Practice Speaking English with Teacher AJ Hoge

Dear friends. Practice Speaking - a feature developed by the Effortless English System based on the teaching method and philosophy of teacher AJ Hoge, to help you improve your English speaking skills easily, quickly and more effectively.

To experience this new feature, please visit the website: https://www.effortlessenglishsystem.com/login and log in to your learning account. After that, on the main interface, click on Practice Speaking .

Here, you Choose the desired lesson and click on the Practice Now button to start.

Below are 3 steps to practice speaking and pronouncing English correctly using the Effortless English method from teacher AJ Hoge:

+ Step 1: Practice listening. This is the first and important step. In this step, teacher AJ Hoge tells a short story (called Mini Story in the lesson). Your task is to listen and observe how teacher AJ pronounces and his intonation. You can also press the PAUSE button while listening, and you can also listen and read the textbook (story content). You do not need to memorize or learn by heart. 

+ Step 2: Practice speaking. After getting used to the listening step, then next, you should start practicing pronunciation and retelling the story. There are 2 ways to do this step. First, you practice speaking each sentence by opening the original listening version, after Mr. AJ reads a sentence, you press the PAUSE button and practice saying that sentence again. You do this in turn until you complete the story; Next, after you have mastered the story, try a bigger challenge, which is you open the original listening version and speak after Mr. AJ. Of course, you can completely use the story textbook right when speaking, note that you do not need to memorize this story, the key point is your intonation and pronunciation. 

+ Step 3: Record the story. In this step, you just need to press the record button, wait until the system is ready, then start telling the story. During the recording process, you can also open the story textbook, or you can tell the story in your own way. The important thing is how you speak and convey the idea, you do not have to tell it 100% correctly, or remember every single word. My advice is, before starting this step, try closing your eyes, think you are me (AJ) and start telling the story in your own way, coherently and confidently.
 

Finally, once you have finished recording, it is time to enjoy your work. It is normal to notice that your pronunciation is not good or you make many mistakes when speaking, accept them and start correcting them by remembering them in the next recording. 
 

Okay, if you are new, read on below to get a better understanding of the Effortless English method and approach.

"HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL?"

Hi! I'm AJ Hoge, author of Effortless English, Learn To Speak English Like A Native .

Many students texted me asking: "What should I do if I want to speak English well? I'm afraid of making mistakes, I feel embarrassed when I pronounce wrongly? Please help me..."

My advice has always been: "Listen During Most Of Your Speaking Time."

When thinking of conversations, most learners focus on speech. They worry about speaking correctly. They worry about remembering vocabulary words. They fear making mistakes. In my experience, most English learners focus 90% of their energy on speaking.

Yet, the true power of real life conversations comes from listening, not speaking. Think about it. When you talk to a native speaker you have a tremendous opportunity. Because they are a native speaker, they are automatically the best possible source for authentic spoken English. They will naturally use high- frequency phrases, idioms, slang and grammar. 

If, during a conversation with a native speaker, you spend most of the time speaking — you have missed a great opportunity. When you speak to a native speaker, how exactly are you learning? You might get a little practice, but you will not learn anything new.

On the other hand, as you listen to a native speaker you get a wealth of learning. You’ll hear true native pronunciation. You’ll learn natural phrases. You’ll learn new words. You’ll learn idioms and slang. In fact, most of the benefit of having English conversations happens when you are listening.

This is good news, because most people love to talk. You don’t need to feel stressed about talking with a native speaker because it’s very easy. All you have to do is ask them a lot of questions. Ask them about their life. Ask about their job or school. Ask about their family. Ask about their hobbies and interests. Ask about their past experiences.

Then listen. Listen carefully. As they speak, look at their eyes and the rest of their face. Seek to understand as well as possible. If you don’t understand something, ask more questions for clarification.

When your goal is to listen rather than talk, you’ll learn more English and you will also be a better friend. Everybody loves a good listener! The added benefit to you is that you can relax. You don’t need to feel pressured to speak. With a few simple questions you will have all the conversations you want.

Mini Story Retells

We have discussed natural conversation situations and how to approach them. In this last section, I’ll teach you how to practice speaking and improve your pronunciation. Though you’ll always spend the vast majority of your time listening, advanced learners can also benefit from a little bit of speaking practice daily.

Speaking practice is only recommended for advanced learners who are already speaking effortlessly. At that point, you are ready to work on your pronunciation and speed.

One of the easiest ways to practice speaking is to do mini story retells. As the name suggests, you will use the same mini stories described in Rule Seven: listen and answer mini stories. You will continue listening to the stories daily. You’ll continue shouting your answers to the questions.

Then you will add this next step. After you finish listening to the story, turn off the audio. Stand in front of a mirror. Get yourself into a peak emotional state — jump, shout, smile. Get energized!

When feeling great, retell the mini story you just heard. Do not try to tell the story exactly, word for word. Do not try to memorize it word for word. Rather, as quickly as possible, retell the story using your own words. You can even change the story if you want.

The most important point is to do this quickly. Strive for speed! In a loud and energetic voice, tell the story to yourself in the mirror. This will only take you a few minutes. When you finish, take a short break and then repeat the process again. Try to retell the story even faster the next time.

The purpose of fast retells is to bypass your logical (and slow) left brain. By speaking quickly, you are forced to speak more naturally and more intuitively. As you do this daily, your fluency will increase. You’ll speak faster without effort. English will flow out of you more and more easily. At this point, you are ready for the final step: pronunciation.

Pronunciation Retells

Earlier in the book, I described the movie technique and taught you a method for using it to improve pronunciation. You can use a similar technique with mini story retells.

First, repeat the steps in the previous section. Do a few fast retells of the story. When you can do that easily, it’s time to work on pronunciation.

Play one sentence from the mini story and then pause the audio. As you play this sentence, listen very closely. Focus especially on the rhythm and intonation. Notice when the speaker pauses. Notice when the speaker’s voice goes up and when it goes down. Notice when it gets louder and when it gets softer.

Then say the same sentence and copy the speaker’s voice exactly. Again, imagine you are an actor trying to exactly imitate this speaker. Use their voice. Use their emotion. Even use your face and body as you imagine the speaker would. Try to become this person as you speak.

Then play the next sentence and pause, repeating the process. In this way, go through the entire mini story. Be sure to mimic both the questions and the answers.

Of course, it’s best to choose a speaker that you like!

Using the methods in this chapter, you will take your speaking to an advanced, near-native level.