CHAPTER 14 - The Sixth Rule: Learn Real English And Trash Your Textbooks You’ve been studying
English for years. But when you hear someone speak it doesn’t sound like the English
you learned. You find it hard to understand, and when you speak, people look confused.
Sadly, this experience is fairly common. It’s what happens when you’ve been taught English
the traditional way where your teacher relies heavily on textbooks and classroom drills.
That’s why we don’t use textbooks in Effortless English™. In fact, you have my permission
to throw your textbooks away. Go ahead. Pitch them in the trash. As I’ve said before,
textbooks aren’t the way to learn a language. With Effortless English™, you learn real
English, and that is Rule Six. Textbooks have a number of problems. First, they are grammar-focused.
We have already discussed the reasons you should avoid grammar study. Another huge problem
is that textbooks mostly teach the formal form of English. This is the form of English
you commonly find in writing. Textbooks rely heavily on written dialogues that are completely
unnatural. Perhaps you recognize this one: “Hello” “Hello. How are you?” “I’m
fine, and you?” The textbook may be accompanied by an audio, in which actors read this dialogue
using strange rhythm and completely unnatural pronunciation. So what happens in real life?
You study this textbook dialogue, and you think you know English. Then you travel to
an English speaking country such as the United States. You meet a person at the bus stop
and they say, “Hey, what’s up?” Of course, they are just greeting you and asking, “How
are you?” but they are using the real casual English that is much more common among native
speakers. In fact, as a teacher in San Francisco, I heard this common complaint most often from
students. They traveled from many countries to study in America. Many new students thought
of themselves as advanced English learners. Many had great test scores. However, when
they tried to communicate with real people, they had tremendous problems. I remember one
student named Humberto saying to me, “I can’t understand what anyone is saying.
I don’t understand people at the bus stop. I don’t understand the waitresses in restaurants.
I thought I was advanced, but I can’t understand anyone.” Like most students, Humberto had
studied formal textbook English but had never learned real conversational English. He did
well on tests but could not function in the real world. Real pronunciation is also much
different than what you’ll find in textbooks and their audios. This is another source of
difficulty for those who learn using traditional methods. Schools typically teach the formal
dictionary pronunciation of English words. While the textbook will teach you “How are
you?” a real American speaker is likely to say something like, “Howya doin’?”
“Howzit goin’?” “Hey, whassup?” or “Nice-ta meetcha.” To really communicate
in English, you absolutely must understand this real English. And these are only the
simplest examples of greetings. The entire language is full of such examples. No wonder
even “advanced” textbook English learners struggle to communicate with real people.
Idioms are another common problem for textbook learners. Spoken American English is full
of idioms, yet you’ll learn few of them from textbooks. Recently, I recorded a conversation
with my Dad on the topic of business. Later, as I reviewed the recording, I was shocked
by just how many idioms we used in that short conversation. Idioms are phrases that have
a meaning different from the individual words in it. They are often based on metaphors or
cultural topics and can be quite hard to understand logically. For example, in a business meeting,
a colleague might say, “We scored a touchdown on that project.” This idiom comes from
the sport of American football, and it means to have a big success or victory. You’re
unlikely to learn this phrase in a textbook, yet it is very commonly used by Americans.
Clearly, textbooks are ineffective learning tools. What tools will you use then? You’ll
learn the same way native speakers do: by using real authentic materials. Use only real
English materials: the sixth rule. What do I mean by real? Well, I’m talking about
English materials that are for native speakers or that are very similar to those used by
native speakers. They can be books, articles, audio books, podcasts, videos, etc. You can
find plenty of real English listening material on the Internet. Podcasts are perfect. I have
a Podcast. You can go to https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/effortless-english-podcast/id188333691 and listen to me talking about English, talking
about learning, talking about my ideas. It’s free. It’s easy. You can just listen, listen,
and listen – there are a lot of real materials. I’m just talking normally and I’m a real
native speaker. I’m not acting and I’m not reading. And there are a lot of other
podcasts out there. You can pick English learning podcasts, or better yet, a podcast on any
topic you like. If you like sports, find English podcasts that talk about sports. If you like
cars, find ones that talk about cars. If you like exercise or health, find podcasts about
that. Audio books are another great way to practice your listening. An audio book is
just a book that someone’s reading and they record it. So instead of reading the book,
you listen to the book. The key is to choose audiobooks that were created for native speakers.
Also, choose audio books that are easy for you. You may need to start with children’s
storybooks. That’s okay. I can guarantee that listening to a children’s storybook
is more interesting and more useful than some boring textbook. One of my favorite examples
of good authentic materials is a children’s book with an audio version. These are useful
because you can listen and read along at the same time. You can also easily look up unknown
vocabulary in a dictionary. I often have to tell my adult students not to be too proud
to get a book for kids. You’ll probably find a book by Dr. Seuss is more interesting
than a textbook, because it is a real story written for native English speakers. As you
get better, when your English level is higher, you can listen to audio books for young adults
or for older children. Just keep listening to real English. When something gets too easy,
choose something a little more difficult until that gets easy. Eventually, when you are advanced,
you can listen to CNN or the BBC, or American movies, British movies, Australian movies,
etc. But again, that’s at an advanced level. Start with easy stuff. By focusing on real
English materials, you are immersing yourself in the language used by native speakers. You
are not learning a strange special language taught only to students. By listening to real
English, you guarantee that you are learning useful language that is used in the real world.
