YouTube Transcript:
Effortless English Rule 3 Listen Listen Listen

hi this is aj and welcome back for
secret number three
now the last secret the last rule
was maybe your favorite right no more
grammar rules
good news for you but this one
is probably the most important rule
this is really
the central key it's the main one
and this rule or this secret is this
learn with your ears
not with your eyes
again learn with your ears
not with your eyes
of course we're teaching you how to
speak excellent english speak
and to speak well you have to have
excellent listening see speech comes
from listening
here's the problem
in school you mostly learned with your
eyes
what did you do you read a lot of
textbooks
you watched the teacher write a lot of
stuff
on the board
maybe you listen to the teacher explain
english in your language
so you're less you're hearing your
language not english in your classroom
but in general what's happening is you
learning learning learning with your
eyes that's what happened
and maybe still happening now i don't
know hopefully not not after today
so there's a big problem with this see
when you're when you're just reading
and trying to learn grammar rules for
example by reading grammar books and
you're trying to learn vocabulary by
reading vocabulary lists
and you're trying to read english
dialogues and then you're doing written
tests and then you're doing all these
written activities and written drills
none of that is helping you with your
speaking
and that's why you probably read english
much better than you speak it
or understand it
it's a common problem it's because in
school you learned with your eyes all
the time or most of the time
and you did very little learning with
your ears listening listening listening
is
secret number three and it's probably
the most important one you gotta listen
a lot you've gotta listen to a lot a lot
a lot of english
that's the key to great speaking there's
a lot of research about this a lot of
academic research excellent research
that shows that listening is the way you
improve your speaking
not reading
not practicing speaking in a mirror or
something no it's lots and lots and lots
of listening
lots of it
now
this is so obvious but let's think
imagine a baby a little baby
little american baby will say
this little american baby
of course needs to learn english
so how will we teach this american baby
to learn english
will we buy grammar books and try to
make the baby study grammar
no we won't
we could try but it won't work would we
try to force the baby to read
immediately
of course not
so how does this little baby
learn english
one way and one way only listening
for six to 12 months that baby just sits
there and listens
listens listens listens listens listens
to
the parents mostly and maybe brothers
and sisters and maybe other people in
the family
speaking english constantly
and of course when parents speak to a
baby they don't speak difficult english
they speak very simple easy english
and eventually the baby starts to learn
a few words like mommy daddy
maybe food really simple stuff but they
start to learn a little bit
and that's the beginning and then they
start learning you know groups of words
two words three words together
all of this is happening through
listening
and for a while the baby can understand
a lot the small child can actually
understand a lot of english but cannot
speak very much this is natural and
normal
that the listening level is higher than
the speaking level
and then eventually of course the baby
will start to speak one word and two
words in the beginning and then phrase
bigger set phrases and then sentences
and it just keeps going
and that baby learns to speak excellent
english
through listening by learning with the
baby's ears
and that's what you have to do you have
to go back and start learning english
now change the way
you're learning it instead learn it like
a baby learn with your ears lots and
lots of listening
now like a baby
you should not focus on difficult
listening this is another problem that
schools have and a lot of students have
maybe they do practice some listening
but when they do it's so difficult
like they're listening to sample toefl
tests and things like that extremely
difficult vocabulary very academic and
formal not really
natural normal english for normal
situations
and it's so difficult that you cannot
really understand it easily and
automatically
if you do that if you listen to english
that's too difficult
your learning will be very very very
slow
you want the opposite like a baby you
want to listen to lots of easy english
easy listening is the key
easy listening will give you great
speaking
that's what all the research shows is
very powerful
so you probably need to be listening to
things that are much easier than you
think here's my basic rule for listening
you should listen to something
that you can understand 95 of it
without a dictionary
95 percent
that means you don't need a dictionary
at all because the other five percent
you can easily guess
right if there is a new word or a new
phrase that comes
you can guess the meaning because you
understand everything else you
understand the situation you understand
most of it so you can kind of guess the
meaning of that new word and that's how
you learn
naturally new vocabulary that's how i
learned it all as a child growing up
and it's how you should be learning it
too with your ears listening to very
easy english
now eventually
you listen and listen and listen and you
understand 100 percent well then it's
time for something a little more
difficult not a lot more difficult a
little more difficult
and then you listen to that again and
again and again when it becomes a
hundred percent then you find something
a little more difficult in this way you
will rapidly
increase your
ability here's what else happens
after six to 12 months it depends on the
person
you will find yourself starting to speak
english automatically
correct phrases and words will pop out
of your mouth boom they'll come out
without you thinking at all
just like your language when you speak
your language you're not always thinking
about vocabulary and translations and
all this stuff no it just comes out boom
you want to say something and it comes
out
that's what will happen with english but
first you need to focus on listening and
just listening for six to twelve months
it's okay if you speak a little bit but
mostly you should be doing lots and lots
and lots of easy listening every day
how can you do this go get some easy
audio books easy audio articles you can
get my lessons
you can get our lessons
and put them on an ipod and every moment
you have listen
be listening listening listening to this
english all the time when you wake up in
the morning listen to english you know
just 10 or 15 minutes when you're going
to work or to school
or you're at home you know cleaning the
house whatever
listen to english some more 20 minutes
30 minutes
when you have a break during the day at
lunch listen to english 10 15 minutes
when you're going home at night or
making dinner listen to english 10 15 20
30 minutes before you go to bed listen
to english again 10 15 20 30 minutes
by doing little pieces of listening all
through the day you can easily listen
for a total
of one to two hours every single day
and when you do that you will find you
will make big improvements
or it takes usually about six months
maybe less for you maybe more depends on
how much you listen depends on how easy
it is easier is better
so that's it
that it's simple this is such a simple
rule
learn with your ears
not with your eyes
and one last note
your listening ability should naturally
and always be higher than your speaking
ability
see what happens is your listening
ability pulls up your speaking ability
it happens automatically you don't need
to think about it it's easy
all you have to focus on is listening
and as you get better and better
listening your speaking will naturally
improve it's like it pulls it up pulls
it up pulls it up pulls it up
now the only problem some people have is
psychological you might have stress and
nervousness and things like that
that cause you to have problems
when it's time to speak we'll talk about
that
later in our courses we we help you get
rid of nervousness so that's not a
problem anymore
but for this secret this rule all i want
you to do is focus on listening learn
with your ears not with your eyes
simple and easy very very powerful
alright i will see you tomorrow for our
next secret it's also a very good one
and very very powerful one
remember this is a whole system so you
need to use all of these all seven of
these secrets
i mean each one of them is powerful but
when you put them all together
it's a super powerful system that will
give you
excellent english speaking
all right i'll see you tomorrow have a
great day bye