body has energy. When your body has energy, your mind has energy. I guarantee you while you're riding your bike through the woods, your mind's not going to get sleepy. Your mind's going to be awake.

People do this while biking, bicycling. You can just go for a walk if you want to. That's an easy one. Just go for a walk. Same idea. Put on your headphones.

You got your phone. Go outdoors and go for a walk. Go to the park. Walk through the city. It doesn't matter. Wherever you live, just go get out there and walk.

Even the act of walking keeps you physically and mentally awake and alive, which is great for learning. And then you're combining two things. It's a little bit of a fitness benefit, health benefit, and you're learning English at the same time.

If you're into running, you can do it while you're running. these kind of aerobic exercises are usually the best. So fantastic. Bari, thank you for sharing that.

And I think it's just, it's fantastic. I really, really, really encourage you to do that. If you listen to my podcast, do it while you're moving your body, you know, get outdoors, you know, today or tomorrow, whenever the next day is for you.

Try it. The next time you listen to the Effortless English podcast, try it. outdoors moving your body so go for a bike ride or go for a jog or go for a walk i guess i guess they have what to make waterproof headphones can you do it while swimming maybe i think they do i think i've seen that before i think you can get like waterproof cases and you actually listen to audios while you swim so even if you're a swimmer there's no excuse okay

All right. Well, thank you very much. Hope you had a great day today. It's been great talking to you. So remember, back to our main topic, which was Dr. Krashen, storytelling.

Stories, stories, stories. Storytelling methods are the best. Storytelling methods are the best way to learn English. The most powerful. According to Dr. Stephen Krashen, and according to me, too.

Lots of love to you. As always, go to... Effortless English Club. EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Join my VIP program. Get my pronunciation course. Speak English powerfully at EffortlessEnglishClub.com.