At the same time, because the material you use is authentic, you also learn idioms and
culture – which are vital to understanding spoken English. I have created an audiobook
version of this book so you can use this book for English practice. See the back of the
book for more details. Real English materials will even help you improve faster on exams
such as the TOEFL. Research by Dr. Ashley Hastings found that students who learned with
authentic materials (books, movies, TV shows) improved 35% more than students who studied
in a TOEFL preparation course using sample tests. What about reading? While listening
will be your main focus, reading authentic materials is also powerful. With reading,
you follow the same principles as you did with authentic listening materials. You read
easy English story books or easy English novels. You choose books that are pleasurable. Pick
something you enjoy, something that’s interesting – maybe a romance or maybe an adventure
story or any topic or category that fascinates you. Dr. Krashen calls this “free voluntary
reading” and it is the most powerful way to increase your English vocabulary. Reading
authentic materials has been shown to increase vocabulary much faster than studying lists
of words. As you’ll see in a future chapter, this kind of reading is also the best possible
activity you can do in order to improve your English writing ability. Research finds that
reading and listening for pleasure leads to superior TOEFL performance. I always recommend
my students start with children’s novels, usually something for elementary or middle
school age. For beginners, graded readers can be useful. I also like series of books
such as Goosebumps, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. These include a lot of books, more than
30 in some cases. They are easy reading and they will help your writing ability, reading
speed, and vocabulary. As you improve, you’ll naturally seek out more difficult books and
audios. One strategy is to find an author you like and read every one of his or her
books. For example, if you enjoy scary stories you could read every book written by Stephen
King. If you enjoy romance, why not read all of Danielle Steele’s books? If you can find
audiobook versions for these, even better. By the time you finish an entire series of
books, you will have improved your real English skills dramatically. In my Effortless English™
courses, I often focus on topics such as selfimprovement and success. I want members to focus on the
topics and real English in my lessons, not on the parts of the language. The more you
connect emotionally to a topic in the real world, the easier you will learn the English.
In fact, the perfect situation is when you are so interested in the topic that you completely
forget you are listening to or reading English. When this happens, language learning happens
without any effort at all. TOO EASY? TOO DIFFICULT? OR JUST RIGHT? How should you decide what
to listen to or read? Often, my students worry that they’ll pick something too easy. My
recommendation: it’s best to pick something you can understand without too much difficulty,
but that stretches you a little. Linguists call this “comprehensible input plus one”
which they describe as material that is just one level above where you are currently. They
believe students learn a second language best when they are in a low stress situation and
are interested in the topic being discussed. An easy test of difficulty is whether or not
you need a dictionary. You should be able to read and listen quickly, with only a few
unknown words per page. Because you understand most of the material, you can guess the meaning
of those unknown words without interrupting yourself. Just keep going, because you will
eventually encounter those same new words again. When you do, you’ll make another,
even better guess about the meaning. Eventually, you’ll learn this new vocabulary simply
by enjoying real English without using a dictionary. When you listen to real English materials,
you get the real English that is actually used by Americans, Canadians, Australians,
the British, etc. That’s how we really speak. By replacing textbooks with these materials,
you will be prepared for real world communication. When someone greets you on the street, you’ll
understand them. When someone uses a common idiom, you’ll understand them. Eventually,
you’ll completely understand TV shows and movies too. Rule Six is the key: learn real
English. LEARNING CASUAL CONVERSATION In San Francisco where I used to live, I met many
students with high English test scores, and great grades in their English classes. Yet,
when they sat in a café, they couldn’t understand what people were saying around
them. They had absolutely no idea what normal Americans were saying. They had been trained
in formal, academic English – with a focus on grammar rules. I think this is totally
backwards. Common, casual conversation should be the first thing you learn. The first need,
after all, is to communicate with other people. You want to chat with people in a café. You
want to make friends and understand what they are saying. You want to talk to your co-workers.
You want to understand TV shows and movies. Common English should be what you learn first…
then, and only if you need it, focus on academic English. To help you, we have a new collection
of recorded, real, spontaneous conversations. These are real conversations with friends,
family, and business partners. We aren’t reading scripts. We aren’t actors. You’ll
learn the real English that we use every day with each other – including slang, idioms,
swear words, jokes, cultural references, etc. You’ll hear filler words, too (such as “ah,”
“um,” “you know,” “like”), which are a common element of English that is missing
from textbooks. You’ll hear the natural rhythm of English – the way we go back and
forth, the way we use phrases, the ways we interrupt each other. We have all the conversations
transcribed, and include short notes to explain the slang, idioms, etc. that you can’t find
in a dictionary. We did this because there’s a huge need. In fact, it’s probably the
biggest need our members have. My friends and I created a course from these conversations,
with text and explanations. You can find them at www.learnrealenglish.com