This is an introduction to our lessons on ELSPod.com. If you understand how these lessons are put together-how we make them and why we make them- you'll be able to take full advantage of them ,or to get the most out of them.
The best way for me to help you improve your English faster is by explaining how and why you should use our Learning Guides.
I want to tell you first some, what I'm going to call "secrets" that may surprise you about learning languages , and then I'm going to explain how those secrets relate to using our guides.
To understand how to use ESLPod lessons the most effective way.
You have to understand at least one big thing about language learning ,and once you understand this big thing, you'll understand the rest what I'm going to tell you about our Learning Guides.
Okay,so here's the one big important idea .
To pick up - or to , what we would say "acquire" - a language, to really know a language, you have to understand the language.
To pick up a language,all you really need to do is understand the language you are listening to or reading.
If you can't understand it ,you can't learn it - or we would say,you can't "acquire" it.
Now ,You may be thinking to youself ,"well, that's obvious, Jeff.Of course, you can't acquire a language unless you understand it.
But it isn't really obvious at all.
In fact, I think that for many people, they spend their whole lives not understanding this basic idea.
Many people spend years trying to improve their English, and they do all sorts of things.
They study grammar ,they memorize vocabulary, they make lists,
They make flash cards - little pieces of paper to try to memorize a word - they try to repeat everything they hear or everything they read ,they take tests, they give themselves quizzes, they take examinations - they do all of these things thinking that these things will help them improve their English.
what I'm telling you today is that none of these things are necessary.
In fact, some of these things might actually make your English worse.
I know.It sounds crazy, but it's true.
The only thing you have to do to improve your English is find things you can mostly understand in English and then read or listen to them.
If you find things you can read and listen to, things you can mostly understand,
your brain will take care of all you need in terms of improving your English.
You don't have to do anything else other then put yourself in a situation where you're listening to or reading English you can mostly understand.
Now, there's another way of saying this,
which is if you spend your time listening to or reading things you can't understand, you cannot understand, then you won't improve your English.
And this, in fact, is what many people do all the time.
They try to read books that are too hard for them,
so they spend all their time looking up every word in the dictionary,
or they try to read things or listen to things that are too fast and they can't understand them.
That is a waste of time.
That is not going to help you improve your English very fast.
Studying grammer rules or studying the words is not going to improve your English very efficiently.
It's much faster to spend that time listening to easier English or reading easier English that you can mostly understand.
When you do that ,your brain will take care of everything else.
Your brain will acquire, or pick up, all of that English you don't know, automatically.
how much do you need to understand?
I would say, for most people, enough so that you feel comfortable listening to or reading it for a long time.
That might be 90 percent.
That might be 95 percent.
For some people ,when they read, it might be 98 percent.
That depends on you and how interested you are in what you're reading or listening to ,how much you know already about what you are reading or listening to.
Did you ever notice that when you read a newspaper in English about something in your country or about something you know a lot about, it's a lot easier?
That's because what you already know, what is already in your brain, helps you understand new information much more quickly.
Listening to or reading English you mostly can understand will help you pick up the English you don't understand much more efficiently, much more rapidly
You don't have to believe me.
Believe more than 40 years of scientific research that linguists such as I and Dr. lucy Tse have been doing that shows that this is true.
Now, how does this relate to ESLPod. com and our Learning Guides?
the purpose of our Learning Guides is very simple.
These is really only one purpose.
It's to help you understand the audio file you're listening to.
learning Guides are not for studying.
They're not for memorizing.
They're not for playing sudoku.
They're not for taking and making into little balls and throwing then at your neighbor's cat.
That's not the purpose of the Learning Guide, even if that might be fun.
The purpose of the learning guide is to help you, we would use the word "comprehend,"or understand English.
If you understand this point about improving your English,
you'll understand everything I'm going to tell you now about how to use the Learning Guides.
Now before I explain more about the Learning Guides,
let me talk about the two basic lessons we have - and if you're new to ESLPod. com this might be useful to you.
The first kind of lesson is what we are now calling our "Daily English" lessons.